Hall of Fame
Chris Donaldson was a two-sport star at Coe, selected as the most valuable member of both the Kohawk wrestling and men's soccer teams while earning four letters in each sport. On the mat, he was a three-time Midwest Conference champion at 134 lbs. as a sophomore and 142 lbs. as a junior and senior. Conference coaches voted him the most valuable wrestler his senior year, when he was a Division III all-American with a sixth-place performance at the national meet in Wheaton, Ill. A co-captain under Coach Barron Bremner, Chris led the team with 65 takedowns. As a teammate, I remember Chris as the hardest-working guy in the practice room. That's saying something when you realize this team ran as a group after practice. Chris also played soccer for four years and was team captain his junior and senior years. He was named the team's most valuable player his junior year. Bremner remembers Chris as "coachable, competitive and dependable.” Because he played soccer, he always showed up for wrestling in top physical condition. After graduation, Donaldson coached the men's soccer team for two years. He then became a ski bum for a while and then spent some time backpacking in Europe. Chris has never strayed far from athletics, as he ran in the New York City Marathon in 1981 and was a certified soccer referee for many years In 1986, he began a career as a commercial real estate appraiser in Dallas. Receiving his MAI designation from the Appraisal Institute in 1991, he moved to Park City, Utah, and started his own appraisal business. Among his civic contributions, Donaldson volunteered as a distance marker on the ski jumps at the 2002 Winter Olympics. He also serves on the city's Open Space Advisory Committee and remains an avid skier. For his outstanding contributions to Coe College athletics, we are privileged to welcome Christopher Donaldson to the Athletic Hall of Fame.
