Former Rocky Mountain News sports editor Bob Collins died Saturday in a Naples, Fla., hospital after battling chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said Diane Collins, his daughter-in-law.
Bob Collins was 83.
Described as an “old time” newspaperman, Collins joined the News in 1947 after rising to the rank of first lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War II. He served as a sports writer, columnist, assistant sports editor and sports editor.
He retired in 1984.
Denver Post sports writer Irv Moss remembers Collins from the early 1970s when they competed directly against each other covering U.S. Air Force Academy athletics.
This was in the days before the new stadiums with elevators to glassed-in, heated press boxes, Moss recalls.
He remembers sitting in the cold wind next to Collins in the open-air press box at the U.S. Military Academy’s Michie Stadium in West Point, N.Y., as each wrote stories for their respective Sunday morning editions, while the sleet and snow blew in.
Collins was one of the last newspapermen in Denver to convert from the typewriter to the computer, Moss said.
“He was an old-time guy,” Moss said.
“He always said he was the only Democrat living in Cherry Hills,” Moss said. “Bob was a good guy.”
Vince Boryla, a friend and former Denver Nuggets and New York Knicks general manager, said: “Bob had a dry wit about himself. He wasn’t as sour as most sports people are. He was really a sweetheart.”
Boryla said: “On a scale of one to 10, he was a 10 man, as far as I’m concerned. No one knew his facts better than Bob, and no one had the same way of putting it down in black and white.”
Robert F. Collins was born Aug. 18, 1922, in Davenport, Iowa. He graduated from the University of Iowa, where he played baseball.
He married his wife, Beverly, in 1947.
Collins is survived by his wife; two daughters, Kendra Maxwell of Butler, N.J., and Maureen Collins of Thurman, Iowa; a son, F. Stephen Collins of Parker; and four grandchildren.
There will be a private Mass today. Burial arrangements are pending at Fort Logan National Cemetery.
