9601130942
DETROIT FREE PRESS
960425
Thursday, April 25, 1996
METRO FINAL
1D
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1996, Detroit Free Press
COLLINS DRIVES HIMSELF, HIS TEAM WITH PASSION
So many voices inside Doug Collins' head, like an army of transistor radios
all playing at once. There is the voice of his mother, urging him to succeed,
and the voice of his father, stricken with lung cancer, saying, "Doug . . . I
don't want to die."
There are voices of his two grown children, whom he adores, and voices of
players, coaches, friends, philosophers -- all these voices, snapping sparks
in his brain, making him run, then stopping him in his tracks.
If you wondered why Doug Collins is so frantic on the outside, you should
see what's going on inside.
"Sometimes, after games," Collins says, sitting in his office one morning
this week, "I go home and I stare at the TV for hours -- and I don't hear a
thing they say."
Of course not. He's got his own soundtrack going.
But haunted men often make the best motivators. And what Collins can do with
a basketball team is obvious. Just look at these Detroit Pistons, who enter
the playoffs Friday night for the first time in four seasons. Where once they
were losers, they now are winners. Where once they were listless, they now
have backbone and heart. Collins is the difference.
He took a pillow of a team, and made it a rock.
Under house arrest
Yet the voices still carry, and they ask whether he can be better, can he
be the best? This is Collins' first year back in the NBA war since his
surprise 1989 firing by the Chicago Bulls. The league has changed in six
years, he admits, it takes much more out of you now. "I love the game," he
says, "but I don't always love coaching."
He also calls winning "a relief."
If this is not what you expected, well, what did you expect? Think about
it. What does Detroit really know of Collins, 44, except for TV sound bites,
and his sweaty soliloquies on the Palace sidelines -- "COME ON TERRY, WILL
YOU PLEASE REBOUND? . . . MARK! MARK! ROTATE! . . ."
Other than that, you don't hear Doug Collins, you don't see him, not at
restaurants, not at speeches or social affairs. The man once accused of
running too fast as coach of the Bulls is now virtually a house potato as
coach of the Pistons.
"I don't go out," he says. "I love people. And I wish I could enjoy them
more. But they won't let me."
Why not?
"Because everyone out there thinks he's a coach."
So Collins, whose wife lives out of town, stays at home, stares into the
campfire of the TV set. He is smart enough to know the danger of isolation,
yet cocky enough to think he can beat it. He is torn between the need to be a
whole person, and the success that comes with being an obsessed one. As he
talks, he pushes a hand through his hair, puts his feet on the desk, takes
them off, pushes his hair back again. He face looks tired, and in his eyes you
see the pleading look of a boy who just slid into second base and is checking
to see whether he is safe.
Is this a happy man?
Close but no cigar
Well, he is when things go right. When the seeds he plants take root and
sprout. When Allan Houston goes from shooter to complete player, when Terry
Mills goes from bad attitude to good attitude, when Grant Hill blossoms, when
Joe Dumars says thank you, Doug, for getting me back to the playoffs.
Then he feels good. Collins must be devoted to something to give it his
time, love and energy, but once he does, he engulfs it. He employed the
tough-love approach with these Pistons -- chewing them out, then giving them
a hug -- and now he adores them. "Do you know how lucky I am to be with you
guys?" he sometimes says.
But there is always more to do in the binocular world of Doug Collins. He
has a gushing mind, and a concrete will. Sometimes he rides the exercise bike
for hours. He never gets bored because "the competition keeps me interested."
Competition? Against an exercise bike?
Well, understand. This is a son of a county sheriff, a kid who wore a crew
cut, held two jobs in eighth grade, studied until the pages were memorized and
practiced basketball until his hands were callused. "Driven" is too weak a
word for Collins. Driven to what?
To everything, it seems. To be the best father, the best coach, the best
analyst. There is a moment that seems to encapsulate the whole thing. Back in
the 1972 Olympics, the final seconds of the infamous gold medal game against
Russia. Collins, one of America's stars, drove for the winning basket and was
slammed into the basket support. He got up wobbly, his knees rubber. An
assistant coach yelled for a sub to shoot the free throws. But the head coach,
the legendary Hank Iba, waved him off. "If Doug can walk, he's going to shoot
those free throws."
Collins was so inspired that, despite his dizziness, he sank both. This is
his life's pattern: A drive so strong it will crash him into a wall, a heart
so strong it will finish the job anyhow.
Until now, his desire has gone uncrowned. No Olympic gold, no NBA rings.
Friday night, he starts trying again. He is the most complex coach the Pistons
have ever had. He could be rocket fuel to a championship, or a guy who
suddenly announces that his heart is burning up and he's leaving.
This much is clear. He has the Pistons playing better than anyone thought
they could. All these voices in his head, some say stop, some say go, some
say remember the outside world, some say there is only this world, the hoop,
the ball. The little boy inside Doug Collins checks the ump to see whether he
is safe, but sometimes, there is no call, he just keeps running and running
and hoping for the best.
THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED ARTICLE.
PISTONS; DOUG COLLINS; COLUMN