ST. LOUIS — Former Vashon High basketball coach and Mid-Missouri basketball legend Ron Coleman passed away on Christmas Eve after a long battle with ALS. He was 76.
Coleman was the head coach at Vashon in 1971 and went on to become the head coach at Saint Louis University during the 1978 season. He spent most of his career at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, where he was the head basketball coach and athletic director from 1980 to 1991.
Coleman was the head coach of a great Vashon basketball team in 1971 that won the Missouri Class L state championship. His short tenure at Vashon came in between the iconic coaching careers of two legendary head coaches at Vashon in Jodie Bailey and Floyd Irons. That 1971 state championship was the first in what was to become one of the great high school championship dynasties in the state of Missouri. Coleman was just four years removed from a standout collegiate basketball career at the University of Missouri when he took over the Vashon program. The 1971 team included great Public High League players such as Jimmy Clark, Roscoe Simmons and Ronald Turner.
To learn more about Coleman's career at the University of Missouri, you can visit the St. Louis American's website by clicking here.