Whaylon Coleman played basketball at Idaho from 1955-59. He led the team to a 17-9 record as a junior and helped the Vandals to a fourth-place finish in the Pacific Coast Conference with victories over every other PCC foe, which included USC, Stanford, UCLA, Cal and Oregon, as well as a season sweep of border rival Washington State.
That season, Coleman was second on the team in scoring and led the team with a .424 field goal percentage by making 72-of-170 shots. At the end of the season, his teammates honored him by voting him as the Jay Gano Award winner, the award given to the player voted most inspirational by the team. His senior year in 1958-59, Coleman led the Vandal men with a 12.3 points-per-game scoring average after dropping 319 points in 26 games. He also led the team with a .431 field goal percentage on 118-of-274 shooting and a .724 free throw percentage. For his career, he scored 806 points.