Damon Jamal Collins (September 22, 1976 – October 26, 2014), nicknamed Mo Collins, was an American professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

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 (OL), while linemen on the opposing team are the defensive line ( ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

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

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

for the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...

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

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team based in Oakland, California, from its founding in 1960 to 1981, and again from 1995 to 2019 before Oakland Raiders relocation to Las Vegas, relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan ...

selected him in the first round of the 1998 NFL draft, 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 and the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 United ...

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, . 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 player and coach. He played ten seasons in the National Football League (NFL) before coaching for 38 years, primarily in college. He is often referred to by his nicknam ...

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

team from

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

.
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 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...

, Collins suffered a foot injury and was

redshirt Redshirt, Red Shirt, or Redshirts may refer to: Sports * Redshirt (college sports) Redshirt, in United States college athletics, is a delay or suspension of an athlete's participation in order to lengthen their period of eligibility. Typically ...

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

national title in the Fiesta Bowl, and the 1996 Gators team that defeated the

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

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 only ...

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

NFL draft The NFL draft, officially known as the Annual Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the most common source of player recruitment in the National Football League. Each team is given a position in the drafting order in reve ...

. 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 1998 NFL draft. 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: , , {{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, Mo 1976 births 2014 deaths American football offensive guards American football offensive tackles Deaths from kidney failure in the United States 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