James Alexander Coleman CM (October 30, 1911 – January 14, 2001) was a Canadian sports journalist, writer and press secretary.

He became Canada's first national print syndication sports columnist in 1950, writing for The Canadian Press and Southam Newspapers.

He also appeared as a radio sports commentator and hosted The Jim Coleman Show on CBC Television, and served as press secretary for the Ontario Jockey Club and Stampede Park in Calgary.

While travelling about North America to sporting events as a youth with his father, Coleman developed a lifelong love of horse racing, Canadian football and ice hockey.

Coleman was active for 70 years as a journalist, preferred to use a typewriter instead of a computer, wrote four books, and his final column was published on the day he died.

Fellow journalist Milt Dunnell felt that Coleman "was one of the finest sports writers in North America".

[1] The Canadian Press described Coleman as "known for his colourful writing, encyclopedic memory, dapper dress and ever-present cigar".

[7] Coleman and his brother travelled about Canada and the United States in the care of a train conductor or CPR official, and met their father often with a limousine to attend sporting events.

[2][5][11] One of Coleman's early assignments included reporting on the demonstration sport of curling at the 1932 Winter Olympics held in Lake Placid, New York.

[11] Coleman interviewed former world heavyweight champion boxer Jack Johnson in 1943, who was then 65 years old and the main attraction at a freak show in a travelling circus.

He has the legs of a hard-driving football player and the shoulders of a wrestler' and he possesses a calm detachment that belies the fact that he is an earnest and incisive thinker.

[11] He subsequently worked for The Canadian Press and Southam Newspapers, and became Canada's first national print syndication sports columnist in 1950.

[9][13] In his early years, he criticized the Ontario Jockey Club which did not allow entrants into the King's Plate from Quebec or Western Canada until 1944.

[3][9] Coleman wrote that while going to report on the 1974 Kentucky Derby, he had a mission to protect fellow journalist Milt Dunnell of the Toronto Star from pickpocketing.

[2] The summary of the celebration by Calgary Stampeders supporters at the Royal York Hotel after their team won the 36th Grey Cup in Toronto, was noted by fellow journalist Jim Taylor as one of Coleman's finest columns.

The gaudily caparisoned Calgary supporters were boisterous and noisy but well-behaved and courteously declined to ride their horses into the elevators.

Any minor untoward incidents were occasioned by youthful local yahoos who suffered from the delusion that the consumption of two pints of ale and the acquisition of a pseudo-western twang entitled them to ride the range astride any convenient chesterfield".Coleman was later a regular guest on radio half-time shows for Hamilton Tiger-Cats games, where he was introduced by the local colour commentator as the "Southam communist".

[7] The Chicago Black Hawks were supposedly "cursed to hoodoo until the end of time" by former head coach Pete Muldoon when he was terminated in 1927.

He was reported to prefer interviewing veteran players, and was quoted as saying to fellow journalists, "Don't fall in love with the flashy rookie at camp".

One the newspaperman who drank too much but who usually managed to complete his work; the other the escapist who spent much of his time in a dream world populated by horses, horsemen, gamblers, bookmakers, touts, stock hustlers and oddball sports promoters".

[5] Coleman was made a member of the Order of Canada on December 18, 1974, in recognition for "service as a sports columnist and broadcaster".

[26] The Canadian Press described Coleman as a "legendary sports columnist" and "known for his colourful writing, encyclopedic memory, dapper dress and ever-present cigar".