You’ve watched the films, you’ve read the articles, you know how these things go. Everyone knows the Peyton Manning story; boy has talent, boy does good in college, boy signs with NFL team, boy is a star. You’ve all been sold those goods before. You know the Kurt Warner story; boy has talent, boy does good in college, boy fights against adversity, boy goes the unconventional route but still makes the NFL, boy becomes a star. The parallels can be seen in books and films everywhere. I mean who is Kurt Warner if he’s not Cinderella? Or the ugly kid in all those movies who ends up with the girl? Well what about the ugly kid who nearly gets the girl but misses out? What about that guy?
A few statistics to start. The NFLPA state that of the 100,000 high school seniors who play football every year only 9000 make it to the college level. Furthermore, from that 9000 only 215 will ever make an NFL roster. So from the initial high school senior class, only 0.2% will ever get to play at the highest level.
This is a story about the ugly kid who misses out on the girl of his dreams but maybe, just maybe at the end we’ll find that he was chasing the wrong girl all along. Sit back…
Rajric Coleman grew up in Phoenix, Arizona with his mother, father, older brother and three sisters. His was a happy life with parents who made sure their children had everything they needed to be successful. He lived in the middle of the class divide in inner city Phoenix, with the projects on one side and the middle class home owners on the other.
By the seventh grade he had moved to the suburban area of Avondale and this proved to be the catalyst behind Rajric’s sporting endeavours. His spare time was made up of basketball, football and baseball games, imagining he was a member of his beloved New York Yankees. “As a kid my dad pushed to me to play basketball, he didn’t really want me to play football. He was an all-state running back in Michigan. In his senior year in high school he broke his arm playing ball and worried about the same thing happening to me. Football became a sport I became good at playing in the parks and I wanted to try it at the high school level.”
At first Rajric didn’t take the game too seriously, but that’s not to say he didn’t excel. He played a mixture of QB, RB and LB in his freshman and sophomore years but it was the in his junior year that things changed. He made the move to free safety and found that he could be dominant there.
In addition to football, Rajric was also a three-year letter winner in track & field and a one-year letter winner in basketball. He earned all-region in 100 and 200-meter dashes, leading the Owls to back-to-back state championships.
Going into his senior season, he knew that it was the make it or break it year for him on the football field. He posted 61 tackles with three interceptions and two fumble recoveries at free safety as a senior, earning First-Team All-State as well as First-Team All-Region accolades. At running back, he had 30 carries for 182 yards with three TD’s, as well as 13 catches for 267 yard with five TD’s. The school would also see success in his senior year. Having only won three games the year before they went into the season unranked but came out of the season 12-1 and were the number one team in the state before losing in the semi-finals of the play-offs.
On the field things were going well, but off the field issues looked like they could cost Coleman his football future. “Recruiting was really slow for me to start. We had a 5 star recruit and the No1 player in the nation at the time in Everson Griffen (now DE with the Minnesota Vikings) who was really getting all the interest from schools. Those schools would also take a look at me but because I hadn’t taken my education seriously until my junior year I was a little behind in the class room. I had some offers but I couldn’t qualify academically.”
The bigger colleges came calling but Rajric’s grades were holding him back. His first choice, the University of Arizona, tried to pick him up despite his academic failings but to no avail. He knew now that no Div 1 college was going to pick him with his academic problems so he had to find another way to get there. He enrolled with a junior college at Glendale Community College and quickly knuckled down knowing that he had to get the academic side of things right to be able to get where he wanted to be.
In the classroom things immediately began to improve and on the field a positional change also helped Coleman become a more rounded player. “I was mad at first because they moved me from free safety to corner which I had never played before. I was more than a little nervous to play it initially but soon enough it was fine. It was pretty cool because I’m so competitive it was them against me. I felt like nobody could out-do me on the field, I was always better than the guy opposite me.”
After two years and with his academic problems behind him, the Utah State Aggies came calling.
Please click here for Part Two
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