By Brice Cherry

Tribune-Herald youth sports editor

After more than three decades and 141 victories, LeRoy Coleman has coached his final game.

Coleman, University High School’s head football coach for the past 26 seasons, informed his assistant coaches and players Thursday afternoon that he was planning to retire at the end of the school year.

Coleman, 59, who is in his 37th year of coaching overall and his 30th at University, said he sensed that the time was right to make a change.

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Duane A. Laverty/Waco Tribune-Herald, file

University High School coach LeRoy Coleman (right) shares a laugh with La Vega coach Willie Williams before their game earlier this season.

Duane A. Laverty/Waco Tribune-Herald, file

LeRoy Coleman diagrams a play with his son, Coby, before the 2001 season. Coleman led University High to nine of the 10 playoff appearances in school history.

“I just felt like at the stage that I’m in right now, we had accomplished all we could accomplish,” Coleman said. “It’s probably time for some fresh ideas to come into play. There are some internal things that need to be taken care of, and the administration is working toward that, but I just felt like at the present time, this needed to get done.”

Coleman had his share of success at University, tallying an overall record of 141-137-9 and guiding the Trojans to nine of the school’s 10 all-time playoff appearances. Yet when his friends and colleagues were asked to describe the coach Thursday, their immediate responses centered around his gentlemanly manner and upbeat disposition.

“Coach Coleman’s reputation precedes him as one of the finest men and greatest coaches in the Central Texas area,” Waco ISD athletic director Johanna Denson said. “I think anyone who has met Coach Coleman would have great things to say about him.”

“LeRoy is a class act, a first-class coach and, more than that, a first-class person,” Waco High School coach Johnny Tusa said. “In my opinion, he epitomizes what the role of the coach should be, and that’s the way he’s always been.”

Midway High School coach Kent Bachtel’s team has been lumped in the same district with University for decades, and though the Panthers and Trojans have waged many intense football battles, Bachtel said he had nothing but respect for Coleman.

“I think he’s a great coach and an even finer man,” Bachtel said. “I really, really enjoyed coaching against him. I consider him a friend.”

Like Tusa, La Vega High School coach Willie Williams also used the phrase “class act” to describe his good friend Coleman, adding that many fans and Central Texas residents don’t understand the challenges he faced at University.

“He’s been in an unfair situation for a long time,” Williams said. “In terms of the relationship with University and Waco High, LeRoy has been dealing with the short end of the stick for a long time. With the disparity in the (number of) kids, there’s no fairness at all to it. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. He’s a heck of a coach, and he’s been dealt with unfairly.”

University has more than 600 fewer students than Waco High, according to figures used in the 2006 UIL realignment of districts. Two WISD middle schools send their students to University; four feed into Waco High.

Coleman, however, would not admit to any unfair treatment, saying he wanted to leave “as smoothly and gracefully as possible.”

With his exit, the search for a new coach begins. Coleman said he didn’t have a preference on who should take over as University’s next coach.

“I really don’t,” he said. “I’ll leave that up to the principal and the athletic director. I feel like every member of my coaching staff is qualified and would do an excellent job, but it’s the administration’s decision, and we’ll just leave it at that.”

Denson said the school district would begin the search process for Coleman’s successor in the coming weeks and that it would not be limited to the assistant coaching staff already in place at University.

“We’ll, of course, look at all interested applicants,” Denson said. “We’ll post the job (online) and go through all the proper channels, and after we have an opportunity to get some more information, we’ll narrow it down to the best candidate for University High School.”

Twenty-six years ago, the administration pegged Coleman as the best candidate for University. After four years as the Trojans’ varsity basketball coach, Coleman was hired as the head football coach on Feb. 17, 1981.

Coleman’s teams were competitive throughout the 1980s, but when he directed the Trojans to a 7-2-2 record in 1992, it marked the school’s first playoff trip since 1956. He coached dozens of blue-chip Super Centex players, from Rodney Smith to LaDainian Tomlinson to Wayne Rogers to, more recently, Perrish Cox, a sophomore kick returner and defensive back at Oklahoma State.

“There have been so many memories,” Coleman said. “I remember a playoff game against Dallas Lincoln in the early ’90s where we made a field goal to win it at the end. They had lined up offsides, and we got another chance and kicked it and made it.”

Other highlights the coach mentioned included a playoff win over Austin Reagan propelled by an 80-yard Smith touchdown bomb, Tomlinson’s multitouchdown performances against Smithson Valley and Marble Falls, and a 27-17 rain-delayed win over Midway in 2004 in which his team rallied from a 17-7 halftime deficit.

Most of all, Coleman said he would remember the hundreds of players and coaches who passed through his door, his “University family,” as he put it. The coach got choked up talking about them and said it wasn’t any easier when he told his coaches and players of his decision Thursday.

“I had the best-laid plans and had told myself that I wasn’t going to get emotional,” said Coleman, who first met with his assistants early Thursday afternoon and later told his players. “But as soon as I started talking and I looked in their eyes and saw all the loyalty and love, I couldn’t help but let my emotions overflow. I apologized to them for being that way and told them it was difficult because of all the great memories but that it was time to move on.”

Coleman said he hadn’t made any future plans other than his intentions to spend more time with his wife, Geraldine, and his sons, Carl and Coby, the latter an assistant football coach at the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor.

But though he said nothing was in the works, he wouldn’t completely rule out a return to the sideline.

“I’ll never say never,” he said. “All I know is I loved getting up every morning and coaching the kids at University High School. University was my love.

“I had my opportunities to coach other places, but University is the place I wanted to be.”

bcherry@wacotrib.com

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