by Coleman Armes

Staff Writer

As the 2011-12 girls varsity basketball season tips off, the young team is full of potential and energy, excited about what they hope to accomplish. The new energy also comes from its new head coach, Nicole Collins.

Collins comes from J. Frank Dobie High School out of the Houston area, where she excelled in volleyball and basketball. In volleyball she was a middle blocker and her senior year her team went to the regional semis. When it came to basketball, Collins was a point guard who lettered all four years. She also earned many honors for basketball being all district all four years, all region her junior and senior year, and all state her senior year. Her team also reached the regional quarterfinals her senior year in the state tournament.

Her skills on the basketball court got her a scholarship to Baylor University, where she would play from 1998 to 2002. She would also become starting point guard on the team from sophomore to senior year.

“Baylor basketball taught me how to persevere and how to really work as a team,” Collins said. “It also taught me accountability and responsibility. I learned to commit to a goal and how to achieve it.”

Sophomore year, her team at Baylor had lost many seniors and finished 7-20. Junior year however was quite different. The team got a new head coach, Kim Mulkey, who is still there today. In her junior year the team went 21-9 and also made it to the women’s college basketball tournament where they lost in the first round to Arkansas. This was the first time in history the program had made it to the tournament.

Senior year, Collins and the Lady Bears continued to improve and came into the season ranked in the top 25, also a first for the program. They finished second in the Big 12 tournament and ranked seventh in the country entering the women’s college basketball tournament. However they were upset in the second round when they played Drake but finished with a record of 27-6 on the year.

At Baylor, Collins also had many personal achievements. She made the Big 12 all-academic team all four years and also played on the Big 12 all-stars team. This was a team that went to Europe and played European pro women’s basketball teams. She also was a captain on the Baylor team sophomore through senior year and left Baylor being top 5 in assists and top 10 in steals all time at Baylor.

However Collins was not always interested in coaching basketball. At Baylor, Collins majored in forensic science. While taking a year off from pre-med Collins worked at a hospital for two years in the radiology department, which she really enjoyed.

During this time however she met with her old high school coach and he suggested that Collins look into coaching and that he thought she would be good at it. Collins did just that and became the girls freshman coach at Fort Worth Dunbar High School.

The varsity girls team won state in her second year, allowing Collins to learn what it takes to achieve state at an early year in her coaching career. From there she went to Mansfield Summit High School and was the girls JV basketball coach. The girls varsity team went the regional semifinals while she was there, again exposing her to a good team and what it takes to be good.

Collins left Mansfield Summit to become the girls varsity assistant at Cedar Hill High School for three years. There she and the other coaches took a girls varsity team that hadn’t been past the third round in playoffs for five straight years to the state semifinal in the second year. From Cedar Hill she landed her first head coaching job here at Coppell.

Here at Coppell, Collins has big plans.

“In terms of the girls I want to change their mentality on how they approach the game,” Collins said. “I want to show them how hard they really have to work. I want them to refuse to lose and refuse to quit.”

She also hopes to see a new appreciation for girls basketball in Coppell. She wants to get more girls involved from youth basketball all the way up to varsity.

This new energy has impressed many, including her fellow coaches.

“Coach Collins and I share the same passion and desire to be successful, which in turn makes us great competitors,” assistant varsity girls coach Jason Hodges said.

Her varsity players have taken notice of Collins passion as well and are excited at what she brings to the table and the future of the program.

“She is extremely competitive, very fiery, and loud when she coaches,” junior Kara Williamson said. “She has played for the best of the best and knows exactly what it takes to get there. She has very high expectations and is very hard working.”