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May 14, 2003

Wayne Colman has one more goal before retirement

By TOM WILLIAMS
Sports Columnist


Wayne Colman lost his last meet at Carey Stadium on Monday.

At the end of this season Colman will give up the reigns to Ocean City High School boys track after 27 seasons. The rest of this season will consist of one away dual meet and a series of championship meets.

“I hadn’t even thought about it,” Colman said. “We knew this would be a close meet with Oakcrest and we were all focused on what we had to do.”

Colman, a resident of Ventnor and longtime member of the Ventnor City Beach Patrol, took over the Ocean City boys track program from Fred Speers in 1977 and promptly put together a run of 14 winning seasons in 15 years. The only losing season was 1982, when Ocean City was 8-1 on the track but had to forfeit six meets when an athlete was discovered to be ineligible.

There have been three undefeated seasons, including a South Jersey Group 3 championship in 1987, when Colman was named South Jersey Coach of the Year. His teams have won 20 Cape May County championships in 27 years and were Cape-Atlantic League champs four times.

The retirement of Colman – he will end his teaching career in February – marks the end of another strong coaching career at OCHS. He joins Phil Birnbaum, Chris Lentz and Mike Naples as veteran coaches who have stepped down within the past five years. Bill Nickles, who has 26 years on the job as head wrestling coach, will become the senior coach on the Raider staff.

Replacing these veterans is a challenge that Ocean City will face over the rest of this decade. In addition to Nickles, Bill Moreland has 24 seasons, Trish LeFever 21, Craig Mensinger 18, John Bruno 14 and Gary Degenhardt 12. It is an advantage having coaches with the experience of these coaches but they won’t be here forever.

Colman was a three-sport athlete at Atlantic City High School. He played basketball against the OCHS 1964 state champions, scoring 12 points and helping control Raider star John Cranston in the fourth quarter as ACHS won, 70-60. He went on to play football and throw in track at Temple University.

Colman came to Ocean City High School from the National Football League, where he played nine seasons, most of them with the New Orleans Saints. He and his son, Doug, are the only father-son combination in South Jersey to have both played in the NFL. Doug, who played on two NCAA champions at Nebraska and in the Super Bowl with the Tennessee Titans, will begin his first year as head football coach at Absegami in the fall.

During his 27 years as head coach, Colman has seen every current OCHS track record set. But he wasn’t sure it was going to happen.

“I’d look at the record board and see those distance records by Mike Scythes,” he said, “and I’d think, ‘How good a coach am I if I can’t find somebody to break those records in 25 years?’”

Enter John Richardson. The Raiders senior now holds the school’s 800, 1600 and 3200 meter records, the only OCHS athlete – male or female – to currently hold three individual school track records.

“John has been a pleasure to be around,” said Colman. “He leads by example, he works hard and he helps get the best out of every athlete he comes into contact with.”

Richardson returns those feelings. “Coach Colman has had a positive impact on all of us,” he said. “Here is a guy who played with the best athletes in the world, he was a professional football player. He knows what it takes to get there and we all have had the opportunity to learn that from him.”

Both Colman and Richardson hope that the season ends with a win in the Meet of Champions in South Plainfield on June 4 for the talented distance runner. Colman coached Leon Brown, the only OCHS boy to win in the prestigious meet, and it would be a perfect to finish his career by watching another of his athletes become the very best in the entire state.

Whatever happens between now and June 4, Colman will be content to quietly walk away and turn over his clipboard to a new head track coach.

During the last 27 years he has, as he said about Richardson, led by example. Unlike what you might expect from a former NFL linebacker, he has not been interested in the spotlight, only in making the young men that surrounded him better athletes.

For more than a quarter of a century the athletes of Ocean City have benefited from their association with Wayne Colman. He has played a special role in the unparalleled success of Raider sports the past two decades.


Read more of Tom Williams' columns