Coleman Regis "Coley" McDonough (October 10, 1915July 5, 1965) was a professional

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

. He played four seasons for the

Pittsburgh Steelers The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. Founded in , the Steel ...

and the

Chicago Cardinals The professional American football team now known as the Arizona Cardinals previously played in Chicago, Illinois, as the Chicago Cardinals from 1898 to 1959 before relocating to St. Louis, Missouri, for the 1960 through 1987 seasons. Roots ca ...

Formative years

A native of North Braddock, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, McDonough graduated from St. Thomas High School. In 1944, he also played for "

Card-Pitt Card-Pitt was the team created by the temporary merger of two National Football League (NFL) teams, the Chicago Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers, during the 1944 season. It was the second such merger for the Steelers, who had combined with ...

", a team that was the result of a temporary merger between the Cardinals and the Steelers. The teams' merger was result of the staffing shortages experienced league-wide due to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Six days before the team's second game of the season, McDonough was drafted into the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

Police career and death

Coley later became a

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

police officer, and served fifteen years with that department. Coley's badge number was 405. On July 5, 1965, he was shot and killed in the line of duty, when he and two other officers answered a domestic disturbance call. Leroy Scott, aged twenty-five, had gone to the Godfrey residence after midnight on July 5 to see his sixteen-year old girlfriend, Linda Godfrey, whom he had been barred from seeing. When her father, Aaron, intervened, an argument ensued and police were called to the scene. When police responded, Scott shot McDonough. Two other officers were injured. Aaron Godfrey was also killed, shot mistakenly by police. Scott fled and committed suicide in a nearby field. McDonough's son and namesake, Coleman McDonough, went on to serve as a lieutenant colonel with the

Pennsylvania State Police The Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) is the state police agency of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, responsible for statewide law enforcement. The Pennsylvania State Police is a full service law enforcement agency which handles both traffic and cr ...

(1983–2008) and later became chief of the Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania Police Department (2009–2015) and superintendent of the

Allegheny County Allegheny County () is a County (United States), county in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in Southwestern Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,250,578, making it the state's seco ...

Police Department (2016–2021).

References

External links

Profile
findagrave.com; accessed November 1, 2014 * {{DEFAULTSORT:McDonough, Coley 1915 births 1965 deaths People from North Braddock, Pennsylvania Players of American football from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania American football quarterbacks Pittsburgh Steelers players Chicago Cardinals players NC State Wolfpack football players United States Army personnel of World War II American police officers killed in the line of duty Deaths by firearm in Pennsylvania Card-Pitt players