It\u2019s hard to believe that a sportscaster who had a closetful of the wildest pants on the planet and wore them at tennis tournaments around the globe isn\u2019t remembered just for that. Those trousers were insane.<\/p>\n
But, when people talk about Bud Collins\u2019s legacy and his importance to tennis, those blindingly loud fashion statements are forgotten until deep into their reminiscences.<\/p>\n
But they aren\u2019t forgotten, of course, and explaining how they became a trademark says something about the man, who died in 2016.<\/p>\n
Collins\u2019s widow, Anita Ruthling Klaussen, recalls, \u201cSometime early in the \u201860s, his tailor in Boston, Charlie Davidson, told Bud, \u2018You look awfully boring on TV. You look like a yachtsman.<\/em>\u2019 Charlie said he would make him a pair that people would remember but he had to promise to wear them. And Bud kept his word.\u201d<\/p>\n Spectators shrieked when they saw him in that first pair at a Davis Cup match in the \u201960s. He also discovered they thought it was, well, fun. And so did he.<\/p>\n \u201cHe had 52 pairs when he died,\u201d Klaussen says, many of them outrageous enough that an onlooker might not even notice the fancy bowtie he also wore. His famous strawberry-colored pair \u2014 the special one he always wore at Wimbledon \u2014 is now in the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club museum, which held a special event to celebrate the pants\u2019 arrival. Another pair, weirdly commemorating the \u201cRumble in the Jungle,\u201d featured a drawing of Muhammad Ali on one leg and Joe Frazier on the other; it\u2019s in the Smithsonian.<\/p>\n But, really, that\u2019s sideshow. Broadcasters and tennis fans and players loved Collins because he loved them. He loved the players, and he loved the fans. He loved the game and, in fact, was far better than average on the court.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if anyone has been more important to any sport than Bud Collins,\u201d says Lesley Visser, whose friendship (and mentorship) with Collins went back all the way to the Boston Globe<\/em>. Fresh out of Boston College, she joined a quartet of sports writers \u2014 Peter Gammons, Bob Ryan, Will McDonough, Ray Fitzgerald, and Collins \u2014 whom Sports Illustrated<\/em> described as \u201carguably the greatest collection of reporting talent ever assembled in a sports section.\u201d<\/p>\n Collins took Visser under his wing. He showed her more ropes than she ever imagined existed, and having Collins as her mentor opened every door a young journalist could ever knock on. In 1977, she recalls, she was at her first Wimbledon Championships and had to introduce herself to the pros. \u201cSome were more difficult than others,\u201d she says, diplomatically. \u201cBut, when I said, \u2018I work with Bud Collins at the Globe<\/em>,\u2019 the seas just parted.\u201d<\/p>\n Collins never got too big for his britches, however outrageous they were. He called himself \u201ca scribbler for papers and a babbler for TV.\u201d<\/p>\n He was, of course, much more. A sportswriter and TV commentator, mostly for NBC, he also reported about boxing, civil rights, and Vietnam. He had the comfort of being a man who just knew.<\/em><\/p>\n When NBC dumped Collins in 2007, fans and colleagues howled. He joined ESPN and, later, ended his career at the Tennis Channel.<\/p>\n Ken Solomon, the cable network\u2019s president, grabbed Collins as soon as he could. \u201cI told people, \u2018There\u2019s not a Tennis Channel without Bud Collins,\u201d he recalls. \u201cBefore Bud, there was really no sports calling. The tennis announcer was just an extension of the TV picture, removed from having personality, just giving a technical account. Bud was just the opposite. Bud was at the forefront.\u201d<\/p>\n Solomon\u2019s not the only one who thinks that way.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is difficult for people to completely understand how much Collins has meant to tennis and to journalism,\u201d wrote Washington Post<\/em> columnist John Feinstein. \u201cYou know all those ex-print guys now working in TV, many making serious money? The trailblazer for all of them was Collins, who began doing tennis for WGBH in Boston in 1963 when the local PBS station decided it wanted to try the unheard-of experiment of tennis on TV during what was then the U.S. Pro Championships at the Longwood Tennis and Cricket Club.\u201d<\/p>\n His knowledge of the game was encyclopedic. He wrote the authoritative 795-page book on tennis, The Bud Collins History of Tennis<\/em>, and other books, and he and Rod Laver wrote Laver\u2019s autobiography, The Education of a Tennis Player<\/em>.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t mind spreading his knowledge around. In fact, he loved it.<\/p>\n New York Times<\/em> sports columnist George Vescey wrote, \u201cAcross the decades, Bud Collins had a standard line when someone \u2014 typically, a newspaper competitor \u2014 would rush over and wonder if he had a moment to answer a question. He would look up cheerily from the keyboard and say, \u2018Ask two.\u2019\u201c<\/p>\n Klaussen and Visser remember that generous spirit. When he traveled, he would bring back spectacular, thoughtful gifts for staffers where he worked. At tournaments, he always knew the fabulous restaurant no one else knew about and would take everyone after \u201cwork\u201d was done.<\/p>\n He was the same with spectators In the stands. When Klaussen had just begun dating Collins, he took her to a match. She had only the vaguest idea about what he did, so she was startled by what she saw.<\/p>\n \u201cHe could not walk 3 ft. without being stopped,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI asked somebody about what was going on, and they said, \u2018Good grief. On what planet did you grow up? Bud is as big as it gets.\u2019\u201c<\/p>\n After 35 years in which his name had become synonymous with the game, NBC dismissed Collins in 2007 in a manner that makes the word unceremoniously<\/em> seem an understatement: NBC Sports head Ken Schanzer left a message for Collins just as he arrived at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n Klaussen is mostly mum on why she thinks it happened but ruefully acknowledges that Collins was hurt. After all those years at the network, there was no big send-off for a journalist who had done so much to popularize tennis in America and tennis on TV. \u201cNo watch,\u201d she says. \u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n But Collins is certainly remembered. Those pants in the Wimbledon museum, for example. In 1994, he was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. In 1999, he received the Red Smith Award for distinguished sports reporting from the Associated Press and, in 2002, was inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame. Today, other accomplished sports journalists receive awards named after Bud Collins.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was beloved by people around the world.\u201d says his widow. \u201cBud\u2019s life was five stars.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1340,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"tags":[49],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees\/1200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/inductees"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}