[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 113 (Thursday, July 13, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1439]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         TRIBUTE TO BOB COLLINS

                                 ______

                        HON. ANDREW JACOBS, JR.

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, July 13, 1995

  Mr. JACOBS. Mr. Speaker, they very definitely threw away the mold 
when Bob Collins came along. He bought sunshine to the lives of 
hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers during his career as both sports 
writer and all-around wit for the Indianapolis Star.
  The reason that we shall miss Bob unusually painfully is that he 
literally and literarily cannot be replaced.
            [From the Indianapolis (ID) Star, May 30, 1995]

                           Robert J. Collins

       Bob Collins professionally and personally was a legend in 
     his own time. His death here Friday on the eve of this year's 
     biggest sports weekend was as if he planned it that way. And 
     maybe he did.
       The veteran sports editor and columnist for the 
     Indianapolis Star, who retired in 1991 after three years of 
     serious illness and dire predictions from his doctors that he 
     would not live another, had said he wanted to die in May 
     because that was when so many of his friends from across the 
     country would be in Indianapolis. But he didn't say what May.
       Collins was correctly eulogized by Star sports writter 
     Robin Miller as ``the toughest of the tough'':
       ``He never missed a deadline or a nightcap. Burn the candle 
     at both ends? Collins was the enternal flame.''
       In his 43 years with The Star, Collins had covered 
     virtually every major sporting event of the day, from the 
     Superbowl, the World Series and the Olympics to the Final 
     Four, the PGA tour and the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race where 
     he could count many of the drivers as good friends.
       There was no reason to doubt him when he said best of all 
     he had enjoyed covering Indiana high school basketball, that 
     and the Masters golf tournament at Augusta. The Masters, he 
     wrote, was like stepping into another world.
       Collins, who was a key organizer of the Indiana Pacers, was 
     also a founder of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. His 
     early reporting of the all-black Crispus Attucks High School 
     teams helped bring them into the mainstream of Indiana 
     basketball.
       As a writer's writer, Collins was a master storyteller with 
     an elephantine memory. His simple, straight forward style 
     rippled with humor, surprises and historical references.
       Indiana University basketball coach Bob Knight, not one to 
     praise journalists, once wrote that simply calling Collins a 
     writer was an injustice.
       ``He is an analyst, a satirist, humorist and a philosopher 
     bound together with an extraordinary ability of expression.''
       Longtime friend and Star sportswriter Don Bates noted 
     correctly that Collins was ``one of those rare journalists 
     whose talent was as big as his ego.''
       Robert Joseph Collins, dead at 68, will be laid to his 
     final rest tomorrow after 11 a.m. services in St. Anthony's 
     Catholic Church. His legend and his words will long live in 
     the hearts and minds of his many readers and friends.
     

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