Beloved Coach Won With Execution and Wit

By Preston Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 20, 2007

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.

"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."

Collins's motivational words and tactics added to his legend. One year when Carroll was playing Eastern for the city title, a Carroll priest who had heard about the inspirational quality of Collins's halftime talks, entered the locker room to record the coach in action. But on this occasion, the language was a bit too colorful to record for posterity.

"Maus started talking, and he was upset, and he got about four or five words out of his mouth," said Mike Nolan, a former assistant to Collins. "Then you heard the loudest click of a tape recorder going off and the priest just turned around and left the room."

Once, after two grueling and unsatisfactory practices, Collins ordered his players to go inside and shower and come out for a third practice. When they reappeared, there was no workout. There was a cookout.

"He knew how tired they were," said former Carroll assistant Bob Silk, who along with Nolan had known Collins since their days as students at St. Gabriel parochial school in Washington. "That's the kind of coach he was. He could do things the right way and that got respect from the kids."

After Collins's successful run at Carroll -- his teams won league titles in eight of his last 12 seasons there, including his final one -- he spent two years as a vice president at the school. Still yearning to coach, he moved three miles south to take over a Gonzaga program that had gone 0-18 against DeMatha, McNamara and Carroll the previous six seasons.

Collins wondered to Nolan if he could reach players from wealthier backgrounds in the same way he had connected with Carroll students.

"How in the hell am I going to tell a kid who drives a Mercedes to school every morning to stick his head in there and tackle some kid?" Nolan recalled Collins saying. "He doesn't need this."

Collins guided Gonzaga to five WCAC title games and won two championships. In 1996, two years removed from quintuple bypass surgery, one of many medical procedures later in his life, Collins led Gonzaga to its first league title in 37 years. The Purple Eagles defeated McNamara, 34-25, at Byrd Stadium, and Collins was named All-Met Coach of the Year for the fourth time.

Collins earned his 300th career victory in 1998 with a 49-6 win over Cardozo. He resigned in 2000 after a 4-5-1 season.

His sharp sense of humor remained intact. About a year ago, when it appeared Collins might not live much longer, Nolan called him to check up -- as he did often. "Oh, I'm hanging in there," Collins told him. "In fact, yesterday and today were two of my better days. I think I'm getting a little bit better."

"That a boy," Nolan said. "Keep digging."

"Well, if I don't keep digging," Collins said, "they're going to be digging for me."

Collins is survived by his wife of 47 years, Agnes, 71; sons William, 45; Kevin, 40; and Christopher, 36; and daughters Catherine, 42, and Anne Marie, 32; and 16 grandchildren. A third daughter, Jeanne Marie, died in 1985.

A wake is scheduled from 2 to 4 p.m. and 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday at St. Aloysius Church in Washington. The funeral is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Saturday, also at St. Aloysius.