North needs a coach

By Clay Horning
The Norman Transcript

May 22, 2008 12:39 am

— It’s about time to put together another search committee.
The season doesn’t begin again until next spring, but Norman North will want to nail down its next girls soccer coach long before then, now that Jay Coleman, a head coach in the district for the last 15 years, has resigned his position.
Coleman, who took over the Norman High girls in 1994 and won state championships in his second, third and fourth seasons, before migrating over to Norman North in the fall of 1997 where he’s coached ever since, resigned Tuesday.
Though he never won a state title with the Timberwolves, he went to the state championship game in 1999 and twice reached the state semifinal round. By his estimation, his career mark “is about 150-50.”
Coleman, who was an all-state pitch selection at Norman High (under still-coach Gordon Drummond) his senior season of 1987, said he loves soccer more than ever, but feels it’s time to give up the coaching end of it. He gave up coaching his last club team last spring.
An official, who would actually work high school games in the area on nights the North girls had off, he will maintain a professional connection to the game by continuing to referee and work the lines.
A sixth-grade general science teacher at Whittier Middle School, he has no plans to leave the school system. In fact, it’s the teaching part of his life he wants to expand.
“I love teaching,” he said. “I love teaching in the middle school.”
He plans to work toward and receive his national teaching certification.
Asked for his top moments on the pitch, Coleman had them ready.
In 1996, the NHS girls played for the state championship at Taft Stadium in Oklahoma City and won a game that kicked off at 5 p.m. Upon winning, they jumped on their bus and hightailed it to Shawnee where the Tigers were playing for the state baseball championship.
“We get over there, and the PA announcer announced that we were there and we had just won a state title and everybody stood and gave us a standing ovation,” Coleman said. “And then the baseball team won and both teams celebrated on the field. It was a really special school moment.”
At North, it was 1999, the program’s second year, and it was a state semifinal contest against crosstown rival Norman High. The T-Wolves, a decided underdog, scored early before holding on for dear life the rest of the game.
“When the clock hit zero, I just remember so many parents and players involved in the dogpile,” Coleman said. “It was just a really cool moment. It kind of legitimized us as a program.”
Clay Horning
366-3526
cfhorning@normantranscript.com