For Ohio State's Kurt Coleman, strength was born from tragedy

The bombs, so to speak, fell one after another on the true freshman who was just trying to find his way.

It all happened three years ago, but the impact resonates on, forming who he is each day, changing him, improving him. It will go on like this for as long as Kurt Coleman lives.

He's a senior now at Ohio State, one of the best safeties in the Big Ten and in the nation. See those three fumbles he forced this fall? See that interception he returned 89 yards for a touchdown?

He will be showing off his game Saturday afternoon in Beaver Stadium.

And yet, three years ago, Coleman nearly gave up on football.

One bomb after another.

One wondrous opportunity after another.

* * *

It was April 14, 2006, maybe a Thursday or Friday during spring football practice in Columbus.

Coleman had been on campus only a few months after graduating early from high school. He was beginning to make a name for himself when he zeroed in on a walk-on receiver in practice, a kid running an ordinary curl route across the middle of the field.

Coleman swooped in from behind but didn't launch himself, didn't hit so ferociously like he's known to do time after time. He simply caught up to Tyson Gentry, dragged him down, made the tackle.

And two lives changed forever.

Somehow, Gentry landed on his head in just the right position to snap and splinter his fourth vertebrae, damaging his spinal cord.

Within seconds he knew something

was seriously wrong. The next day, after he woke from surgery, he knew he was paralyzed, a quadriplegic.

Maybe 10 days later, Coleman found the strength on wobbly legs to visit Gentry in the hospital.

"He was more shook up or scared about it than I was," Gentry said. "I didn't blame the kid at all, but he's going to be traumatized that he injured somebody. I could tell he was torn up about it. He didn't know what to say. He was emotional."

It was the toughest thing Coleman ever faced.

"I felt real guilty. I felt like everything was my fault," he said. "And I felt really ashamed of myself. ... I was debating whether I should quit football and pursue other things."

But when Coleman walked into that hospital room, "it was the most comforting thing because his family came over to the door and gave me hugs and said, 'Everything's going to be alright.' Tyson Gentry leaned over in his bed and he said, 'I'm going to be fine, don't worry about this, it's not your fault.'

"And the weight of the world kind of just released off my shoulders."

It was a healing in so many ways.

A friendship was born between players, even families. Gradually, Gentry, who couldn't move anything below his neck, regained movement of his arms and his trunk.

Gradually, Coleman began reading the Bible and doing more to help everyone else, from visiting the sick in hospitals to helping disabled kids to raising awareness and funds for diseases.

"I needed to give back to other people," he said. "Especially being a football player, a lot of things are given to you, but I try to not take things for granted, and this was a big lesson for me."

It gave him strength to endure the next bomb.

Eight months later his father, Ron Coleman, was diagnosed with breast cancer. A lump on his chest led to tests and then surgery and then chemotherapy.

"It was a similar feeling (to Gentry's paralysis) where I felt hopelessness and couldn't do anything about the situation," Kurt Coleman said. "And (my father) told me that everything's going to be alright, everything's going to be fine."

And, in many ways, everything now is.

Gentry is still in a wheelchair but is making improvements, ever so slightly, a bit of feeling returning to his legs. He's pursuing his master's degree in speech language pathology.

Ron Coleman has been cancer-free for nearly three years. Father and son do their best to teach others about male breast cancer.

And for Kurt Coleman, an NFL future is only a slice of who he is. His family is closer now and his friendship with Gentry is something he thanks God for every day.

"I feel like football is a platform for me. Football is not my everything. I have so many things in life that I want to pursue. I want to be a teacher and a coach, and it all goes back to giving back to the community."

To how the toughest times are still changing him, always leading him on.
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