Always
Someone You Wanted on Your Team' November 16, 2001
Tarel Coleman's family knew when he was just a youngster that
he was destined to be a firefighter. Not content to witness a
fire from afar, little Tarel had to see one up close. "At 5 years
old, he stuck his head inside an incinerator to see a fire," said
his older
brother, John Coleman Jr. Tarel had his eyebrows singed and lost
some hair, but was otherwise unharmed. "That's when we basically
knew he was going to be a firefighter," his brother said. Tarel
Coleman grew up to be a sports-loving, hip-hop music-loving member
of Squad 252 in Bushwick. On Sept. 11, he died at the World Trade
Center. The father of a teenage girl, Coleman was 32. His brother
said he and Coleman did everything together while growing up in
Astoria and Rochdale Village. They were active children but never
strayed far from the watchful eye of their mother, Laurel, he
said. "We were inseparable, mostly because our mother wouldn't
let us go out without one another," he said. "He was very wild-eyed,
very fiery ... He was always someone you wanted on your team."
Coleman graduated from Springfield Gardens High School and took
the firefighters exam at age 18, though he wouldn't join the department
until several years later. In 1987, Coleman married Michelle Brown,
and they had a daughter, Danielle, now 13. They later divorced.
Coleman joined the fire department in 1993, fulfilling his lifelong
dream. He was an avid Giants and Knicks fan, played defensive
back for a fire department football team and played flag football
for a local club known as TNP (Take No Prisoners). His no-holds-barred
style of play earned Coleman the nickname "Prozac." He also played
softball for three teams, the X-Men and the Troublemakers of the
Bricktown Softball League, and the L.I. Hitmen of the Nassau-Suffolk
Softball Association, his brother said. Tarel used his remarkable
speed to become the "best outfielder there was," said John Coleman,
a member of Battalion 35 in Brooklyn, who followed his little
brother into the fire department. "He batted leadoff. He was a
switch hitter ... He literally ran a 4.3 in the 40 [-yard dash]."
Running wasn't the only thing Coleman could do with his feet.
"He really did love to dance," especially to hip-hop, R&B and
salsa music, John Coleman said. "He would not leave the dance
floor." Coleman also is survived by his father, John Coleman Sr.
of Rochdale Village; two stepbrothers, Melvin Jackson of Bryans
Road, Md., and Troy Jackson of Rochdale Village, and his fiancee,
Kilsi Ciprian of Rochdale Village. A memorial service will be
held tomorrow at 11 a.m. at Rochdale Village Community Center,
169-65 137th Ave., Rochdale Village. -- Carl MacGowan (Newsday)
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