Former SMC coach key to keeping star receiver Chad Johnson happy
By MICHAEL MIDDLEHURST-SCHWARTZ Special to the Daily Press
CARSON Even on a field littered with dozens of NFL, college and high school football stars, Charlie Collins is hard to miss.
Waving his arms wildly and flipping hand signals to his receivers, the diminutive coach commands each player’s absolute attention as he barks out instructions. At his football camp, called the “Phenom Factory,” there’s no question who’s in charge.
“He’s the littlest and loudest one out there,” said Theotis Brown, who helps Collins run the camp on one of the soccer fields at the Home Depot Center.
As the heat rises in the early afternoon, Collins’s intensity also amplifies. He pulls aside a high school wide receiver to instruct him on proper technique right before doing the same to T.J. Houshmandzadeh or one of the other professional players looking for guidance.
Even after being lectured, players mirror Collins’s no-nonsense approach. Receiver Jerome Simpson lays out for a football and skids five yards against the turf, leaving behind a layer of skin from his right shoulder and giving him a deep burn. Already running late for an event at their school, a group of players from Oaks Christian High School make time to specially thank Collins after the workout.
“He’s got a great way of communicating, almost like a father figure,” said Cincinnati Bengals offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski, a long-time friend of Collins. “All these guys out here can trust him.”
It’s that ability to relate to players, as well as his attention to detail and stern coaching style, that has put the former Santa Monica College wide receivers coach on the radar of NFL teams. After spending the summer interning with the Cincinnati Bengals, Collins is inching closer to that dream.
Working for the Bengals was a natural fit for Collins, who mentored Cincinnati wide receiver Chad Johnson at SMC. A receiver at Cal State Northridge and four-year veteran of the Canadian Football League, Collins met Bratkowski through Dennis Erickson, Johnson’s college coach at Oregon State, and childhood friend Eric Yarber.
Since coaching Johnson, Collins has become a hotly-pursued coaching candidate among the college ranks. He parlayed his success with coaching receivers at SMC into a job as assistant head coach for West Los Angeles College.
With numerous ties to the team, Collins has been a steady presence for the Bengals, attending a game or two every season and keeping touch with Johnson and Bratkowski by phone.
But this year, in an off-season that saw the mercurial Johnson demand a trade from the team and threaten to sit out the season, Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis hoped that Collins’s voice would be the one to reach Johnson.
“I’ve always been in touch with Marvin Lewis over the past three seasons. When Chad goes haywire on us, certain people can get his attention in a way with constructive criticism,” Collins said. “Marvin would keep me in touch with how he was doing.”
Collins’s arrival was more than an act of appeasing a star player. He had also served a similar internship with the San Francisco 49ers before joining the Bengals for the summer. The Bengals even had considered hiring Collins full-time as a wide receiver coach, Bratkowski said, but the arrangement “didn’t work out.”
But Collins’s ability to relate to Johnson was an undeniable perk of adding him as an intern to a franchise that has lost its lifeline to its star player.
Collins and Johnson formed a quick friendship upon the star wide receiver’s arrival at SMC. Raised in South Central Los Angeles, Collins said Johnson reminded him of himself and the problems he faced growing up in the inner city.
Collins, who graduated from Manual Arts High School, played the role of surrogate father for Johnson, helping his star pupil academically when Johnson was forced to sit out his second year at SMC due to grades.
After Johnson transferred to Oregon State from SMC, he grew uncomfortable with his limited role on the team in the opening weeks and called Collins in tears from the airport, ready to return home. Collins told Johnson not to get on the plane, warning him that he would drag him back to Corvallis, Ore. if he did.
“I know when he needs a pat on the back and when he needs a foot in the ass,” Collins said.
Collins doesn’t expect to change the garish ways of Johnson, who once raced a thoroughbred horse as a publicity stunt for charity. He only wants to readjust Johnson’s focus by giving him blinders.
“He might feel like he has to voice his opinion, but I want him to walk the walk if he’s going to talk the talk,” Collins said.“I try to ground him and make him realize he has one of the best jobs out there.”
Working with Johnson has given Collins a crash course in managing egos, an integral experience for an aspiring NFL coach. With his experience from working with the Bengals, Collins may soon be able to turn that hope into a reality sooner than he thought.
“He’s on track for an NFL job right now,” Bratkowski said. “This internship is giving him a good taste of the NFL experience, and I’m sure he’ll take it from there.”
Collins earned his internship through the NFL’s minority coaching fellowship, which every year helps expose more than 75 African-American coaches to the everyday operations of NFL coaches. While only six of 32 NFL teams employ an African-American head coach, the program has helped launch the careers of a number of coaches, including Lewis, Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin and Kansas City coach Herm Edwards.
Collins hopes to become the latest addition to the list, whether it be with the Bengals or a different team.
“The goal is to eventually coach in the NFL,” Collins said. “I take it as it comes, but I would be more than willing to come in there and help Marvin right that ship.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 17, 2008. Read the original PDF.