Iowa
State University Alumni Association| online edition | fall 2005
FALL 2005
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- Steve Paris
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- Scott Coleman
- Erin Dethloff
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Dancing in Rhythm
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SCOTT COLEMAN:
'YOU CAN DO MORE THAN SCHOOL'
Hometown: Manhattan, Kan.
Major: Economics
Sport: Wrestling
When Brigham Young University dropped its wrestling program a year before Scott Coleman was slated to graduate, it became decision time: stay and finish up, or transfer somewhere he could continue to wrestle while pursuing an advanced degree.
Coleman, who says his first priority in choosing a school has always been academics, decided he
wasn’t quite ready to give up wrestling. “School
has always been the priority,” he says, “but you
can do more than school if you’re really organized.”
Enter Iowa State – perhaps the “really organized”
Coleman’s perfect match. Not only was the academic program stellar, but it was also likely the finest wrestling program in the country. A native
Midwesterner, Coleman jumped at the chance to
come to ISU and keep his wrestling career alive at
a place where his family could come watch every
meet while he worked toward a master’s degree in
economics. “I could have gone to one of the other
Big 12 schools,” he said, “but I didn’t feel like my
degree would be worth as much.”
Coleman, who defended his thesis last summer after advancing to the ncaa championship quarterfinals at heavyweight last spring, now has both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from ISU and is starting his career in the thriving homebuilding industry in Phoenix, Ariz.
So how does being a wrestler pursuing an undergraduate degree compare to being a wrestler
working on a master’s?
“Graduate school is harder,” Coleman says. “I think the biggest difference is that in grad school you have only the best students, so the teachers require more. and there aren’t a lot of filler assignments; it’s usually just two tests and a paper with no ‘busy work.’ it requires you to put in a lot more time, so i found it really challenging.”
Coleman credits his family (especially his wife, Ali, who played soccer for the Cyclones), the wrestling coaches, and ISU wrestling fans for his classroom successes.
“[Head coach] Bobby Douglas stresses, more than any coach I’ve seen, the value of education
and graduate degrees,” Coleman says. “The fans
and boosters would always ask me how school
was going when they came up to shake my hand.
I’ve always appreciated that Iowa State recruited
student-athletes and not just athletes. It seemed
like everyone cared about me more personally than
[they cared] about how I did on the mat.”
Coleman says the things he has learned through
the experience of being a student-athlete are things
that will stay with him. “It’s juggling six balls at the
same time,” he says. “you learn things like focusing
in different directions, maintaining different interests, and not getting distracted by the social scene. I think it shows quite a bit of maturity to have gone through it.”