Coaches Profile: XC’s Coach Collins
By Ian Busking
Blake Collins, also known as Commander Collins, is known as many of high school student’s favorite teachers. While practically always bringing a lively mood to his art class, he translates that same energy into the sport of cross country. Despite that, Coach Collins has found his biggest passion in coaching the sport of running as he has been around the sport since the age of seven.
Photo of Coach Collins and Ian Busking
There is so much that goes into coaching any sport, but cross country requires more than the average person would expect. With all of the countless hours that are put in by Collins to make the team successful, there are a few specific things that he enjoys the most.
Jokingly, Collins states, “I do bribe kids for gummy bears a lot, that is probably my favorite thing… when I convince the kids that somehow they will get in trouble if they don’t bring me candy. Then when they pull through with that I feel like I have done my job well, that's when I get excited. It's rewarding.”
Even though Collins loves his gummy bears, what he really cares about the most is seeing runners set personal records and the team doing well as a group so the hard work pays off. However, these personal records do not just come for free and lots of challenges are involved.
“The main challenge is getting kids to want to come out and run 50-60 miles a week and not want to die while doing it and might even kind of like it. That is hard to do but we have been pretty successful so far doing it.”
While running is challenging and can be a serious sport at times, Collins has made sure to include his hilarious personality into the program for that main reason. Collins understands that running is very difficult so he keeps it light hearted and goofy to keep kids coming out to practice.
With these philosophies in mind, there have to be different goals that Coach Collins wants to accomplish in both teaching art and coaching. Well… for Art he takes it as a win to just survive teaching the class one day at a time. Collins does in fact, have more lofty aspirations for the cross country team however.
“Coaching wise, it is improving from one year to the next. We do things this year that we didn’t do last year. It is a constant experience. If it works then we try to keep it and incorporate more and better things into the program. The main goal for this year's team is to get both boys and girls on the podium at state.”
These goals are going to be a task for Collins, along with an art project he’s been working on for four years now.
Though, Collins aspiration for art is not ignored in the slightest. Collins has been working on a coloring book which he plans to roughly be done by “2042 so stay tuned, it's coming” Collins hinted.
Whether Collins is in art class trying to recruit every one of his students to run or at home with his family, it is known that he portrays his lively personality to everyone. His one message for students or anyone else reading is very inspirational.
“Anything worth doing is hard and is going to take a lot of work and sacrifice on your part; if it's easy it is probably not worth doing. Just being able to be okay with working hard and knowing it is going to be worthwhile in the end,” Collins suggested.
Collins continues to work on his life being worthwhile by making sure that he is impacting everyone around him whether they are runners or artists. Collins’ impact on the team has led the runners to what is known as the postseason in cross country. Make sure you stay tuned into more about Coach Collins and the team through conference, regionals then the state championship.