The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
A cameo in an impressive life
Being Jordan’s teammate just part of former UNH star 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 was on a New York Daily News region team. Early in the fall, the late Jim Ferguson broke his wrist. Cole
man moved into the second base job, Ferguson would move over to third and by his All-America season in 1988, Coleman hit .428. That winter the basketball team had risen as high as No. 2 nationally under Stu Grove.
“We obviously had a legacy of success with Coach V.,” Coleman said. “When I arrived, basketball hadn’t been quite as competitive. Bill Jeffress, Herb Watkins and me all came in the same year. Hency Watt joined us the next year and it was fun building from a .500 club to making the NCAAs junior and senior years.
“Great stories, great camaraderie, great support, still great friends with so many people from UNH.”
Porky was a baller, a terrific basketball player, in his day.
“He reminded us of that and Coach Grove actually had played against him,” Coleman said, breaking into a laugh. “Coach V. always demanded we work hard. One story: I was having a lousy day, one of those 0-for-4 days. We’re playing well. I get up for my fifth at-bat, feeling down on myself a little. Coach V. comes running out the dugout and starts yelling, ‘Swing hard in case you hit the SOB!’ That snapped me back into it.
“I dreamed of making the big leagues (after signing with the White Sox). I gave it everything I had. I came early, stayed late. My dad always said you also have to have something to fall back on.”
So he worked out and he worked during seven offseasons. He slipped in a gym in New Jersey and tore his medial meniscus and partially tore his ACL. That set him back in 1992. In ’93, the Barons beat a powerful Knoxville team with Carolos Delgado and Shawn Green for the Southern League title.
“That year was as fun as it gets,” said Coleman, who played for Francona in 1993 and ’94. “It was one of those miraculous runs. Tito was a players’ manager. If you handled your business and did what you were supposed to do, no problems. I played for managers over the years that had these kind of fake rah-rah sessions. Keeping kids motivated for a long professional season is a special talent. Tito knows what buttons to push when. He’s a pro’s pro.”
The buzz in 1994 started before spring training, although it was not known that Jordan would land in Birmingham until the end of March. Coleman, meanwhile, was disappointed. He wanted to move on to Triple-A. What he got was the all-time minor league traveling circus. People waited hours to get that glimpse of Jordan. All the media. All the fans.
“When they said, ‘Man, this is going to be some kind of season,’ I’m not sure any one of us actually knew what kind of season it would be.”
They soon would learn about Jordan’s eagerness to fit in and his legendary competitiveness. Lesson 1: The ping pong table in the clubhouse.
“Michael would give (Dominican catcher) Rogelio
Nunez $100 if he could spell words every day, but Nunie also was a very good ping pong player,” Coleman said. “Early in the season, Nunie whoops him. I think Mike also offered him $1,000 if Nunie wouldn’t let him win. Mike became obsessed with beating Nunie. I want to say Mike beat him the last month of the season, but it took a while.”
While Coleman’s basketball cred got him on the court at times with Jordan, his roommate Kerry Valrie enabled him to spend a lot of time with Jordan off the field at his rented house.
“Mike leaned on Kerry heavily to teach him outfield skills and they built a fantastic friendship,” Coleman said. “Mike is the most competitive person I ever met — bar none. It didn’t matter if it was ping pong or cards. We’d play spades sometimes for no money and, my gosh, he was going to win no matter and talk a little smack when he did.”
Jordan rode the bus. He ate with the team. He stayed in the same hotel rooms.
“He really did become one of us,” Coleman said. “Like it was said out on ‘The Last Dance,’ being one of the guys again may have recharged (his) batteries.”
The now legendary bus that Jordan lined up for the Barons didn’t hurt.
“In ’93, the bus didn’t have very good temperature control,” Coleman said. “You’d leave Birmingham at midnight for Orlando and you’d put a jacket on, a towel around your head and neck. It was going to be 50 degrees for about 10 hours. The new bus, there was room in the back to stretch out and play cards and stuff and that was great. I really appreciated the temperature control.”
Does he think Jordan could have made the major leagues if he stuck with it? Francona said yes.
“If Tito says it and believes it,” Coleman answered, “then I believe it. This is a guy who got dropped into Double-A after 14 years of not playing. Had he come back the next year at Double-A or gone to Triple-A, would he have been better? Absolutely. Early, late, hitting, fielding, he would never have stopped working until he got where he wanted.”
Coleman went to the Cubs in 1995. He was getting on the team bus to go to the airport for the flight to Cincinnati for the opener when the strike was resolved. The big leaguers were back. One of the guys on that bus to keep a job, he played at Double-A Orlando, hit .277 with 25 stolen bases. Still, the Cubs could offer nothing more in 1996 than a utility role in Triple-A.
So he retired. At 28, he went to work for an economic development agency in Birmingham for five years. He joined Alabama Power and that led to a 21-year run with Southern Company. Alabama Power, Mississippi Power, a year in Illinois with Southern Company Gas, Georgia Power. He was also named DeKalb County Chamber head in late December before retiring from Georgia Power early this month. With COVID-19, he immediately has focused on helping smaller businesses get information, access funding, and to be their advocate in recovery.
“On to career No. 3,” Coleman said.
And for a Sunday night, the film of his life demanded a cameo awaiting Jordan at home plate, telling ESPN that it felt like a scene from “The Natural.”