JEFF JACOBS

Being Michael Jordan’s teammate just part of former UNH star Kenny Coleman’s story

Kenny Coleman made a few cameos in Episode 7 of “The Last Dance.” There he is sitting next to Michael Jordan as MJ breaks into a laugh in the dugout. There he is again, No. 25 greeting Jordan at the plate after one of his three home runs during the 1994 season with the Birmingham Barons.

“Oh, my goodness,” Coleman said Friday, “it is the show that has saved the quarantine for sports fans.”

Cameos are only snapshots, of course. And snapshots of a life aren’t the full movie. Yes, Coleman was

Jordan’s teammate 26 years ago with the White Sox Double-A team. Remember the scene Sunday when all those people were peering under the fence to get a glimpse of Jordan?

“It was like that everywhere,” Coleman said. “It really reminded you what it was like.”

Those glimpses of Coleman remind us he played baseball for both Porky Vieira and Terry Francona. That he started all four years at New Haven in two sports.

Remind us he still holds the basketball assists and steals records at New Haven.

That, yes, he was teammates with Michael Jordan yet teammates, too, with a bunch of talented Chargers, like first-round draft pick Cameron Drew who got to the Division II College

World Series all four years Coleman played.

After reaching as high as Triple-A in seven years in the minors, Coleman, who initially wanted to be an aerospace engineer, added to his communications degree at New Haven with an MBA at Alabama.

Coleman, then a freshman, walked into Vieira’s office in the fall of 1984. He arrived from New Jersey on a basketball scholarship but told Porky he wasn’t a bad baseball player growing up. He had been All-State and

Contributed Photo Ken Coleman with Michael Jordan.