Building successful programs has been Terry Collins’ trademark at each of his five stops as a community college head coach, including St. Louis Community College, where he enters his seventh year at the helm of the men’s basketball team in 2021-22.

Collins took over the men’s basketball program in the fall of 2015.  The Archers reached the Region finals that year, followed up the next year with Region 16 and District 13 championships, and returned to the Region final game in 2017-2018 in a season that saw the Archers engineer wins over three Division I powers in Moberly, Mineral Area, and Three Rivers.  In the 2018-2019 campaign the Archers earned the number one seed in the Region 16 tournament by going undefeated in Region play in the regular season but lost in the tournament championship game on the last possession.

Collins’ first head coaching position was at the Granite City Campus of Belleville Area College (now Southwestern Illinois College) when GCC was just beginning an athletic program in 1984-85.  In their fourth and final season, Granite City reached the 20-win plateau in the always rugged Great Rivers Athletic Conference.

Lincoln Trail College, also of the GRAC and coming off a 6-25 campaign, hired Collins the following year.  He resurrected that program, capturing the Division I District 4 title in 1993-1994 to stamp Lincoln Trail’s ticket to Hutchinson, KS, for the NJCAA Championship Tournament.

After concluding his eight-year stint at Lincoln Trail, Collins moved on to South Suburban College for seven seasons.  At the time an NJCAA Division II school, Collins and the Bulldogs transitioned to Division I and posted a 22-win season by his third year in 2000-2001.

Collins was tabbed as Daley College’s first coach when it started basketball in 2008-2009 and produced two twenty-win seasons and a .700 winning percentage in the competition among City College of Chicago schools, all of whom had long established programs.

One of the reasons Collins’ teams have prospered is his ability to develop players.  Chris Whitney, a member of Collins’ 1989-90 and 1990-91 Lincoln Trail teams and NJCAA All-American, went on to play at Clemson University before embarking on an 11-year NBA career.  Headlining Collins’ championship Lincoln Trail team was NJCAA All-American Terry Johnson, currently an assistant at Ohio State University.  Diante Watkins, an NJCAA All-American for Collins at Daley in 2009-10, went on to earn NAIA National Player of the Year honors at Robert Morris University in Chicago before playing professionally in Germany and France.  Perhaps the greatest story involves Larry Taylor who played for Collins at South Suburban.  A reserve player in high school, Taylor excelled under Collins at SSC.  After completing his collegiate career at Missouri Western, Taylor carved out an impressive professional career in Brazil, making the 2012 Brazilian Olympic Team.

Collins, born and raised in Los Angeles, earned a Bachelor’s Degree in History from Occidental College and Masters in Sport Science from the United States Sports Academy.  He was a high school teacher and coach in the Los Angeles area until venturing to the Midwest in the 1980’s.  He currently serves as a deacon for the Archdiocese of St. Louis and is assigned to St. Vincent DePaul parish.