Inducted in 1996
Financial Services Executive
Member, Prep Board of Trustees (1982-1988)

Charismatic: the word used by Agnes Coleman, née Lyons, to describe her husband, Frank, a generous benefactor of Fordham Prep, whose efforts ensured that Fordham Prep would remain a vibrant force in Catholic Jesuit education.

Born in 1930 to Francis Coleman Sr. and Ceclia Campion Coleman, an insurance agent and a homemaker, Francis Coleman, Jr. attended St. Gabriel’s School in Elmhurst before entering Fordham Prep in the fall of 1945. As Frank would often say, he loved every aspect of his experience at Rose Hill, even walking the jug line, which he apparently did quite often.  Jug, of course, is how detention has been known at Jesuit schools for centuries. In the words of his wife, Agnes, Frank was a “well-rounded prankster.” Given Coleman's jug record, Fr. Arthur Shea, fellow Hall of inductee and prefect of discipline in Coleman's day, would have agreed with this estimation!

He lived on 93rd Street in Jackson Heights, Queens and endured a long daily train ride twice a day to and from the school. It seems that Frank got most of his homework done while traveling, making the trip to the school he loved so much all the more worthwhile. He certainly never let his commute interfere with his participation in the life of the Prep. During his Hughes Hall years, Frank managed track and cross country, played football, was active in the Sodalities and the Knights of the Blessed Sacrament, and even found time to be a member of the German Club under the moderatorship of yet another fellow Hall of Honor inductee “Herr Professor Hanish.”  German Club, of course, was a nod to his heritage: his mother and her family spoke Deutsch fluently. 

After Coleman graduated from the Prep, he attended Manhattan College for two years. He had a strong interest in biology, but his time at that school came to an abrupt end when he got into a debate about a scientific point with a faculty member, and was advised he was no longer welcome there. It was this “funny, but also not funny” incident that led to his transfer to New York University, as recounted by his wife.

Frank started work at Goldman Sachs in 1955; he became general partner in 1976 and limited partner in 1986. He served on Fordham Prep’s Board of Trustees, as well as on that of Friends Academy in Locust Valley, Long Island. His generosity to the Prep and his dedication to its mission are legendary. In recognition of his service to the school, he was awarded the Hans Abplanalp Alumnus of the Year Award in 1993. Along with Mario Gabelli and Maurice Cunniffe, he was inducted into the Hall of Honor on June 2, 1996.

In the words of Agnes Coleman, "Frank worked tirelessly for all of his adult life both at his business, as well for those institutions, such as Fordham Prep, which were dear to him." With a smile she added that Frank did not get to start playing golf until he retired, and so, she had had a considerable head start on him.

The Colemans had five children: Janice, Ellen, Denys, Francis III and Neil, and were the grandparents of eleven.  

Francis X. Coleman passed away in 2009.