Background
His mother forced him to play basketball to distract him from the death during the summer between his seventh and eighth grade years and would even play Tank herself.
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Tank Collins
Edit ProfileEducation
Pomona High School.
Career
He played for Presto Ice Cream in the Philippine Basketball Association but is best known for his high school and college careers in the United States. A native of Pomona, California, Collins was not athletic as a child and gave up playing sports. When he was in seventh grade, Collins" father suddenly died.
This laid the foundation for his aggressive style which would come to benefit him later.
By the time he got to high school, Collins was utilizing his 6"5" (196 m), 215-pound (98 kg) stature to dominate his opponents. He earned the nickname "Tank" from his physique and physicality.
One coach said, "He"s like a 500-pound gorilla. He can do anything he wants." Collins kept improving, learned to shoot accurately from beyond 15 feet and quickly became one of the most sought-after high school recruits in California.
During his senior year at Pomona High School, however, he was declared academically ineligible to play most of the season due to poor grades.
Through his first seven games he had been averaging 28.6 points and 17.1 rebounds per game. Collins claimed that his focus on basketball as well as the attention he was receiving from 100+ college scouts distracted him from concentrating on his classwork. He did manage to play in the final few games of the season, but he had already proven himself enough to college recruiters where it did not affect his desirability to college recruiters.
Tank Collins had to play basketball at a junior college for two seasons to improve his grades before he was able to play National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I basketball.
After his brief junior college career, he chose to play basketball for the Privateers of the University of New Orleans (United Nations Organization). Between 1989-1990 and 1990-1991, Collins helped guide United Nations Organization to a period of great success.
Their season records were:
1989-1990 season — 21–11 (8–2 ASC) → co-regular season and ASC conference tournament champions
1990-1991 season — 23–8 (9–3 ASC) → co-regular season champions
New Orleans also qualified for National Collegiate Athletic Association postseason tournaments in each of his two seasons. They earned a berth into the National Invitation Tournament (National Institute of Technology) in 1990 and advanced to the quarterfinal round.
In Collins" senior season he led United Nations Organization in scoring with a 17.3 points per game average.
They advanced to the 1991 National Collegiate Athletic Association Tournament but lost to Kansas, 55–49, in the opening round. To conclude his collegiate career, Tank was named the American South Conference Men"s Basketball Player of the Year. After college Collins played in the Philippine Basketball Association for Presto Ice Cream.
