Beloved Coach Won With Execution and Wit

Maurice "Maus" Collins, a high school football coach who built Archbishop Carroll into a three-decade powerhouse and later resurrected the program at Gonzaga, died yesterday morning at his Beltsville home after suffering from several medical conditions in recent years. He was 76.

When Collins retired in 2000, his career record of 322-74-9 made him the ninth-winningest football coach in the country.

Collins was considered a master at all aspects of coaching, hailed by fellow coaches for his analytical sense, motivational tactics, communication skills and game management. He had a dry wit that poked but rarely punctured. Most important, he had a sideline full of players who desperately wanted to win for him.

Collins's shock of white hair, your-ad-here chin and floppy hat made him look like a walking caricature but only enhanced a personality that endeared him to generations of Washingtonians in school hallways, football fields and beyond.

Good Counsel Coach Bob Milloy considered Collins "a simple genius." DeMatha Coach Bill McGregor once dubbed Collins "the godfather of football in the Washington, D.C., area."

But to most, he was just Maus, although not "Moss," the green stuff that grows on trees, as he would sometimes say.

Collins, a Washington native who attended McKinley Tech, served in the Army between stints at the University of Maryland and Montgomery College and earned a doctorate in education from Catholic University.

He began his high school coaching career at Carroll in 1956 as an assistant to Alphonse "Tuffy" Leemans, a former New York Giants running back and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A self-described "dictator in a democracy," Collins served as Carroll's head coach from 1960 to '88, compiling a 237-45-7 record with 14 league titles. The field at the Northeast Washington school was named for him in 1989; he also worked as a guidance counselor and athletic director at the school.

After two seasons out of coaching, Collins returned to lead the Gonzaga football program from 1991 to 2000. His teams went 85-29-2 and won league titles in 1996 and '97, the Purple Eagles' first championships since 1959.

In failing health in recent years, Collins was a regular at high school games, particularly at Gonzaga and Good Counsel, where his son, Kevin, is one of the freshman football coaches.

The Washington Catholic Athletic Conference football championship plaque was named for Collins in 2001.

"In my eyes, Coach Collins walks on water," McGregor said when interviewed about Collins several months ago, recalling games in which Collins's teams beat DeMatha on a perfectly executed screen pass, or by switching quarterbacks on a rainy day to take advantage of the backup's bigger, surer hands.