Biography
By Jim Hague
Tim Coleman remembers vividly the day he was transformed into a basketball player as a senior in high school.
“I was walking into Hudson Catholic one day and Rocky Pope put his arm around me,” Coleman said.
Coleman was a senior at Hudson Catholic when Joe “Rocky” Pope, the legendary former basketball and baseball coach at the school, approached Coleman.
“He asked me if I was a new student,” Coleman said. “When I told him that I wasn’t, he said, `Well, son, you’re playing basketball now.”
The 6-foot-5 Coleman then quickly quit the Hudson Catholic swim team and became part of the basketball team.
“I didn’t see it as a choice,” Coleman said. “I made the transition to basketball from swimming pretty easily. I played basketball through grammar school and played on a team at the YMCA, but I didn’t know if I could play in high school. There were a lot of kids clamoring for that chance. I knew it was going to be very tough to play there.”
At that time, Hudson Catholic was one of the best basketball programs in New Jersey, the school that produced former collegiate All-Americans and NBA players Jim Spanarkel and Mike O’Koren.
O’Koren was a classmate of Coleman’s, so Coleman knew he was up against it a little.
“I went to the tryout and didn’t get cut,” Coleman recalled. “I made the team and it turned out to be a great experience.”
Coleman learned a lot from playing his one year of high school basketball.
“I had to guard O’Koren every day in practice,” Coleman said. “I learned more about basketball from having to guard him every day. It was incredible. One day, we had Digger Phelps (the former Notre Dame coach and current ESPN analyst) at practice. The next day, Dean Smith (the legendary North Carolina coach) was there. It was incredible.”
With O’Koren leading the way, Hudson Catholic went on to win the NJSIAA Parochial A state championship in 1976, the school’s lone state championship.
“That enabled me to go on to the next level,” Coleman said. “It was a great run.”
Coleman’s twin sister, Mary, was a basketball star in high school at the now-defunct St. Joseph of the Palisades in West New York. The Colemans had to deal with adversity at home, having lost their mother to cancer in 1978 and a father who was of ill health.
“We shared the responsibility of taking care of Dad,” Tim Coleman said. “We would do grocery shopping on Sunday, because that was our only day off.”
Because they had to take care of their father, the Colemans decided to stay close to home to go to college. They both chose Rutgers-Newark.
“After my senior year of high school, there were some schools that talked to me about playing basketball,” Coleman said. “But I had to stay close to home. I wasn’t even playing basketball at Rutgers-Newark my first year. I was just going to class and playing intramurals. I remember wearing my state championship jacket and a guy, Mario Fernandez, who played at Emerson in Union City, spotted me and told me that I should come watch them play at the brand new building called the Golden Dome. I thought it looked like it could be fun.”
Coleman joined the basketball program at Rutgers-Newark and quickly became a three-year starter for the Scarlet Raiders.
“I felt athletically I could keep up,” Coleman said. “I always loved to play basketball, so that made it easier.”
As it turned out, Mary Coleman was also a fine basketball player at R-N.
“Mary’s an outstanding athlete,” Tim Coleman said. “We played in all kind of sports together.”
Coleman said that he averaged around nine points and nine rebounds per game at R-N.
“I was a pretty good shot blocker and I did a little bit of everything,” Coleman said. “I was a center. I played small forward. I handled the ball to break the press.”
Coleman also became a member of the R-N volleyball squad, which had NCAA Division I status and was one of the premier volleyball programs in the country.
“I walked on to the volleyball team and earned a spot on the team with no real volleyball experience to speak of,” said Coleman, who became an outside hitter with the Scarlet Raiders. “It was great. We went to the Final Four with teams like USC, UCLA, Ohio State and us. I just had reasonable athletic experience, but that was it.”
Eventually, Coleman became proficient enough in volleyball to play some competitive beach volleyball.
“It was an incredible experience,” Coleman said. “I got to travel the country playing volleyball. It was the furthest thing from my mind.”
After his days at R-N were over, Coleman went to Columbia University to receive his masters and Ohio University to receive his doctorate in science.
“I was always interested in science for as far back as I can remember,” Coleman said. “I took every science class imaginable. I thought about going to medical school, but I had a job at Hoffman-LaRoche (the pharmaceutical firm in Clifton) and I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”
Coleman has remained in the pharmaceutical field since his early days at Hoffman-LaRoche. He moved to Maryland in 1993 and has remained there, recently taking on a position as the innovation director in charge of analytical technologies for Lonza-Walkersville, a Swiss-based firm.
“I run the innovation group,” Coleman said. “It’s hard to do the management stuff, but the science still interests me.”
Coleman married a Rutgers-Newark grad, the former Danielle Turri, a native of Kearny. The Colemans, who reside in Derwood, Maryland, have three children, Terrence (24), Alexandra (22) and Brian (18), who is an aspiring basketball player who is being recruited to play in college.
Coleman was inducted into the Rutgers-Newark Athletic Hall of Fame in 1998. His sister earned her spot in the R-N Hall of Fame two years later.
Mary Coleman now resides in Union, N.J. with her children. She remains active in marathons and triathlons.
Tim Coleman looks back at his time at R-N with nothing but admiration.
“When I got inducted into the Hall of Fame, I told my wife that I was going to do something crazy,” Coleman said. “So I started my speech by saying that I had a friend who was a big baseball player back in high school. Using the words of New Jersey’s famous bard, Bruce Springsteen. But those were my glory days. I enjoyed it. I was asked to play another year of volleyball at Rutgers-Newark, but I felt like I wanted to get my career in science going. I played sports and loved the competition. I loved the athletic part of it.”
But those were Coleman’s glory days.
“The last time I tried to dunk the basketball, I blew out my knee,” Coleman said. “That’s when I knew I was done.”
However, his athletic career and the remarkable road he took to get there will remain strong in everyone’s mind still today.
