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This is the fifth in a series of stories profiling this year's inductees for the Baylor Athletics Hall of Fame and Wall of Honor, which will be posted every week at BaylorBears.com.

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider

As impressive as Corey Coleman was as a fourth-year junior at Baylor in 2015, earning unanimous All-America honors and winning the Biletnikoff Award as the nation's top collegiate receiver, the untold story (till now) is that he was potentially the next Charles Woodson.

Woodson was the 1997 Heisman Trophy winner at Michigan, an All-American cornerback who doubled as a receiver and kick returner for the Wolverines.

Coleman, the No. 1 "athlete" recruit in Texas coming out of Richardson Pearce High School in 2012, put up freakish numbers that last season with the Bears. But he was actually practicing at cornerback the week of the Oklahoma game when he tore his groin, taking him out of the defensive game plan and limiting him over the last four weeks of the season.

"Lot of people don't know that, but I was supposed to play corner the rest of the season," said Coleman, part of the 2026 class for the Baylor Athletics Hall of Fame. "X, Xavien Howard, was the other corner, and they were going to move Ryan Reid inside (to safety). And I was going to guard (OU receiver) Sterling Shepard. But I got injured and played the last four games with a torn groin."

Oh, what could have been.

"Growing up, that's all I knew," Coleman said of playing both ways. "Coming out of high school, a lot of people thought I was a better corner than a receiver."

That's hard to imagine for a guy who ended up being one of college football's best all-time receivers, hauling in 173 catches for 3,009 yards and a school-record 33 touchdowns in just three seasons with the Bears. In the best three-year stretch in program history, Baylor went 32-7 and won back-to-back Big 12 championships in 2013 and '14.

"It was the culture we built," Coleman said. "Once we won the first one, it was like, 'Okay, we can do it again.' That was the mindset. I remember in the locker room after the first one, it was like we can't get complacent. This is the standard now. And we were counting each game like a boxing round. We win the first round, and it's on to the second round. And we just kept crossing it off after each round."

And to think, it was a career that almost never happened at all. Injured during preseason camp as a true freshman in 2012, Coleman thought about packing up and going back home.

"I thought it was unfair," he said, "because at the time, I was one of the highest recruits in Baylor history, and I'm not playing. I was sad, I was crying to my momma, and it was just a humbling experience. But I needed to go through that."

By then, though, Coleman had already been humbled by then-strength coach Kaz Kazadi, who kicked him out of the weight room for saying, "I'm not doing this."

"I never lifted weights in high school, and I thought weights made you slower," he said. "I was already naturally strong, so why do I need to do this? Growing up, I always did it my way. I got to college, and (Kazadi) really broke me down . . . in a good way. I was thinking, I'm the man. But I didn't know anything. I started lifting weights, and I got really strong and I was even faster."

Coming back after that redshirt season, Coleman started 10 of 13 games the next year and caught 35 passes for 527 yards and two touchdowns and added 483 yards with one TD on 17 kickoff returns (28.4-yard average). In the Bears' historic "Close the Case" 30-10 win over Texas that clinched the Big 12 title, he had five catches for 78 yards.

"It was a surreal feeling, honestly," he said. "You work so hard, you put in all this time, and you try to live the right way and take care of your body, and you make it to the big game. I just remember everyone in Waco was going crazy. They believed in us, and they had our back. It was like we were going to war, and we were representing something much bigger than just us."

As the Bears' clear No. 1 receiver over the next two seasons, Coleman combined for 138 receptions for 2,482 yards and 31 touchdowns and became the first player in school history to record a pair of 1,000-yard receiving seasons.

During his redshirt sophomore season in 2014, he caught eight passes for 144 yards and two touchdowns in the memorable 61-58 comeback win over TCU, scoring a game-tying 25-yard TD with 4:42 left.

"I remember the leaders on the sidelines saying, 'We cannot lose this game. I don't care what we have to do, we are not losing this game,''' Coleman said. "The receivers kind of took it upon ourselves that we're going to win this game. Right before we kicked the field goal, I just knew, we're going to win."

Later that year, Coleman had one of the biggest games of his career, making 15 catches for 224 yards and a touchdown and also scoring one on the ground in the Bears' 48-14 dismantling of Oklahoma in Norman. On the opening drive of the third quarter, Bryce Petty completed nine-consecutive passes – four to Corey – before Coelman finished it with the five-yard TD run.

"That's what made Coach (Art) Briles such a genius, he made football really simple," Coleman said. "We're going to keep doing the same thing until you figure out a way to stop it. And if you can't stop it, we're going to keep doing it."

A first-round NFL Draft pick with the Cleveland Browns in 2016, Coleman's promising pro career was derailed by injuries. After two seasons in Cleveland, Coleman was in position to be the New York Giants' No. 1 receiver before suffering a torn ACL on the first day of training camp.

"People look at the numbers, and they don't actually look at what went on," said Coleman, who led the USFL in receiving in 2023, making 51 catches for 661 yards and four TDs for the Philadelphia Stars. "I'm having a great rookie year with the Browns before I missed the last eight games with a broken hand. . . . Injuries derailed my career, and it happens. It's the nature of the game."

Coleman spent the 2025 season as the assistant receivers coach at TCU, and hopes to eventually return to coaching, but he is taking time to build up the Coleman Foundation for Challenge non-profit organization that provides housing for women and families of domestic violence and sex-trafficked children.

"Coaching is a part of me," he said. "A couple of teams have reached out to me, but my heart right now is to build this non-profit and take care of the people I need to take care of."

For more information or to support the organization, go the website at WeTheWay.

Joining Coleman in the 2026 class are "Voice of the Bears" John Morris, basketball's Quincy Acy, baseball's Zane Carlson, Hayley Davis from women's golf and track and field's Trayvon Bromell, Tiffani McReynolds and the late Bill Martineson.

The 2026 Baylor Hall of Fame Banquet is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 20, in the Hurd Welcome Center Grand Ballroom on the Baylor University campus. Registration is available here.

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