Chad Coleman has no shortage of icebreakers to talk about at his office at Goshen College. He was interim athletic director for the Maple Leafs for the past 10 months. Photo by Nathan Pace.

By Nathan Pace
InkFreeNews

When you visit the office of Chad Coleman at Goshen College, it’s easy to find something to talk about. He has a collection of “Star Wars,” “Game of Thrones” and sports memorabilia on display and they always lead to conversation.

“I try to make my office, since I spend so much time here, feel like home. My wife would never let me have all that stuff in the house. I surround myself with things that have brought me joy at some point in my life,” Coleman said, “They are also just fantastic conversation starters. You instantly have icebreakers.”

Coleman became the interim athletic director for the Maple Leafs this past September. He took over when former athletic director, Erica Albertin, switched to a different role as the Goshen College Associate Director of Athletic Health and Wellness. Coleman has held multiple roles at Goshen College going back to 2002, but wanted to keep a foot in the door for sports.

“If I wasn’t going to be an athlete my dream was to work in sports. I always eyed a way to get back to it,” Coleman said.

Coleman became the associate athletic director in 2023, but admits it was a challenge when he became the athletic director.

“I kind of had to just learn as I went. Erica, when she left, helped me get logged in to certain things,” Coleman said. “Get connected to the NAIA, connected to the Crossroads League. She’s been instrumental. Some of that stuff came at me really fast. The first two months were really challenging.”

Going to games and solving problems as they came up every season was a big time commitment for Coleman, but he feels he settled into the role.

“Just being present at the games. Reason why you might not want to do the job is, ‘oh, that’s a lot of games, a lot of appearances to make.’ Once I was in the role I wanted to be there. It didn’t feel like work,” Coleman said. “Just like watching your favorite team play on TV, yeah, I want to watch it. They became my favorite teams.”

Dwight Gingerich, the new men’s basketball coach, will take over the athletic director position on July 1. Coleman said he is excited to work with him as shifts back to associate athletic director.

“My experience in the past year is going to help Dwight in the way Erica was able to help me,” Coleman said. “At the same time, the experience that he will bring to Goshen I can probably learn from. I think that will be a nice mutual learning experience. We have not been as equipped, at least not in 20 years, in athletics administratively as we will be next year. It’s like in the NFL when you have the head coach and two assistants who have been head coaches before.”

Coleman is alumnus of Northridge High School and has degrees from Indiana University Bloomington and Gonzaga University. He married his wife, Caren, in 2008 and they share a daughter named Claire.

In the next few years Coleman would like to see Goshen College improve their athletic facilities to be on par with their rival schools in the Crossroads League.

“Our facilities are not at the same level that our Crossroads competition is. We were 20 years ago,” Coleman said. “Those schools invested in athletics and now it’s our turn.”