DaytonDailyNews.com

site web

NEW ORLEANS — The best thing I've seen here in New Orleans didn't come from down on Bourbon Street — where Ohio State and Louisiana State fans are throwing themselves full force into this end-of-the-season football bacchanalia.

Nor has it come from anywhere else in the French Quarter, and likely it won't come Monday night when the Bucks and Tigers square off in the Superdome to decide the champion of college football.

The scene that's moved me the most here happened Saturday during OSU's Media Day.

Off in the wings — far beyond the media scrums that engulfed the Superdome podiums where OSU marquee figures such as linebacker James Laurinaitis, quarterback Todd Boeckman and head coach Jim Tressel held court — safety Kurt Coleman leaned back in his chair, his right hand resting on the arm of the wheelchair of paralyzed teammate Tyson Gentry, who sat next to him.

Ignored by everyone else, the two huddled with a couple of other OSU lesser-knowns and talked and laughed and seemed to enjoy their closeness.

This was that old dark cloud/silver lining theory put being to flesh-and-blood practice. Or, as Gentry would later say, "You can find good in anything if you want to. Things happen that you don't want, but we showed you can make a positive out of a negative."

And the very first time these two shared a closeness, it turned out to be devastatingly negative.

It happened during a Buckeyes' spring football practice in April 2006. Gentry was a third-year walk-on from Sandusky who'd been the backup punter and was trying his hand at wide receiver, which he'd played in high school.

Coleman was a defensive back who'd graduated early from Northmont High so he could join the Bucks' spring drills and ready himself for his freshman season that fall. Neither player knew the other. They'd never met... that is, until Gentry ran a crossing pattern over the middle.

The pass came, he caught it, turned, bobbled it, and as he reached to gather it back in, he was hit by Coleman.

He ended up motionless on the ground.

He'd broken the C-4 vertebra.

A pair of surgeries would follow as two other vertebra were fused — and titanium plates were added — all to provide support. But the bottom line was that Gentry was paralyzed.

Emotionally, so was Coleman.

A bond has grown

Saturday, both players remembered their first meeting after the hit. It came at the hospital, and it took Coleman a while to summon up the courage to walk into Gentry's room.

"I came up there with my friend because I was so nervous," Coleman said quietly. "Finally, I just walked in the room and I almost started crying from all the emotion. The first thing everybody did — Tyson's sister, his mom, his dad — was give me a hug. And then I went over and hugged Tyson, too."

Bob Gentry, Tyson's dad and a Buckeyes' football player himself back in the 1970s, remembers that day, too:

"Tyson basically was elated because he knew how badly Kurt felt, and we all welcomed him and let him know everything was OK.

"Right from the start we figured it's all about how you handle adversity. We wanted to be positive and move forward rather than sit and stew and make things more miserable. We chose not to go that route."

The route they did take has taken them to a remarkable place.

"Sure, it's not the kind of situation you want to start with, but you can build upon it," Gentry said. "For both of us to get through it, we leaned on each other, and a bond has grown since."

Coleman agreed: "Now there's really a love. I love his family. I love him. And with everything that's happened since, they've been there for me, too."

He was talking especially about that late-night phone call he got in his dorm room in early December 2006. It was his dad, Ron — then the Stebbins High basketball coach, now the school's assistant principal.

"Growing up, I was always close to my dad," Coleman said. "I was the ball boy for his teams and sat on the bench, and I went to his softball games. He was my mentor and he became my best friend.

"Then there was that phone call. He didn't beat around the bush. He told me he had breast cancer. I didn't think it was real. I thought he was making it up, but he told me he was serious.

"He'd had some problems with his heart, but he'd gotten through that so I thought he was fine. It broke my heart, and when I hung up the phone, I started crying. I didn't know quite what to do. We were preparing for the national championship game and my dad was sick and I just didn't know."

He eventually leaned on Gentry and his family.

"He spoke to both my wife and I," Bob said. "I guess having some cancer issues in our family, too, was some kind of relief."

Tyson also reached out to Coleman, and that made Bob realize something all the more: "I've made the comment that I don't think I could love my kids any more than I do, but this ordeal with Tyson has created a stronger, different kind of love. To me, it's reinforced the type kid he is. He's always put someone else ahead of himself."

Gentry stays involved

These days, Coleman is the Bucks' starting strong safety and a stalwart of the special teams. Coming into Monday night's game — where his dad will be in the stands, cancer-free after surgery and chemotherapy — he's the Bucks' fourth-leading tackler.

Meanwhile, Gentry — who now has movement of his head, shoulders, arms above the elbow and a bit in one foot — is immersing himself in innovative locomotor training sessions funded by the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.

Part of the process means getting him — through the use of a harness — standing upright on a treadmill three to five times a week.

"With spinal cord injuries, nothing is rapid short of a miracle," Bob said. "But the foundation has provided an opportunity, not just for Tyson, but other spinal cord injury people, to have hope and enjoy the benefits of the latest research. "It's too early to say exactly how that will affect Tyson, but his vertical tolerance is amazing. Now he can be up four to five minutes, when a year ago 30 seconds was the max before he was dizzy and had to sit down. And imagine how it feels to finally hear him say, 'It's neat to feel the ground move below my feet again.' "

Gentry lives with his sister Ashley, who, until recently, has been his principal caregiver. He takes classes at Ohio State and is involved with the football team, lifting weights and attending meetings, practices and home games.

Monday night he'll be on the sideline with his dad. While he pulls for all his teammates, he said he especially finds himself looking for Coleman: "I look for him, and he looks out for me."

Although it wasn't planned, that same thing happened Saturday when the two found themselves side by side.

"I don't know how it happened," Coleman shrugged. "Do you?"

Gentry shook his head: "We just kind of ended up next to each other."

It made for a beautiful sight.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2156 or

tarchdeacon@DaytonDailyNews.com.