Collins Taking His Place Among New York Basketball Coaching Greats

In past years Tom Collins would either be marching in, or attending the state’s second-largest St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Pearl River.

He has done so ever since he was a student at Manhattan College in the 1960’s.

This Sunday, however, Collins has a prior engagement in upstate Glens Falls that prevents him from continuing the enviable streak.

Collins will be one of eleven individuals, including nine coaches, will be inducted into the NYS Basketball Hall of Fame, which is conducted by the Basketball Coaches Association of New York. 

The induction ceremony will take place during a brunch in Heritage Hall at the Glens Falls Civic Center during the Federation State Tournament.

“I’ll have to miss it (parade),” said Collins, the director of the CYO in Rockland County, and a longtime coach (400 victories, nine sectional titles) and an athletic director who served 42 years in that capacity with tenures at Albertus Magnus (1968-’92) and Pearl River (1992-2010).

Collins, who will turn 65 in October, said he actually has two reasons for not being able to savor the Pearl River festivities.

“My youngest daughter, Bridget, is getting married on Friday (Dominican Chapel in Sparkill). The reception is in New Jersey, so we’ll be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day Thursday and Friday, and then we’ll be upstate on Saturday,” explained Collins, the proud pop of two other daughters (Casey and Melissa) and a son Danny. His wife gets due recognition, too.

“I have to give credit to my wife, Sandy,” Collins was quoted in Catholic New York. “You don’t do what I did, coaching, for 43 years without having somebody back you up with support. And in my book, family comes first.”

Illustrious company

The Hall of Fame houses many legendary coaches, including such historic figures as Lou Carneseca and Joe Lapchick, St. John’s University; Jack Curran, Archbishop Molloy High School; Jack Donohue, Power Memorial HS; Nat Holman, CCNY; Red Holtzman, Knickerbockers; Jim McDermott, Iona College; Frank McGuire, St. John’s and North and South Carolina; Dave Powers, Nanuet HS; Ralph Arietta, Westchester Community College; Clair Bee, Long Island University; and Jim Boeheim, Syracuse University.

“For me—and I can only speak for myself—it’s a very big honor, especially as I go into the twilight of my life,” Collins observed, nearly sounding reverential. “I look at some of the people in there and go ‘Wow!’ It’s an extremely high-profile group; I hope I’ll live up to the honor.”

“I know Tommy; I did two retirement dinners for him—one for the athletic directors’ conference at Saratoga, and one at Pearl River,” said North Rockland AD and longtime football coach Joe Casarella. “I’ve known him for at least 30 years. It’s well-deserved; he’s a great guy with a magnificent record. He’s just a marvelous AD, and above all, a good person, a role model, a family man. He really cared for the people of Pearl River.”

Collins--an alum of Albertus Magnus where his daughter Casey Ehrie is the director of guidance--came right out of Manhattan College to replace his mentor, the late, great Lou Kliwe, as athletic director for the Falcons when Kliwe moved on to Spring Valley.

“Any success I had early on goes to Lou,” Collins said. “When I was at Albertus he coached me in baseball and basketball, and when he left he recommended me,” recalls Collins, a four-year varsity baseball player for the Falcons and a three-year varsity player in the game he came to adore, basketball.

“Lou was a big influence; we ran a camp together and go back a long way,” Collins continued. “He was a good, strong man with convictions; he didn’t back down. He was known as a taskmaster, a my-way-or-the-highway kind of guy. I never got to his level, but I was a pretty tough coach—some say a little bit like Billy Martin (the fiery, late Yankees manager).”

Sage advice

Dennis O’Donnell, the men’s basketball coach at St. Thomas Aquinas College, said Collins was the AD at Albertus Magnus when he was hired to lead the Falcons 20 years ago.

“He knew everybody,” O’Donnell notes. “I asked him what he could do to help me; asked him for advice. He smiled with that Irish smile and said ‘Be yourself.’ It was the best advice he ever gave me.

“He’s a fabulous man; I like him a lot.”

Fred Bruntrager, the retired AD at Clarkstown North who served when Collins was at Albertus, called his friend’s induction “a well-deserved honor. He’s a very good guy, a great guy, active in the CYO.”

When asked if he could possibly supply an anecdote, Bruntrager remembered a funny side to the longtime administrator, who “was always worried about scheduling. He’d call five times to get it right; sometimes he got it right the first time, and then would get it wrong!

“He was always nervous. One time he was running a field hockey tournament, and asked if North could run the JV tourney. Then I noticed South also had the JV tourney on their schedule. We both said yes, and wound up with two times the number of officials we needed, and two teams at one school and two teams at the other school with each one waiting for the other schools to show up.”

But through it all, and beyond the ever-mounting victories, Collins not only was building friendships but developing outstanding players, many of whom went on to join the coaching fraternity.

Tireless, dedicated

“I’m always happy to see them, in particular Joe Clinton,” Collins said, mentioning the current athletic director and men’s basketball coach at Dominican College. “He was player of the year in the county in 1979 (at Albertus Magnus); led us to the state final. He’s one of the greatest players in Rockland County.

“I had a whole mess of others,” Collins added, among the many being Pat Buckley at Albertus Magnus, Kevin Metcalf at North Rockland, and Eddie Walsh, who coached the Nyack JV.

Collins fittingly posted his 400th win in the Section 1 Tournament, but while at Albertus he also coached boys soccer, baseball, and golf in addition to his duties as the AD, and a phys ed teacher.

“He was also the groundskeeper,” laughed Tom Doherty, who preceded Collins as the school’s athletic director, and will enthusiastically join a group of approximately 50 supporters of Collins and Lorraine Moylan for the trip upstate to attend the induction. “He couldn’t say no to the good sisters!"

Road-racing legend Jamie Kempton of Nanuet, a student at Albertus when Collins was his AD, confirmed Doherty’s pinpoint memory.

“He’s right, it’s true,” said Kempton. “We’d see him (Collins) on the tractor cutting the grass, lining the fields. He did everything! Not only what the AD had to do, but the groundskeeper. He was the man. He took everything to heart. No one deserves the honor more than Tom Collins. He was a great coach, and promoted the sport so much. I’m thrilled for him.”