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From Ivy League to Arena League

May 20, 2014 - Arena Football League (AFL)
Portland Thunder News Release


PORTLAND, OR - "They say after Harvard, you can get a job doing whatever you want to do - this is what I want to do," said the Portland Thunder's new center as waited for his luggage from the baggage carousel in Portland.

John Collins, a Massachusetts native who was a government major at Harvard, is chasing the dream so many football players are - the opportunity to make a living playing football.

Unlike many NFL players and even a few of his teammates, who realized in their teenage years that football could afford them opportunities to better their lives and picked up the game, Collins has loved it from early childhood. He's been playing offensive and defensive line positions since age six.

"I was always a really big kid - really heavy. When I was six, I actually had to lose 10 pounds to play. When I was younger, I used to play twice a weekend. On Saturdays, I'd play with kids my age, and I'd play up with the older kids on Sundays," Collins said.

Like the other players, football helped open doors that wouldn't have been available to him otherwise. At Harvard, he lettered in football, lacrosse, and wrestling. He helped anchor an offensive line that helped the team to the Ivy League title in 2012, graduated in 2013, and found himself working out with another successful franchise - the Seattle Seahawks.

After being released, he returned to the east coast, where he worked at a law firm in a regular 9-to-5 job. He'd sneak out on weekends and try out for teams every once in a while, mostly sticking to Canadian Football League squads.

"I wasn't on the path I wanted to be on, so I started going to more and more tryouts and remembering that I love to play football," Collins said.

Just over a week ago, the dream seemed to be over. After a tryout with the Canadian Football League's Winnipeg Blue Bombers didn't end in a contract, the proverbial cleats were hung on the wall. It was time to fall back on his education and begin a long career of office work.

"When I got released from the Blue Bombers, I thought I was going to be hanging up the cleats," said Collins. "I stopped training for a week, relaxed...then I got the call. I flew out here on a couple days' notice."

Head Coach Matthew Sauk and offensive line coach Clay Harrell had been searching for a center - while they had talented offensive linemen, the players they had were much better suited to playing on the edges of the line.

So, with less than a week of practice under his belt and a week removed from thinking he was done playing football, Collins became the Thunder's starting center.

"After the first day, we understood that the was a guy that we wanted on our team," said Sauk. "[Against San Jose], John played absolutely fantastic against one of the best nose guards in the league."

Collins, for his part, felt the game was a good starting point.

"I didn't know what to expect - I hadn't really looked at the AFL before," said Collins. "I just tried to relax and not overthink things."

His time with the Thunder marks his first time in Portland, where he's identified a couple of things he'd like to do. One is to get to the top of the state by going up Mount Hood.

The other, of course, is helping the Thunder reach the top of the Arena Football League.

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