Most Duke fans and probably college basketball in general now know Doug Collins as former Blue Devil Chris Collins’ dad but his career was much more than that.
Collins was an interesting figure in many ways. First, he was a 6-6 guard when that was still unusual. He played collegiately at Illinois State for the first Black head coach in D-1, Will Robinson, and was selected to the 1972 Olympic team. In the gold medal game after getting his bell rung pretty hard, Collins hit the last two U.S. points from the free throw line. The USSR team then got three chances to score late, hitting a basket on the final attempt to give the Soviets a 50-49 win.
The U.S. has never accepted silver, believing to a man that they got jobbed.
Then he was the #1 pick in the 1973 draft, going to Philly. After the ABA-NBA merger, the 76ers acquired George McGinnis, Caldwell Jones and the great Julius Erving, all former ABA stars, and made the 1977 NBA Finals (they lost to Portland, 4-2).
That team had one of the first straight-out-of-high school players in the massive Darryl Dawkins and also had Lloyd Free, later known as World B. Free, as well as two other notables in Joe Bryant and Mike Dunleavy, Sr. Bryant’s son, Kobe, was born the year after the Sixers lost to Portland, while Dunleavy’s son, Mike, would come along in 1980 and would go on, like the younger Collins, to star at Duke.
Collins’ NBA career was cut short due to foot and knee injuries, but he had a tremendous impact. Rail thin, he was nonetheless incredibly tough and resourceful. His career had a lot of what-ifs, notably the 1977 title and the brazen 1972 Olympic rip-off.
That one had a sweet ending though as son Chris was an assistant for Mike Krzyzewski His dad was covering the game for NBC and when the medals were handed out, Chris called him to the podium and put a medal around his neck, which, in some sense, was probably better than winning in 1972 would have been.