Coleman runs over obstacles

The reporter approached Derrick Coleman from behind Friday night, but there was no response as he headed toward the team bus. His head was down. His thoughts, no doubt, lingering on his team’s 43-42 loss only minutes earlier.

It was only when the reporter moved in front of Coleman, where he could be seen, that the football player took notice.

Coleman, a starting fullback and linebacker for Fullerton Troy, wears a pair of waterproof hearing aids when he plays. “I sweat a lot,” he said.

Coleman lost most of his hearing by the time he was 5 years old. By 6, he wore hearing aids in both ears.

“A weak gene,” he said his parents told him. But there is nothing weak about Coleman’s prowess on the football field.

The senior is a UCLA-bound touchdown machine who seems to have everything but credibility -- at least in some people’s eyes.

“If he was on a Pac-5 team, he’d be a weapon,” says his coach, Jim Burton, referring to the Southern Section’s strongest division. “They’d get him the ball as often as they could. He’s a force. People in Southern California would know who he is.”

Instead, Troy plays in the Southeast Division, and Coleman is the king of North Orange County.

In Friday’s loss to Garden Grove Pacifica, Coleman experienced the emotional extremes of high school sports. After Pacifica receiver Tyler Ortiz was knocked wonky by a Troy defender and fumbled at the 15-yard-line while headed for a score, the Warriors celebrated their apparent 42-36 victory. But instead of joining his jubilant teammates, Coleman walked over to Ortiz to check his condition, offering his hand to help him get up.

In a cruel twist, 27 seconds later on the game clock, Coleman was stripped of the ball. Seconds later, Pacifica scored and Ortiz ran in the go-ahead two-point conversion with 21 seconds left to play.

Coleman had rushed for 194 yards and five touchdowns, but walked away feeling he had lost the game for his team.

“Everyone makes mistakes, you can’t do anything about that,” said Josh Swaney, a 6-foot-4 receiver, as he fought back tears of defeat. “If it’s fourth-and-one, and we’ve got to get it, we hand the ball to Derrick. He’s our clutch player. We have other weapons, but he’s our guy.”

Coleman’s redemption could come Friday, when Troy (4-1) plays at La Habra (5-0) in a Freeway League opener that will probably determine the league champion. Last year, Troy scored the final 21 points -- Coleman scored the last touchdown -- and won, 42-38.

Those who watch him every day or have to prepare to face him rave about Coleman’s strength and power. “You’re not going to arm-tackle him no matter who you are,” Burton said.

Rivals.com, a scouting service, ranks Coleman the No. 3 fullback prospect in the nation and No. 1 in California. In Troy’s wing-T offense, he essentially operates as a tailback. Last season, he averaged 11.1 yards a carry and 188.9 a game. He had 38 touchdowns, and Troy won its first 12 games before losing in a section semifinal.

Through five games this season, Coleman has gained 947 yards and scored 18 touchdowns.

He also carries a 2.9 grade-point average at a school known for its academics.

Despite all this, Coleman often thinks about UCLA’s other top recruits, Aundre Dean of Katy, Texas, who is rated the No. 12 tailback in the country, and Milton Knox of Lake Balboa Birmingham, who is No. 16.

“I do wonder if I’m really that good,” Coleman said. “I’m looking at the highlights of those guys, and they seem to be doing the same things I do. I’m wondering if it’s as easy, or if they’re better than me.”

Coleman has one definite advantage over those players: his size. He is 6 feet and 218 pounds, and plays bigger than Dean (6-1, 200), Knox (5-8, 192) and even Darrell Scott (6-0, 204) of Ventura St. Bonaventure, who is the No. 1 running back recruit in the nation.

“He’s a college-sized fullback right now playing high school ball,” said Greg Biggins, director of player personnel for StudentSports.com. “He could be an every-down back. He doesn’t play against the best competition, but his size and speed and physical nature all translates really well to college.”

Troy employs a platoon system, but Coleman starts on both sides of the ball. He lives in the weight room, can clean-and-jerk 295 pounds and bench-press 310. He has great upside, and says his hearing loss hasn’t interfered with his sports.

“He has a definite impairment,” Burton said, “but I don’t think he’s ever jumped offside or missed a cue, and it’s easy to communicate with him.”

By the end of his freshman season, Coleman thought college ball was a possibility if he continued to improve. That was important, because his father and mother, Derrick Williams Sr., and May Evans, had impressed on him the importance of secondary education and being able to provide for one’s self.

In his sophomore season, against La Habra’s varsity, he said he had a gut check that solidified his aim.

“They were killing me, they even knocked me out of the game,” Coleman said of the Highlanders, who won, 45-24. “Nobody had hit me as hard as they did. I did not like it at all.

“ ‘Do I want to continue in the sport, or get better and better and be on par with them?’ ”

He decided at halftime, he said. He finished that game with 178 yards and a touchdown.

And he hasn’t looked back.

martin.henderson@latimes.com