About Bud Collins

By Kelyn Soong

Arthur Worth “Bud” Collins, Jr. grew up in Berea, Ohio and attended nearby Baldwin-Wallace University. He was the sports editor for the college paper, The Exponent, and had the opportunity to cover Berea Olympic gold-medalist sprinter Harrison Dillard at the 1948 London Olympics.Collins would occasionally cover tennis events, with his first tennis tournament the Massachusetts Women’s Championship at the Longwood Cricket Club in the late 1950s. It was here that Collins acquired his true appreciation for covering the sport.

His coverage caught the eye of Benny Friedman, a former University of Michigan quarterback who became the athletic director at Brandeis University. Friedman offered Collins a part-time job as the school’s first varsity tennis coach. Collins coached from 1959 to 1963, during which time he had perhaps the most famous student-athlete at the time, political and social activist Abbie Hoffman, on the team.

In 1966, Greg Harney, the producer for Boston’s Public Broadcasting Service, WGBH, approached Collins to do commentary for live tennis matches he wanted to show on air. This began Collins’ sports commentary work, in which he was a pioneer.

Collins moved to CBS Sports in 1968 and then NBC Sports in 1972 and began his “Breakfast at Wimbledon” broadcasts in 1979. His run with NBC lasted until 2007, when NBC decided not to renew the then-78-year-old’s contract.

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