Seahawks’ Alex Collins recalls his days as a dominant lacrosse player
Oct 18, 2016, 11:44 AM
Before starring on the college gridiron and being drafted into the NFL, Seahawks rookie running back Alex Collins was a man amongst boys on the lacrosse field.
“I love lacrosse, man. It was awesome. It was awesome,” Collins told told “Danny, Dave and Moore” on Monday. “It wasn’t fair back then because I was bigger than everybody. I had fun, though. The parents didn’t like me on the other team, though.”
Watch: Alex Collins is lord of the Irish dance
Collins only picked up the sport his senior year at South Plantation High School in a Fort Lauderdale, Fla. suburb, but his 4-minute and 18-second mixtape is filled with spin moves and him embarrassing his much smaller opponents. About 45 seconds in, he jukes two opponents into running into each other, then spins another around in circles at 1:18. At 57 seconds, he de-cleats somebody about half his size. At 3:09, he weaves through the defense for a score. Collins said Monday that there many more highlights that never made it to the tape.
“I used to get parents screaming at me all the time because I just used to lay kids out on the field and you’d hear the parents on the sidelines screaming at the refs like, ‘Get him out of here,’” he recalled.
Collins, who scored the first touchdown of his professional career during Sunday’s win over the Falcons, said some lacrosse skills have translated to football, including hand-eye-coordination, conditioning and footwork. He also had a bit of a mean streak. Collins said no opponent ever forfeited – unlike what is happening to the Archbishop High School football team – but that his team was on the winning side of many blowouts and that he spent a lot of time in the penalty box.
“I was not nice out there,” he said.
Other highlights from the conversation:
• On losing the football after his first TD: “After I scored, Justin Britt has this thing where he likes to slam the ball down after I score, so I handed him the ball and he slammed it down. After that, everyone was trying to get me to go get the ball because it was my first touchdown. After he slammed it, I don’t know where it went so C.J. Spiller ran on the field telling me to go get the ball. I’m looking around and I had no idea where it went after that, so it was this whole deal trying to find out where the ball went after Justin Britt spiked it.”
• On forgetting his touchdown celebration: “I had something planned, but after that moment of scoring your first touchdown, your mind just goes blank. I guess those guys who have the cool celebrations are just used to scoring because when I scored my first time, there was nothing on my mind but, ‘This is it.’ It was a surreal feeling. Everything I thought about before that was just cleared out of my mind. I was just happy to be there at that moment.”
• At 13-minute mark in the audio below, Collins teaches the hosts how to Call the Hogs with the “Woo Pig Sooie” cheer for his alma matter, Arkansas. Jim Moore reciprocates with a lesson on how to chant “Go Cougs.” It’s worth a listen.
