Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League

If not for Jim Collins’ vision, none of us would be sitting in this ballroom tonight. “This was his baby,” Yough Athletic Director and longtime friend Tom Evans said. In his position as Assistant to the Executive Director of the WPIAL, Collins started the league’s Hall of Fame in 2007. Tonight, he will be inducted and stand among the many star athletes for whom he worked tirelessly over more than three decades. Collins, who died in 2016, started his 35-year career in education as a math teacher at Burrell and Deer Lakes. He also was football coach at Deer Lakes and later Vice Principal and Principal at Thomas Jefferson. He also served as President of the WPIAL’s Board of Control and served on the league’s tennis, golf, wrestling, and scholarship committees, gathering statistics and making sure every media outlet had what it needed. When Collins became Executive Director Tim O’Malley’s assistant in 1999, the job was designed to be three days a week. “He was in the office every day,” Evans said. “His passion was kids and sports,” said his daughter Leslie Craven. “He’d drive an hour-and-a-half to be at my son’s T-ball game. “Funny story, I was born the night of a (Deer Lakes) game.” The proud father made it to the hospital to see his newborn daughter, but not until the end of the game.