Wednesday, Jul. 21, 2010

Former East St. Louis basketball star to lead Flyers

For East St. Louis native Ray Coleman, the long wait is over.

Coleman, who wore a Flyers basketball uniform in the late 1970s, was named the basketball program's head coach late Monday night at a school board meeting.

"I guess I've wanted to be the head coach here for about 18 years," said Coleman, who is 49. "I just had to be patient, wait my turn and hope that one day I would have my opportunity. I'm just very excited and anxious to get going.

"I think it's going to be a good year. The kids are going to have get used to a new system, but we've got some very talented kids returning and I feel we'll be a very competitive team all season long.''

The Flyers' program without a head coach since March. After several hiring delays, Coleman is hopeful his players have remained active during the summer.

"We lost a lot of valuable time over the summer. But back in the day when I played back in the late 1970s, you didn't have all these team camps that they have now,'' Coleman said. "I'm not going to look for any excuses. It is what it is. I'm sure these players are gym rats like I was when I was a kid. They've been playing pickup games; they've been playing AAU and with their friends at gyms throughout the city. I'm expecting the kids to be in pretty good shape.''

Coleman takes over the Flyers coaching reins from Dennis Brooks, who resigned unexpectedly after nine years following the 2009-10 season.

Brooks led the Flyers to a mark of 168-99, including a 12-13 mark last season, in his tenure.

Coleman played for East St. Louis High School, then transferred to Springfield (Sacred Heart) Griffin four games into his senior year. He graduated from Springfield Sacred Heart Griffin in 1978.

He attended Quincy College (now Quincy University and a Division II school) on a basketball scholarship. As a freshman, Coleman scored 32 points in a Christmas tournament game.

Coleman then transferred to Chicago State, where he became an NAIA honorable mention selection during his junior season. He transferred back to Quincy College, where he earned a degree in sociology in 1983.

While at Chicago State, he played in summer leagues against Craig Robinson, who is Michelle Obama's brother; current Boston Celtics coach Glenn "Doc" Rivers; former NBA guard Maurice Cheeks; and other NBA stars such as Isiah Thomas, Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings.

Former University of Southern California and Iowa head coach George Raveling is Coleman's brother in law.

Coleman has been part of the East St. Louis basketball program before. He was an assistant coach under Dwight Howard in the 1996 season and was a varsity assistant under Brooks in both 2003 and 2004.

Coleman took over the head coaching reigns for a week when Brooks missed two games due to health issues. The Flyers defeated Alton and O'Fallon under Coleman.

Coleman describes his coaching style as aggressive. He said he plans to have the Flyers play a lot of full-court pressure defense and will also utilize his team's strengths.

"We're not going to be the type of team which will play and sit back in zone defenses," Coleman said. "We're going to get after it on both ends of the floor. We're going to play up-tempo, but we're going to play controlled up-tempo.

"A friend of mine made the comment that the kids in East St. Louis are resilient. They're tough kids. I'm sure there will be high expectations for me and this basketball program and in turn I'm going to have high expectations of the kids.''

And that is including having high expectations in the classroom.

"I'm going to put an emphasis on the student part of student-athlete. I want the kids to be prepared before they ever step out on the court," Coleman said. "The scholastic part is very important to me. When I was a student athlete here at East St. Louis, academics were very important to me.

"That's one thing I'm going to stress with this basketball program. I want the kids to excel in the classroom.''

In 2004, Coleman left the coaching ranks to work on Barack Obama's U.S. Senate campaign in Illinois. He also worked on Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.

"I know the president very well," Coleman said. "But it's a political friendship. I met him through politics when I was his volunteer coordinator for St. Clair County. At the time, he didn't have a lot of volunteers in the metro-east and that allowed me to gain an intimate working relationship with him.

"I remember making the comment that I felt he (Obama) could be the first African-American president of the United States. People looked at me like I was nuts.''

Coleman later wrote a book called "The Obama Phenomenon: Yes We Can! Be a Barack. A Spiritual Perspective."

Coleman is an intervention coach with the federal Safe Schools/Healthy Students Intiative in East St. Louis School District 189.

He and his wife Cynthia live in Belleville. They have four children.