Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 12, 1990 TAG: 9005120030
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Collins After three years as coach of the Chicago Bulls, a frazzled Collins was dismissed after the Bulls' Eastern Conference final series loss to eventual 1989 NBA champion Detroit. In August 1989, he returned to telecast work, with Turner Broadcasting's TNT.
"It's nice to watch the game, talk about it and take the headset off and go home without taking the game with you," Collins said. "I intend to stay with Turner for a while. I enjoy broadcasting. I don't see myself returning to coaching in the near future. Maybe somewhere down the road, but not in the next few years."
Collins, 38, quickly has become TNT's top NBA analyst, and he has worked eight games in the first 16 days of the playoffs. He clearly isn't intimidated by the medium or the sport, and his ability to dissect a game that is truly more complicated than it looks makes him a rarity.
CBS Sports has spent years trying to nurture and keep top-notch NBA analysts, without much success. Next year, NBC joins TNT as the NBA's other network. NBC is looking for analysts, although it's almost a certainty that Pistons coach Chuck Daly will follow in Collins' bench-to-analyst footsteps. But after Daly, it's anyone's guess as to who will work NBC's games with Marv Albert and Bob Costas.
"Some people forget that the people at home aren't coaches and players, and you have to explain the sport in layman's terms," Collins said. "You tell people why things happen, or that if something doesn't happen, then other things will happen. I really try to keep it relatively simple.
"There's no reason to make it more complicated than it is. I did this before [as a CBS and Philadelphia 76ers' telecast analyst in 1985-86], but my work is better after three years on the bench coaching. I see more things now. I might have a different insight had I not been a head coach, having been there and seeing the fires you have to put out every day."
Collins played eight seasons for the 76ers, retiring in 1981. A 6-foot-6 guard, Collins came to the NBA after a superb college career at Illinois State, where he averaged 29 points over four seasons and was a 1973 first-team All-America selection. He was the first pick in the 1973 NBA draft.
His "career" moment, to most basketball viewers, came in the Olympic basketball gold medal game in Munich, West Germany, in 1972. Collins' two free throws with three seconds left gave the United States a 50-49 lead over the Soviet Union - which then got three chances to win the game, and did.
"I see myself as a fan's analyst," Collins said. "I'm doing the game for their enjoyment. The greatness of players is evident, and I try to tell people how their matchups affect what they see. I'm not a guy who second-guesses coaches. I might offer insight on why a coach chose to handle a certain situation a particular way, or give two or three options as to the way he could go.
"But you don't hear me saying, `This is what I would do.' A coach is on an island enough as it is, especially when you get to the playoffs."
Collins spent three years as an assistant coach at Penn and Arizona State before returning to the NBA. This part of the season, he said, is different, even for TV announcers.
"The playoffs make things a lot more intense," Collins said. "Sitting there, you can feel it. You lose, you're out. It's not like the regular season, where people are playing 82 games jockeying for position. So, the opinions from someone like me during the playoffs might be totally different than in the same situation during the regular season.
"I think you have to be aware of that. It's pro basketball, sure, but it's not necessarily the same game you see all winter."
\ UVa won't move: Virginia athletic director Jim Copeland said CBS Sports approached the Cavaliers about moving their Oct. 13 home football game with North Carolina State to Thanksgiving weekend for a national telecast. One problem: UVa and Virginia Tech are scheduled to play in Blacksburg on Nov. 24.
"We didn't even approach Virginia Tech about moving to a different date," Copeland said. "We didn't think Tech would want to move anyway, and we felt like to move [the State game] would have left us with too many open dates."
The Cavaliers have an open date Oct. 6, so they would have had back-to-back vacancies. Tech has an opening Oct. 13, so the Hokies and Cavaliers could have played then if the State-UVa proposal had been accepted.
Virginia officials have been contacted by ESPN about two potential dates at Scott Stadium - the Sept. 8 visit by Clemson and the Oct. 13 game against N.C. State. Copeland said ESPN is talking about those games as part of the College Football Association late-afternoon package, with a 4:10 p.m. kickoff.
In another football development, South Carolina has moved its Sept. 15 home game with West Virginia to Thanksgiving night for an ESPN telecast. That gives the Gamecocks an open date the week before their visit to Virginia Tech.
\ Maryland mess: When the ACC opens its spring meeting next weekend in Myrtle Beach, S.C., many of the working hours figure to be consumed by basketball scheduling - particularly TV games and the NCAA probation that will keep Maryland off the air in 1990-91.
Raycom Sports, which shares the ACC regional production and syndication with Jefferson-Pilot Teleproductions, is struggling to get enough conference games for contracted TV requirements. Without the Terrapins in the mix, the number of ACC games available for TV drops from 56 to 42.
Ken Haines, Raycom's executive vice president, said the ACC contract requires a minimum of 31 regular-season games in the Raycom/J-P schedule. A separate deal with ESPN includes 11 games. That uses up the 42 available games without leaving any for CBS, NBC or ABC.
Haines said Raycom also is in limbo with Big Eight and Big Ten telecast schedules, because of anticipated NCAA sanctions against Missouri of the Big Eight and Illinois of the Big Ten.
CBS is expected to replace NBC (with the NBA on Sundays starting next winter) as the ACC's primary television network. CBS will have at least a couple of ACC games in its mix with intersectional dates. That means the Raycom/J-P schedule will have to be trimmed for one year, or non-conference games must be added to the series. One game viewers should expect on CBS or NBC is Virginia at Notre Dame, on a date to be determined.
Raycom/J-P likely will offer a tape-delayed package of the Terps' ACC games in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore and Salisbury, Md., TV markets.
by CNB