Beloved Coach Won With Execution and Wit

"He's always a step ahead no matter what he's doing," McGregor said. "What he ran was not the most complicated or sophisticated, but boy, would they execute."

Collins did not carry a clipboard or notebook -- much to the chagrin of the coaches who requested a playbook from him at clinics -- not even when scouting an opponent. He kept it all in his head and for years called every offensive and defensive play himself.

Collins game-planned even in non-football settings. At the coach's retirement party in 2001 at the Washington Hilton, one of the speakers told a story about Collins meeting the mother of the DeMatha starting center at a function days before the teams were to meet in the league title game. The mother fetched her son to meet Collins, who took note of the boy's modest size.

"He went from an even defense to an odd defense the next week to take advantage of that kid's diminutive stature," Milloy said with admiration.

Milloy, himself one of the more celebrated coaches in the Washington area, said his staff still uses the term "Maus it" when preparing for an opponent. To "Maus it" is to take a step back from the X's and O's of a game plan and say, "Okay, what do we really need to do to beat these guys?"

Former Georgetown Prep coach Jim Fegan coached with Collins in the early 1950s in Catholic Youth Organization ball. In 1971, Carroll ended the Little Hoyas' 36-game unbeaten streak. And for the most part, Fegan, a guest at Collins's 75th birthday celebration last fall, was fine with it.

"You never want to lose, but if I've got to lose, I'm glad it was to you," Fegan recalled telling Collins after that game. "I really felt that way. We lost to a man that ran a real, real good program. We turned it over to a good person."

Chip Myrtle, who starred at Carroll in the early 1960s and went on to play at the University of Maryland and for seven years in the AFL and NFL, said the Lions "had such high respect and love for Maus Collins that you didn't want to let him down."

One year, Carroll was playing at Delaware power Salesianum, but Collins had stayed home to tend to his father's funeral arrangements. The game ended 6-6, a result that felt like a loss to the Lions, who rode back home lamenting that they had not won the game for the grieving Collins.

As the team's bus rolled into Carroll around 2 a.m., the Lions could make out a solitary silhouette in the illuminated parking lot.

"When the door opened, there was Maus, with a big smile on his face," said Myrtle, now a real estate broker in Denver. "We all lit up, really. It was okay. The main thing was we did our best. You learned little life lessons like that.

"To me, the reason he had the love and respect is because that's what he gave out. Walking around the halls of Carroll, he'd say hello to anybody. If you had a problem, anybody could go to Maus Collins and he'd help you with it."