Former Illini paying respects by sharing love for Jimmy Collins, a man who left a mark

They gathered on Zoom as so many of us have, old friends staring into their devices and retreating in time. If only they could relive all the dusty stories, the special moments, the soaring highs. If only they could hug one another. If only they could bring Jimmy Collins back.

Boxes on a screen. That was Kendall Gill, Stephen Bardo, George Montgomery, Anthony Welch, Tony Wysinger, Glynn Blackwell, Quinn Richardson, Tom Michael, Andy Kpedi, T.J. Wheeler and others — ex-Illinois hoopers all — as they bonded in sorrow and laughter Sunday evening, hours after the death at 74 of the assistant who coached them all and was a father figure to more than a few.

There was a toast. Kenny Battle, the heart and soul of the “Flyin’ Illini” Final Four team of 1989, was on, too, and raised a nice pour of cognac.

“Coach C’s drink,” Battle said the next day, a smile in his voice. “A cognac guy. He was just first class all the way.”

Collins — who played for the Bulls from 1970 to 1972 — was all about relationships. He played for Lou Henson at New Mexico State and coached alongside him at Illinois from 1983 to 1996. He held the reins at UIC from 1996 to 2010 and was fiercely proud of his players there. He loved with the toughness of a former Chicago probation officer and the trueheartedness of a family man who held wife Hettie close for more than 50 years.

“If he cared about you, you knew it,” said Deon Thomas, a Simeon alum who starred at Illinois in the early 1990s and is the school’s career scoring leader. “He was not afraid of being vulnerable.

“I mean, he taught me how to be married to my wife, how to be a husband and father. I didn’t grow up with a dad. My mother and stepfather got divorced. But here I am, married 22 years, kids doing great. Coach Collins was able to make me see what was possible not only in basketball but in my life.”

Henson died in July at 88. Losing Collins, too, leaves those who played for them with much to bear at the end of an awful year.

“I had to take a couple of days off work to process this,” Thomas said. “I’m crushed.”

Thomas was in close contact with Collins to the end, seeing him in person often. He kept Nick Anderson, Marcus Liberty, Ervin Small and many other former players up to date in a group text chain.

“Fellas, it doesn’t look good,” read a text after Thomas, unsure Collins was aware of his presence, made a final visit late last week.

Courtesy of Illini Athletics

Thomas recalls being “terrible” at basketball as a high school freshman, giving the game a go in earnest for the first time. Late Simeon coach Bob Hambric called the gangly 15-year-old into his office one day and was giving it to him pretty good when another man in the office piped in with, “Hey, I saw some positive things.”

“That’s how I met coach Collins,” Thomas said. “He wasn’t there to see me. I was nobody. But from that day forward, that man was in my corner.”

There are so many stories, some of them deeply personal. Liberty — the former No. 1 recruit in the country from King who picked Illinois over Syracuse largely because of Collins — was hit hard by his grandfather’s death in 1989. The funeral was on a game day, and Liberty decided to stay with the team rather than miss the game at Purdue or figure out how to be in two places at once.

“Early that morning, coach Collins called me and said, ‘You’re going,’ ’’ Liberty said. “ ‘You’re paying your respects. There’s nothing to discuss.’

“He put me in his car, drove from Champaign to Chicago — the service was at, like, 12 — and let me spend a little time with my family. Then it was, ‘Mom, I gotta go,’ and we drove to West Lafayette. He got me through that day because that’s the kind of man he was. I wasn’t all right, and he knew it.”

Liberty cried in the car that day. A little over 30 years later, he cried on the phone with Hettie.

“When she called and said that he got his wings, I couldn’t say anything; it broke me down,” Liberty said. “I really consider him a family member.”

Collins’ Illini guys want everybody to know what he meant to them, what they learned from him, what they knew about him above all else.

“Coach C was going to be with you every step of the way,” Battle said. “No ducking. No dodging. ‘Let’s face it head on,’ and he would be there whatever the situation you were going through.

“He was like a father. A brother. He was that individual you knew believed in you, had your best interests at heart and wasn’t going to let you fail. That’s who that man was.”