By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

          Whenever Stratford called, it seemed Rodney Collins answered.

Will be updated with information on services

          In 1988, Stratford called on Collins to take over the football program. In the next 15 years, the Eagles won three GISA state titles, repeating in 2000.

          Then he resigned.

          But Stratford called on him again four seasons later to take over the program again, and succeed Mark Farriba. He did, and reached the finals once and semifinals once in six seasons.

          Stratford needed a track coach, Collins had a whistle for it.

          When Stratford called, Collins answered, filling in wherever the school needed him, as long as he could help.

          The school and the private school football community are mourning the death Tuesday night of Collins, who had been battling dementia in recent years.

          In 21 seasons at Stratford, Collins went 156-95-2, making him the winningest head coach by 61 wins over Farriba, who he preceded twice and succeeded once at Stratford. The Eagles won three state titles and five region championships under Collins, the top mark at the school in both categories.

          There may not have been a Farriba Era at Stratford without Collins.

          “They probably saved my coaching career,” Farriba said of Collins and long-time Stratford coach David Bailey. “When I left FPD, I didn’t really know what I was going to do. I was pretty disillusioned and discouraged.

            “Rodney – I’ll never forget, I was sitting there with Rodney and David, and Rodney said something about coming over there and coaching at Stratford. That’s just who he was.”

            Word of Collins’ passing emerged Tuesday night, leading to a Wednesday morning of communication throughout the Stratford community.

            “A lot of conversations going on,” Farriba said. “Good, good conversations. Good memories, man, good memories.”

          A number of schools will mourn Collins’ death.

          The 75-year-old started his head coaching career at now-defunct Baker Academy, in 1972 as the school’s first coach, moving after three years to Briarwood Academy for four years, and then to Southland for two and back to Briarwood for four, going 57-30 with the Buccaneers in eight seasons, ranking second on that school’s all-time wins list. He won three region titles there, and a state title, the school’s first, in 1976.

          After two years and a 9-12 record at John Milledge, Collins moved to Macon in 1988 to succeed Brannon Bonifay at Stratford and stayed until 2002. Along the way, he led the boys track teams to state titles in 1993 and 1994, and twice has earned the GISA Distinguished Service, joining several of his Stratford colleagues.

          He left for a few years as an assistant at Riverside Military Academy, and came back to Macon as an assistant under Farriba.

          He admitted he never should have left.

          “I missed being here,” he said in a Macon Telegraph story in 2012 after his final resignation. “Regret is not the right word, but I missed it.”

            Walt Mays knew of Collins when Mays was a student-athlete at Southland, growing up in Plains. Collins and Bailey were at Southland, and then he joined them on the Stratford staff in 1989.

            “He was a legend to a lot of people,” said Mays, who left Stratford in 2022 and is in private business now. “We worked together a long, long time. Had a heck of a run.”

            Mays’ final visit with Collins before the disease took further hold was short, but good.

            “I think it was last summer, maybe spring,” he said. “I was driving past a drug store and I saw him get out of the car with his daughter Shannon. So I whipped in, because I hadn’t seen him for a few months.

“He saw me, and recognized me. ‘Walt! I haven’t seen you in a long time.’ That was the last time I saw him.”

          It was that year he realized that 52 years in football, playing and coaching, was enough, and it was time to be around children and grandchildren more. He stayed at the school as a teacher.

          Collins was a multi-sport standout at Hawkinsville, playing football under legendary head coach Bobby Gentry, earning two all-state honors and Class B state back of the year in 1965. He was a quarterback and punter at Austin Peay, and started his coaching career at Northside in Warner Robins.

          Three years after that retirement, students gave an indication of what Collins meant to the school, by dedicating the 2015-16 yearbook to him, as voted on by that senior class, many of whom had him as a lower-school phys ed teacher.

          Earlier that year, he was inducted into the Stratford Hall of Fame.

          He earned the Macon Touchdown Club’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014, along with former Mount de Sales head coach and longtime city foe Robert Slocum. Collins was a five-time region coach of the year and state coach three times, also earned the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association Distinguished Service award in 2012.

          Collins was as well-liked and respected as any coach at any school, and easily slipped away from a head coaching role to help out when needed.

          “Replacing Coach Collins as head football coach will be a difficult task, but replacing a man with his loyalty, high moral character, leadership ability and love for Stratford will be even more difficult,” then-Stratford athletics director Grady Smith said in that Telegraph story.

          Collins went against Barney Hester at Tattnall more than any other coach. Hester – as was pretty much always the case – got the better of things, going 20-12 against Collins.

          “He does a tremendous job as a coach,” Hester said in that retirement story. “He’s so much more than that. He asks about your family, calls my daughters by name. He’s so genuine. He truly cares about football, but he cares about people.

          “Now, I don’t like him a whole lot on Friday nights, because I knew how well they would be prepared.”

          Collins’ Eagles beat Hester’s Trojans 16-14 in the coaches’ final meeting, in 2012.

          Farriba, now an assistant at ACE, was an assistant under Collins, who then was an assistant under Farriba.

“You better be careful if you ever rode in the back of the golf cart with him driving, or the back of a pickup truck with him driving around campus, because he might throw you out. On purpose.

“He wouldn’t do it on the asphalt, but if you were riding around the practice field, you better hold on.”

            Said Mays: “He was going to try to dump you. There was no doubt. You just learned.”

            Collins turned over all the track keys to Mays in 1998, then stay on board as an assistant.

Farriba said Collins could be hard-headed once he believed in something, but was flexible as a head coach, focusing on fundamentals rather than fancy schemes. And he was the same person regardless of the athletics success or lack of.

            “He cared about people. He cared about you, and if you could help you, he was going to help you.,” Farriba said. “There’s a difference between a guy that’s a coach and a Christian, and a guy that’s a Christian coach. Coach Collins was a Christian coach. His faith infiltrated every area of his life. He was a consistent man in that regard.

“He was a walk-the-walk guy.”

            Mays echoed that.

“He didn’t yell, but he commanded so much respect from the guys that played for him, and the coaches that coached against him. I had a guy . I had a guy text me today if there was one guy he wished he could’ve coached with, it was Coach Collins.

            “He lived it. Some people talk it. He lived it.”