Inside The Huskies

Abandoned as Child, Nebraska Teen Has 16 Football Offers, Including UW

Wide receiver Malachi Coleman has overcome a worrisome childhood to become a touted recruit.

Dan Raley

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Malachi Coleman calls Lincoln, Nebraska, home, but he hasn't alway been clear about his living arrangements.

He was born in South Dakota, lived in Missouri when his sister Nevaeh was born and went into foster care with her in Nebraska. They lived out of a car at times. 

His father died when he was young. His mother dropped him and his sibling off at a friend's house and never returned. 

“She said she’d be back,” he told the Omaha World-Herald. “I haven’t seen her since that day.”

Adopted by the Coleman family in 2015, he took their last name and has felt wanted ever since. 

Even more so on Sunday, when the University of Washington offered him a football scholarship, his 16th overall. 

Coleman has gone from a child unsure of his future to a teen overly excited about the months and days ahead. 

He's a 6-foot-5, 180-pound wide receiver and edge rusher from Lincoln East High School and the Class of 2023 who's considered a 4-star recruit. Besides the Huskies, Georgia, Maryland, Nebraska, Louisville, Kansas State, Kansas and Iowa have made scholarship proposals to him. 

He comes off a junior season in which he caught 17 passes for 561 yards and 10 touchdowns, scoring on more than every other catch. Against Lincoln Northeast High, he pulled in 3 passes for 197 yards and 3 TDs, plus he picked up a sack on defense. 

The Huskies appear to want him as a pass-catcher, but he had 57 tackles, including 7.5 sacks, and forced 4 fumbles, broke up 5 passes and blocked a punt this past fall.

Coleman has great speed to go with that gangly size of his, making him an intriguing prospect on either side of the ball.  

All it took was for that Coleman family in Nebraska to step up and show that it cared about him, thus enabling Malachi to demonstrate to the world that he was gifted and only temporarily unloved. 

“I looked at myself as nobody wanted me, they wanted to pass me on over and over again,” Coleman told the World-Herald. “This family decided to stick with me. They saw I was a struggling kid and I deserved a family that loved me. And when I saw that I had that, and that I actually was loved, that’s when I started to change my perspective on things.”

The UW is happy to offer him a new home.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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