Damon Jamal Collins (September 22, 1976 – October 26, 2014), nicknamed Mo Collins, was an American college and professional football player who was an

offensive lineman In gridiron football, a lineman is a player who specializes in play at the line of scrimmage. The linemen of the team currently in possession of the ball are the offensive line, while linemen on the opposing team are the defensive line. A numb ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...

(NFL) for six seasons during the 1990s and early 2000s. Collins played college football for the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

, and was a member of a national championship team. The

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Ra ...

selected him in the first round of the

1998 NFL Draft The 1998 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 18–19, 1998, at the Theater at ...

, and he played his entire professional career for the Raiders.

Early years

Collins was born in

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...

in 1976.Pro-Football-Reference.com, Players
Mo Collins
Retrieved July 22, 2010. He attended

West Charlotte High School West Charlotte High School (also called Dub-C or WC) is a comprehensive high school in west Charlotte, near Beatties Ford Road in Charlotte, North Carolina. It is state-funded. History West Charlotte High School was founded in 1938. The original ...

in Charlotte,databaseFootball.com, Players
Mo Collins
. Retrieved July 22, 2010. and he played high school football for the West Charlotte Lions. Collins was a key member of the Lions' North Carolina 4A state championship team in 1993. The ''Charlotte Observer'' ranked him as one of the top five high school football players in the state of North Carolina in 1993.

College career

Collins accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the

in Gainesville, Florida, where he played for coach

Steve Spurrier Stephen Orr Spurrier (born April 20, 1945) is an American former football quarterback and coach who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 10 seasons before coaching for 38 years, primarily in college. He is often referred to by his ...

Florida Gators football The Florida Gators football program represents the University of Florida (UF) in American college football. Florida competes in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Eastern Division ...

team from

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake strike ...

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

.
2011 Florida Gators Football Media Guide
'', University Athletic Association, Gainesville, Florida, pp. 42, 99, 180 (2011). Retrieved August 28, 2011. As a true freshman in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Ma ...

, Collins suffered a foot injury and was

redshirt Redshirt, Red Shirt, or Redshirts may refer to: Entertainment * ''Red Shirts'' (film), a 1952 film about Anita Garibaldi by Franco Rossi * Redshirt (stock character), originally derived from ''Star Trek'', a stock character who dies soon after b ...

ed by the Gators coaching staff, but became a full-time

starter Starter may refer to: Science and technology * Starter motors, used to start internal-combustion engines * Motor starters, a motor controller used to start large electric motors * Lamp starter, used to initiate operation of fluorescent lights ...

the following season. Collins was a member of the 1995 Gators team that went 12–0 in the regular season and played the

Nebraska Cornhuskers The Nebraska Cornhuskers (often abbreviated to Huskers) are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The university is a member of the Big Ten Conference, and the Cornhuskers compete in NCAA Divisi ...

for the

Bowl Alliance The Bowl Alliance was an agreement among college football bowl games (specifically the Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta Bowls) for the purpose of trying to match the top two teams in a national championship game and to provide quality bowl game matchu ...

national title in the

Fiesta Bowl The Fiesta Bowl is an American college football bowl game played annually in the Phoenix metropolitan area. From its beginning in 1971 until 2006, the game was hosted at the Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. Since 2007, the game has been playe ...

, and the 1996 Gators team that defeated the

Florida State Seminoles The Florida State Seminoles are the athletic teams representing Florida State University located in Tallahassee, Florida. They compete as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level ( Football Bowl Subdiv ...

52–20 to win the Bowl Alliance national championship in the

Sugar Bowl The Sugar Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in New Orleans, Louisiana. Played annually since January 1, 1935, it is tied with the Orange Bowl and Sun Bowl as the second-oldest bowl games in the country, surpassed on ...

. After his junior year in 1997, Collins decided to forgo his final year of NCAA eligibility and enter the

NFL Draft The National Football League Draft, also called the NFL Draft or (officially) the Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the league's most common source of player recruitment. Each team is given a position in the drafting o ...

. Collins graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor's degree in exercise and sport sciences in 1998.

Professional career

The

selected Collins in the first round (twenty-third pick overall) of the

. He played for the Raiders from to .National Football League, Historical Players
Mo Collins
Retrieved July 22, 2010. In his six NFL seasons, Collins appeared in seventy-one regular season games and started in sixty-four of them.

Life after the NFL

Collins was hired as the head coach of the West Charlotte Lions football team of West Charlotte High School, his alma mater, on February 7, 2014. Collins died Sunday, October 26, 2014; he had been receiving dialysis treatment after suffering kidney failure.Langston Wertz Jr.,

" ''Charlotte Observer'' (October 26, 2014). Retrieved October 26, 2014.

References

Bibliography

* Carlson, Norm, ''University of Florida Football Vault: The History of the Florida Gators'', Whitman Publishing, LLC, Atlanta, Georgia (2007). . * Golenbock, Peter, ''Go Gators! An Oral History of Florida's Pursuit of Gridiron Glory'', Legends Publishing, LLC, St. Petersburg, Florida (2002). . * Hairston, Jack, ''Tales from the Gator Swamp: A Collection of the Greatest Gator Stories Ever Told'', Sports Publishing, LLC, Champaign, Illinois (2002). . * McCarthy, Kevin M.,
Fightin' Gators: A History of University of Florida Football
', Arcadia Publishing, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (2000). . * Nash, Noel, ed., ''The Gainesville Sun Presents The Greatest Moments in Florida Gators Football'', Sports Publishing, Inc., Champaign, Illinois (1998). .

External links

*Official NFL/Oakland Raiders bios by seasons
1998 to 200120022003
{{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, Mo 1976 births 2014 deaths American football offensive guards American football offensive tackles Deaths from kidney failure Florida Gators football players High school football coaches in North Carolina Oakland Raiders players Players of American football from Charlotte, North Carolina Sportspeople from Charlotte, North Carolina