Kenneth Robert Coleman was an American radio and television sportscaster for more than four decades.
17 Facts About Ken Coleman
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Ken Coleman was a pitcher on the North Quincy High School baseball team, and subsequently played in the semi-pro Park League.
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Ken Coleman called the play-by-play of the Rutland Royals of the Vermont Northern League, a summer collegiate baseball circuit akin to the Cape Cod League.
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Ken Coleman was a newscaster and a deejay on the station.
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Ken Coleman was hired by station WJDA in Quincy, where he worked as a sports reporter until 1951; he then worked for a year at WNEB in Worcester.
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Ken Coleman received critical praise for his college football play-by-play, which led to his big break: in 1952, he got the opportunity to broadcast for the NFL Cleveland Browns, calling play-by-play of every touchdown that Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown ever scored.
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Ken Coleman began his MLB broadcasting career, calling Cleveland Indians games on television for ten seasons.
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Ken Coleman called NFL games for NBC in the early 1970s, and later in his career called Connecticut and Fairfield basketball games for Connecticut Public Television.
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In 1966, Ken Coleman was named the lead play-by-play announcer for the Boston Red Sox on both radio and television, succeeding Curt Gowdy, who resigned after 15 years of calling Red Sox games to become the top play-by-play voice for NBC's Major League Baseball Game of the Week.
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Ken Coleman joined a broadcast team that included Ned Martin and color man Mel Parnell, and signed a three-year contract that paid him $40,000 per year.
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Ken Coleman was the "Voice of the Red Sox" on both WHDH-AM 850 and the original WHDH-TV for six seasons, through 1971.
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Ken Coleman remained in the Red Sox booth until his retirement in 1989.
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In 1972, Ken Coleman returned briefly to the NFL, rotating play-by-play duties with Stockton for New England Patriots' preseason games on WBZ-TV with no color commentators.
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Ken Coleman followed the routine of taking a swim in the Atlantic Ocean as often as he could through the late fall and into the earliest days of spring, until his death.
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Ken Coleman was the father of the late Cleveland sports and newscaster Casey Coleman, who died in 2006 from pancreatic cancer.
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Ken Coleman was inducted into the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame on May 18,2000 at the age of 75.
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Ken Coleman died three years later, aged 78, in Plymouth, Massachusetts, from complications of bacterial meningitis.