Changing career paths brings Coleman full circle
CLEMSON
It took some convincing for Clemson's new basketball coach to decide to take up the profession.
No, not Brad Brownell, the "other" new basketball coach. We're talking about Itoro Coleman, the school's fifth women's basketball coach, hired two weeks prior to Brownell.
Coleman, or Umoh, as she was known when she played at Clemson, figured she was going to make a living talking about sports, or so she thought until a former assistant coach persuaded her otherwise.
"I majored in speech and communications," said Coleman, "and I was going to be the next Robin Roberts. I met her once and I always used to watch her on ESPN. I thought, 'I could do that,' because I love sports and I love to talk; I can talk all day."
But after her senior season, she got a call from former Clemson assistant Carey Green, who had accepted the head coaching position at Liberty.
"He was persuasive," Coleman said. "He told me I could do it, that I could be a basketball coach. And it's weird to think back on it, I had never really thought about it, but the more he talked about my interest in basketball and about communicating with people, he kind of made me see the possibilities."
She became a student assistant while she completed the academic work to graduate, and once she got involved, she wanted more.
"Being here at the place I know so well and love so much, this is a dream come true," she said. "I was a kid from Augusta who wanted to get out of Georgia, but I didn't want to go so far that my mom couldn't come and see me play. It came down to Clemson or South Carolina, and I need to say I liked the people (at South Carolina), but I really fell in love with Clemson. It felt like home to me and I don't regret a minute I spent here."
Coleman was born in Washington D.C., but her West Nigerian father - her first name means "Glory,' and her father's last name, Umoh, means "Great tree" - died of a brain aneurism six months after she was born. Her mother moved back home to Augusta, where her older brother Johnny established he was better than her on the backyard basketball hoop.
She ran track, became an outstanding high school basketball player and, three years after her Clemson career ended, the former first-team all-ACC point guard was named to the conference's 50-year anniversary team. She led the Tigers to two ACC championships and a Sweet 16 appearance in the NCAA.
Seems a long time since Clemson's women's basketball achieved as much. Coleman, whose husband is still in State College, Pa., tending to the two kids until school gets out, expects to change all that.
You want passion in your basketball coach? Spend a few minutes around Itoro Coleman.
"I teach what I know," she said, "and what I know to be true is that commitment is more than a word, it's a way of life, it's a definition of who you are. The players we have will be committed in everything we do here - academics, the community, basketball, being a good teammate - these aren't things you talk about, these are things you do, things you work at every day."
She balled her right hand into a fist.
"You have to compete to win," she said, smacking that fist into her left hand when she said "compete."
"We have goals here - the Sweet 16 (smack goes the fist), the Elite 8 (smack), the Final Four (two fist smacks). But it all starts with competing. I'm talking about every second of 40 minutes in a game, every minute of practice, everything you do."
She shook the hand of someone she had never met and excused herself to hit the recruiting trail.
Months ahead of games, practices and results and perhaps years ahead of ultimate conclusions, you had a hard time imagining her being anything but successful.
For Clemson women's basketball, it's a good place start over.
This story was originally published April 25, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Changing career paths brings Coleman full circle."