The Carolina Panthers have done a lot of things wrong, but they got this one right
If you are a Carolina Panthers fan, you can bemoan all the things that the team has messed up over the past several years, and you would be justified in doing so. As they limp toward their fourth straight losing season, the Panthers have done a lot of things wrong.
But Saturday afternoon, in front of a few dozen people at Bank of America Stadium, the Panthers did something right.
On that day, they christened the West Lobby entrance of the stadium the “John Coleman Lobby,” honoring the genial security guard who greeted people at the front desk for 25 years.
There were cookies made up to look like a Panthers jersey with Coleman’s name on them. There were former players sprinkled throughout the crowd — Steve Smith, Muhsin Muhammad, Brad Hoover, Mike Rucker and Tre Boston among them. And best of all, there was the man himself — 78-year-old John Coleman, shaking hands with everybody and smiling.
Coleman is the least controversial employee in Panther history. Everybody loves the guy.
“John Coleman is a soul-lifter,” Panthers owner David Tepper said.
“I remember the doom and gloom of the 2001 season,” Rucker said. “We were 1-15, and here was this guy smiling at us when we came in every day, making us feel better. That meant something.”
Coleman and his wife, Elaine, have been married for nearly 45 years. They never had their own children, but Coleman treated all the players like they were his sons.
“I saw them the day they walked in the door after getting drafted, and I saw them the day they walked out the door for the last time,” Coleman said. “And I saw them a lot in between. Sometimes they’d come by and talk for a few minutes. The NFL is a family, you know. I’d make sure they knew that.”
‘He’s a people person’
Coleman rarely left his post. He’s pretty sure he didn’t take a sick day for 25 years. The West Lobby was like his front porch, and he was more like a sprightly grandfather welcoming you in than a security guard trying to keep you out. Media members didn’t use the West entrance that often, but every time I did, there he was, leaping up to speak to me.
“We’ve known each other a long time,” he would say, grabbing my hand with both of his. “How’s your family? Your oldest son must be about ... ”
And then he would correctly call out my son’s age.
Coleman was like that with everyone. George Seifert only thanked a few people by name when he got fired as head coach after the 2001 season; Coleman was one of them. Rucker timed his retirement announcement so Coleman could attend.
Coleman lives by the Golden Rule, he said, and treated others the way he would like to be treated. He was one of the few people who successfully bridged the gap between former owner Jerry Richardson and new owner Tepper.
Richardson liked to talk to Coleman and once introduced him to former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Coleman, a student of history as well as a former Vietnam veteran, impressed Rice by asking her about playing the piano, since he knew she was an avid pianist.
Once Richardson’s sordid workplace misconduct scandal torpedoed his ownership of the team he founded, he sold the team to Tepper. Coleman first met Tepper in 2018 when he came in for a visit before he officially bought the place.
“We hit it off right away,” Coleman said. “It was like we had been knowing each other for 30 years. He’s a people person, just like I am.”
Tepper asked Coleman for his business card that day so he could have Coleman’s phone number. Coleman said he didn’t have any, and so one of Tepper’s first acts when he bought the Panthers was to get Coleman a set of the cards to hand out, now in a new role as team “ambassador.” In 2020, Tepper also surprised Coleman by telling him the Panthers were going to name the West Lobby for him, but the ceremony wasn’t held until Saturday due to COVID-19.
Vietnam vet, probation officer
By the time Coleman got to the Panthers, he was in his early 50s and had already had two careers. After growing up poor on a cotton farm in Lancaster, S.C., and attending an all-Black high school in the days of segregation, he had joined the U.S. Army and served in the medical corps. Among his postings, he said, was a 13-month stint in Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
“I was like a male nurse,” he said. “And I learned there from the doctors that even if you’re tired, you’re not the one with the problem. The patient is the one with the problem. So you treat the patient well.”
Coleman came back to South Carolina in his 30s, got a college degree from Winthrop financed largely by the G.I. Bill and then became a probation officer. He did that for 17 years. By the time he got to the Panthers, Coleman had had a lot of experience dealing with people under stress.
“The players would come in sometimes in the morning after a loss,” Coleman said, “and they’d be hurting. I’d just try to talk to them some. Make them know we were all on the same team.”
Coleman could have retired a long time ago, but he likes to work and is still in good health. He no longer makes the 30-mile commute up Interstate 77 from Rock Hill to Charlotte every day, as he used to, but he still works two days a week in Rock Hill at the Panthers’ under-construction new training complex. Coleman also volunteers with the park and recreation department in Rock Hill and at a local YMCA.
On Coleman’s dedication day with the Panthers, Tepper spoke without notes before unveiling the new “John Coleman Lobby” sign.
“The things that John Coleman could do for you, for your soul, to lift you up,” Tepper said later in an interview. “When you won a game, lost a game. Just the wisdom, the words of encouragement … The sunshine he brought into your life. And all the sunshine he’s brought for all the years he’s been here … he was like a refresher for your soul.”
Tepper joked that he would like a little more uplift these days, given that the Panthers have gone 2-8 over their past 10 games and have lost five straight at home.
“I could still use Mr. Coleman every day in this building, I can tell you that,” Tepper said.
Deeply religious, Coleman asked that a prayer be included during Saturday’s ceremony, as well as a song that he sang along with a number of his old fraternity brothers.
By the end, the former players were reminiscing with each other, kids were running around, and there was lunch waiting for everybody in another room. But no one was too anxious to go eat, because John Coleman was still standing in the John Coleman Lobby, making everybody feel better.
This story was originally published December 14, 2021 at 12:51 PM.
