Kendall Coleman relieves stress and fulfills his creative passion by writing poetry
By Matthew Gutierrez senior staff writer
Kendall Coleman is Syracuse’s 6-foot3, 265-pound defensive end. He’s also a poet.
Sometimes, he throws his headphones on and listens to Kendrick Lamar or J. Cole for inspiration. He fills blank spots in their songs with his own words and studies how their pacing, word choice, rhythm and overall story arc work together. Other times, inspiration hits him when he’s sitting in class, walking around campus or on the team plane. His ideas could develop in a matter of minutes or hours, depending on the day.
“This” is Coleman’s love for poetry: Specifically, the process of creating art and capturing scenes. Dozens of poems sit in the notes app in his iPhone. Nobody but Coleman reads them. He will begin his third year as a likely starter on the Syracuse defensive line this fall, but he uses poetry as a means to free himself from feeling boxed in by perceptions about who a football player is supposed to be.
I want to make sure the world knows me as more than Kendall Coleman, No. 55
kendall coleman syracuse football defensive lineman
“I’ll be sitting on campus and I see the sunset setting over the (David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics) in the back of campus. ‘Like wow, that’s a neat sight.’ I’ll write about it. This happens whenever, wherever.”
An Indianapolis native, Coleman tied for second among defensive linemen for the Orange with 28 tackles last season, and he started 11 games as a freshman in 2016. About two years ago, in his first year at SU, he started jotting down poems regularly as a means to be creative, fulfill a passion and de-stress. He has written poems about love, transformation and SU’s Remembrance Week. He has performed twice in front of audiences on the SU campus despite not having taken a poetry class in his life.
“Words are very powerful,” Coleman said. “When people use words in the right way, it can control a lot of different emotions and perspectives. Instead of just writing to write, I try to capture beautiful moments around campus, because it’s about being more than a football player. I want to make sure the world knows me as more than Kendall Coleman, No. 55.”
“Poetry helps a lot to not only internalize what I’ve got going on, but actually get it out there, get it on paper, and be able to accept it for what it is and move forward from there,” Coleman said. “Poems take me on a mental adventure.”
Poetry is a refuge for the brain — reading poems can help the brain cope with turmoil, according to a study by the University of California. Poetry is quiet. Sports, especially football, are loud and physical. That’s why Coleman finds peace in his notes app, typing away feelings or describing scenes.
In October, in front of about 40 people at Schine Student Center, Coleman walked up on stage and performed a poem in honor of the families of those who lost loved ones in Pan Am Flight 103. He entitled it, “Remember me?”
see coleman page 4
Do you remember me?
Remember all the places I told you I wanted to see?
Remember I had all these aspirations of things I wanted to be?
Remember how much I used to care? And all the love I used to share
Hoping my love would travel around the world like waves in the sea?
Understand that these people are just like you and me.
Understand that they are more than just a memory
Whose souls will never ask “do you remember me?”
Afterward, Coleman met up with former Syracuse tight end and fellow poet Cameron MacPherson, a 2016 Remembrance Scholar. MacPherson performed a poem in honor of Thomas Schultz, whom he represented for the week.
“What are you doing here? You’re a poet?” MacPherson recalls asking Coleman.
“I was kind of blown away,” MacPherson said later.
Coleman wrote up the eight-line piece and performed it because, a few days earlier, Remembrance Scholars had visited one of his classes and explained the gravity of the event. Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Thirty-five SU students on the flight who were returning to the United States from studies abroad were killed. Coleman felt inspired to utilize his talent and create a tribute for them.
That wasn’t Coleman’s first performance. Last spring, Hernz Laguerre, another former Syracuse football player, needed a favor. His friend in a sorority was asking for men to perform in a pageant. Laguerre knew Coleman was a “stand-out individual,” so he asked him if he would get on stage for a few minutes. Because it was for charity, and Coleman wanted to do his friend a favor, he signed up.
He decided the topic of his poem would be a friend, Leah, which means “Lemon tree” in Greek. He wrote about the beauty of her name, tying in a lemon tree as a figure. He said he felt comfortable despite being the only freshman to perform among a group of all juniors and seniors. After the performance, a member of the audience walked up to him and said the tone
reminded him of J. Cole, one of Coleman’s sources for inspiration.
“I was nervous,” Coleman said. “The spotlight shines in your face, but I got a good feel, got into my rhythm and went about how I wanted it to go.”
Coleman rereads his own work to familiarize himself with where his thoughts were, who he was and how he has grown since he wrote a poem. When he started writing, he wanted everything to rhyme. Now, he just focuses on telling a story and understands that not all lines have to rhyme. They just have to be in the right spot.
I am lost ...but that’s okay I have lost my money I have lost my car I have lost my relationships ...but that’s okay I have lost my happiness I have lost my anger I have lost my sadness ...but that’s okay I have lost my will I have lost my motivation I have lost my spirit ...but that’s okay It was never mine to hold onto anyway
What set Coleman on his quest for his hobby wasn’t a love for poetry or being called a bookworm for hunkering down in a library reading books and short stories. What sparked his love was an elementary school literary assignment, when he was assigned a report on a poet. Coleman and his mother, Nikki, drove to a local library and found a poem by Langston Hughes, “Mother to Son.” It told story of life struggles, how a mother worked hard and “how she passed the torch to her son.”
“The message there is, ‘You have to keep pushing forward,’” Coleman said. “That one has stuck with me for a long time now. When I see my mom, or hear her voice, I know she’s there and what she did in helping me get where I am.”
In seventh grade, Coleman waited until the last minute to finish a writing assignment. But he whipped up a few lines of poetry and “the words just started flowing.” It wasn’t until his senior year of high school that he picked up poetry for real, again thanks to a school assignment. The words came naturally to him, a sign that poetry could be worth pursuing. He said last week that he’d love to involve poetry in his career. But he won’t hang up or frame any of his work until he deems it good enough. He hasn’t yet.
mguti100@syr.edu | @Matthewgut21
Chris Slayton, inspired by his stepfather to play football, has grown into a leader on Syracuse’s defensive line
By Charlie DiSturco senior staff writer
Chris Slayton didn’t want to play football before high school.
But he was big and his stepdad, Lem Slaughter, knew Slayton had potential. So he pushed him to pick up the sport freshman year.
“(Football was) all I knew,” Slaughter said. “So I got all my boys into football.”
When he stepped on the field, Slayton, who really never played sports competitively before, asked to play quarterback. He had played catch with Slaughter all his life. Throwing a football around the yard was really all Slayton knew about the game.
Seeing Slayton’s massive frame, coaches rejected that idea. They placed him on the defensive line. When the season began, Slayton didn’t like the sport, he said. It confused him.
“I wanted to quit,” Slayton said, “but my mom told me I couldn’t. (She) saw it in me.”
Two years after asking to play quarterback, Slayton lined up on the starting defensive line at Crete-Monee (Illinois) High School. It was then Slayton realized the possibility of playing at the next level.
Slayton lived in the gym and worked to become a “student of the game,” he said. The college offers poured in and Slayton decided on Syracuse. He now enters his redshirt senior year as the team’s active leader in career games played, tackles for loss, sacks and forced fumbles.
But that progression into SU’s star defender wouldn’t have happened without his stepdad.
Slaughter said it was a shock when, starting Slayton’s junior year, the high schooler was on the starting lineup.
“… He went way beyond our expectations,” Slaughter said.
That season set the stage for Slayton’s path. For the first time, Slayton played with confidence. He knew his potential. Once he worked on his techniques and devoted more time to lifting weights, the rest followed suit.
He dropped basketball and dedicated all his attention to football. At 6-foot-4, Slayton knew he
couldn’t play power forward at the Division I level, Slaughter said. But his height would help him as a defensive lineman.
Slayton lead his high school team’s defensive unit. As the team blitzed through the season en route to a perfect 14-0 record, Slayton did the same on the defensive line. He finished the season with 61 tackles, nine sacks and three forced fumbles. He earned a spot on the all-conference team and was an all-state special mention. The team won the state championship.
When he arrived at SU in 2014, Slayton weighed 288 pounds, according to 247sports.com. He redshirted his first year before appearing in all 12 games with four starts in 2015. By 2016, his redshirt sophomore year, he was a full-time starter.
The key, Slayton said, was focusing more on technique. He used a shiver board, a pad that helps teach proper footwork and better blow delivery. The board simulates what it’s like to face an offensive lineman, and Slayton worked on his “punch” to help push back and get by opponents.
“Just wanting to become a better football player all-around,” Slayton said. “Better leader, technician, all those things.”
finished second on SU with 8.5 tackles for loss in 2017 and knocked Clemson quarterback Kelly Bryant out of the game in an eventual upset win over the No. 2 Tigers.
After SU’s win over Clemson, head coach Dino Babers referred to Slayton as simply “three technique,” the position where he lines up on the defensive line on the outside shoulder of the guard because Slayton excels so much in that spot.
Chris Slayton can squat 700 pounds, which is roughly equivalent to:
• 2,600 hamsters
• 750 footballs
• 250 human brains
• 45 bowling balls
• 2 panda bears
Since coming to SU, Slayton has added nearly 30 pounds and his workout numbers have skyrocketed. Former Syracuse defensive coordinator Chuck Bullough told The Daily Orange last year that Slayton was one of the strongest players on the team.
Slayton estimates that he now squats 700 pounds, more than twice his weight, and can bench more than 400.
Adding that extra strength helps Slayton beat offensive linemen, he said, especially if the opponent didn’t use good technique off the snap. His stats correspond to his increase in strength. He
Slayton’s parents refer to him as a quiet, confident player. He has that “competitive edge in him,” Slaughter said, one that doesn’t die off until way after the game has ended. During high school games, Slaughter joked, Slayton would run off the field and straight into the locker room rather than stopping by the stands to say hello to his parents.
But that competitive edge has led to Babers saying Slayton is a future NFL player. Throughout last season and into 2018, Babers has hyped up his star defensive lineman.
“Slayton is an M and an N with an A in the middle,” Babers said this past week. “He’s the real deal.”
Without Parris Bennett and Zaire Franklin in Syracuse’s front seven, Slayton is the new leader of the defense. Shortly after last season ended — a season without a bowl game appearance — Slayton said the graduating seniors told him it was his time to “run the show.”
Nine years ago, when Slayton first picked up football, heading a Division-I defense seemed like something that would never happen.
Now that quiet kid who wanted to play quarterback is the anchor on a Syracuse defense. And his name has circulated around the NFL Draft. All because his parents pushed him to never quit.
csdistur@syr.edu | @charliedisturco
Syracuse returns several players on offense. The four players featured — Neal, Riley, Dungey and Strickland — should be taking on, or returning to, key roles in 2018.
sophomore running back ht: 5’11” wt: 187 lbs rushing yards 845 total touchdowns
average yards per carry 5.3
sophomore wide receiver ht: 5’8” wt: 151 lbs receiving yards 234 total touchdowns
average yards per reception
By Andrew Graham sports editor
Scoop Bradshaw hurtled down the left sideline. His objective was simple: Stop the kick returner.
Syracuse had taken a 14-7 lead late in the first quarter against then-No. 2 Clemson in the Carrier Dome, but Clemson’s Travis Etienne received the kickoff and burst up the middle. He crossed the 20-yard line and was met from the right by Bradshaw, who threw his body in front of Etienne, sending him tumbling to the ground before he even crossed the 30.
“I was thinking real fast and dove at him and tried to wrap around him,” Bradshaw said. “When I wrapped around him, I didn’t even feel the pop in my bone. When I landed on the turf and stopped, that’s when I felt the pain. I just looked at it, and oh, something ain’t right.
“That’s the worst injury I’ve ever had.”
Bradshaw, a native of Tampa, Florida, had his family in the stands. They went to watch Bradshaw on the field, but instead offered him the support he needed, he said.
Syracuse had a bye week after playing Miami, but was back in Florida the week after for a showdown with Florida State in Tallahassee. Bradshaw knew his family was going to be at that game, too, and made sure to do everything in his power to play. He worked extensively with SU’s training staff and established that, so long as he could play effectively through the pain, he was cleared. But the injury was a constant source of pain. Bradshaw was taking generic pain medication such as ibuprofen, he said, but nothing helped.
It hurt most when he played football.
That pain was different … you don’t want to feel it.
Cradling his right arm, Bradshaw stayed down. He said medical staff surrounded him and, after a litany of X-rays and MRIs, came the diagnosis: Bradshaw had dislocated his right elbow.
Scoop Bradshaw su cornerback
Despite the injury, Bradshaw only missed one game of the 2017 season post-injury. After finishing last season on one good arm, Bradshaw is back to his old self and is ready to lean on last season’s experience to help lead a young and thin group of defensive backs.
“Right now my arm is stronger, better,” Bradshaw said. “One hundred percent.”
As doctors attended to Bradshaw on the field, the first order of business was to reset his elbow. The medical staff attempted to put Bradshaw’s elbow back in place three separate times, he said, before yielding and taking him to the locker room. The injury caused his hand to swell up, too. The pain was incomparable to anything he has ever felt, he said.
“It was hard for me to even sleep at night,” Bradshaw said. He paused. “That pain was different … you don’t want to feel it.”
For a while, it seemed SU was without a starting cornerback. The next weekend in Miami, Bradshaw watched from the sidelines helplessly as Syracuse dropped a close game to a then-Top 10 Hurricanes team.
“The pain was going to be there regardless,” Bradshaw said. So he had to play through it. If coaches and doctors were going to let Bradshaw play, he was going to play. At Florida State it was for his parents, he said. The rest of the way it was for his team. And it was for himself, too. He admitted he wasn’t as effective playing with one healthy arm, and the pain sometimes inhibited him from competing fully. But it was still experience. The 2017 season was Bradshaw’s first chance to make a splash at Syracuse as a starter, and if the injury wasn’t going to keep him off the field, he would be out there.
After the end of the season and a full regimen of spring practices, Bradshaw is feeling himself again. In what both cornerback Christopher Frederick and safety Evan Foster admitted is an inexperienced group of defensive backs, Bradshaw will be a steady hand, setting an example like he did last year.
“It sets a great tone,” Foster said. “It shows us that we can do anything through any type of pain.”
At the end of Syracuse’s practice on March 29, the defensive backs ran a drill that had them sprinting down the field like a wide receiver. A coach lofted a ball overhead, and it was the player’s job to acquire the target and snatch it out of the air.
When it was Bradshaw’s turn, he bobbled the ball slightly and it nearly bounced away from him, but he swung up his right arm and pinned it to his body, securing the catch.
There was no pain, no discomfort. Just a catch. aegraham@syr.edu | @A_E_Graham
Eric Dungey
Christopher Fredrick
Dontae Strickland
Devin C. Butler
Ravian Pierce
Antwan Cordy
Sterling Hofrichter
Sean Riley
Devon Clarke
Clayton Welch
Andrew Armstrong
Russell Thompson-Bishop
Tommy DeVito
Evan Foster
Rex Culpepper
Chance Amie
Carl Jones
Jamal Custis
Scoop Bradshaw
Donny Sanders
Andre Cisco
Tyler Gilfus
Cam Jonas
Moe Neal
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Abdul Adams
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Sean Onwualu
Tyrone Perkins
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Otto Zaccardo
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Allen Stritzinger
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Tim Walton
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Ifeatu Melifonwu
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Lakiem Williams
Matt Keller
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Austin Chandler
Kendall Coleman
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Cameron Jordan
Nykeim Johnson
Kevin Johnson Jr.
K.K. Hahn
Josh Black
Ben Brickman
Trishton Jackson
Sharod Johnson
Aaron Hackett
Cory Smigel
Zach Morton
Andre Szmyt
Nolan Cooney
Jeffrey Chan
Alton Robinson
Chris Slayton
Justin Ellis
Brandon Berry
McKinley Williams
Jake Pickard
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