First Impressions

By ROBYN NORWOOD

Jan. 23, 2001 12 AM PT

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

TAMPA, Fla. — Go ahead, Kerry Collins said: Ask.

“I was 13 when I had my first experience with alcohol,” the quarterback who will lead the New York Giants into the Super Bowl said Monday.

“The type of drinking I did wasn’t every day. It wasn’t every other day. But when I drank, I didn’t stop.

“I would go out, go out to different clubs, different bars with friends. I thought I was having a good time. I’d wake up with a hangover and memories I didn’t always remember.

“I look back on it, and I feel like I was missing out on life itself. I told myself if I didn’t party, if I didn’t go out and drink, then I was wasting my youth. As a result, I was wasting my life.”

Collins understood the spotlight was going to fall on him this Super Bowl week.

So on Monday he embraced the glare in an extraordinary, unanticipated interview session that lasted close to 45 minutes the day before Media Day, the traditional kickoff of the interview frenzy.

“I always thought that if I ever did get to the Super Bowl, it was going to be revisited, once again. Time and time again,” said Collins, who began an alcohol rehabilitation program at the order of the NFL after a 1998 drunk-driving arrest in Charlotte, N.C.

“The thing about this is, we are in the public eye. You come to the Super Bowl, it’s going to be talked about. It’s fair game.

“I figured that to do this in this kind of setting, give you the opportunity to ask the questions you want to ask, rather than different things coming up at different times throughout the week, I thought this would be a better venue.

“I’m not naive to think that it won’t be addressed again, but at least at some point during the week there comes a point when football becomes a main priority.”

Football was a sidelight for a while Monday.

“I was described as a lost soul and I definitely think that was the case,” said Collins, 28.

“Humility is not always our strong suit as professional athletes, and one thing I had to do was to get humbled.

“I had to realize I do have a problem and I can’t control alcohol. Unless I realized that, alcohol was eventually going to kill me or I’d end up in jail.”

It wasn’t only alcohol that almost derailed the career of Collins, there was the charge of racism.

Collins led the Carolina Panthers to the NFC championship game in the 1996 season, only his second season in the NFL.

By midway through the 1998 season, he had been released, the result of personal problems that included family turmoil as well as alcohol dependency, capped off by his admitted use of a racial epithet after a night partying with teammates.

“It was the last night of training camp. We were all out having drinks. I was very intoxicated,” Collins said.

“There was celebrating going on in the dorms. . . . I used a term that was not meant to be used in a malicious way. It was more in a joking manner. I was trying to be a funny guy. I was saying something I obviously I knew I shouldn’t be saying. . . .

“In a strange sense, in my polluted, chemically altered mind I believed in some sort of way it would bring some sort of camaraderie.

“The team and the guys who were there that night took it the way they took it. They felt that because of the nature of the situation and the nature of the word that I used, it was in a derogatory sense. I regret the incident. I wish it never would have happened.”

The next day, Coach Dom Capers confronted Collins.

“It did not turn out the way I wanted it to turn out,” Collins said. “It eventually led to them releasing me. Once the die was cast from that initial conversation, there was no turning back.

“I never wanted to quit on that team. If I wanted to quit I wouldn’t be standing here, I don’t think.”

Picked up by New Orleans, Collins was in Charlotte on a road trip in November when he was arrested for driving under the influence.

“That transcended the, ‘OK, I’ve got personal problems and alcohol problems,’ ” he said. “Now I’ve got trouble with the law.”

Another day that sobered him was the day he checked into rehab.

“I was ordered into rehab by the NFL. I decided to go in two weeks early. That first day, that was the time when I realized that it was pretty bad for me. That realization of having to go somewhere in a structured, controlled environment to seek help, that was certainly very shocking to me.”

Collins’ difficulty coping was a complicated cocktail.

“The alcohol part of it, that was just fueling the fire,” he said. “I was escaping from a lot of the angst I was feeling, a lot of the uncomfortableness with myself.

“I really had problems with the public attention, the living in the public eye. It was almost that adage of, ‘I’ll show you, I’ll hurt me.’

“The alcohol part of it, I did develop a dependency. That’s something I think about and have to deal with, and it will be for the rest of my life.”

There were family problems as well.

“When I was 14, my father and I moved to another school district. We did it for athletic reasons.

“That sent a couple of messages to me. One was that football was more important than anything. And the other was that if everything works out in football, everything will be OK. I’m kind of living proof that that’s not the case.”

This week, his whole family will be at the game.

“This is the first time in a number of years we’re all going to be in the same place at the same time,” Collins said. “I’m very pleased with that because I’ve had a rocky relationship with my family.”

Signed by the Giants before the 1999 season, Collins finally made good. Players such as Michael Strahan and Tiki Barber have long since ceased to think of Collins as racist.

Barber said Monday he decided to let Collins’ actions, not what he heard, be the judge. And the way Collins never refused to address his past earned Barber’s respect over time.

“My view was that if I go in there and shake hands and slap everybody on the back and say, ‘Oh, that didn’t happen. . . . I’m not a racist.’ I didn’t see what words were going to do at that point,” Collins said. “I knew it wasn’t going to happen overnight.

“I took the approach that day in and day out, I’m going to do the things I need to do to prove to these people that all the things they read weren’t true.

“I’m most indebted that the guys on that team gave me the opportunity. I don’t think a lot of teams would have, I don’t think a lot of guys would have.

“I’m more indebted to them for that than anyone on this earth. That’s why going into this game, I want to think about that opportunity they gave me. A big part of my motivation the last two years to do well has been to repay them.”

Now he has.

“I think I’m a better success story off the field, because the things I’ve done off the field have transcended my career.

“I’m very, very proud to be sitting here at the Super Bowl as the quarterback of one of the teams. I’m more proud of the things I did to make my life what it is today.”

The talent he almost squandered has been redeemed.

“I didn’t want to look back 20 or 30 years from now and see what I wasted,” he said. “That more than anything has been one of the driving forces.”

Is it possible that the quarterback who has been called a drunk, a racist and a quitter can add another job description to his dossier: role model?

“You talk about the issue of being a role model: I screwed the first part of it up. That was not making any mistakes.

“Well, I’m human, and I have human frailties and weaknesses. We all do. And hopefully people can see me as a role model in a sense of people have problems--alcohol dependency, or whatever it may be, is part of life, and it’s part of everyday life for a lot of people.

“Hopefully they can look at me as someone who realized they had a problem, realized they needed to do something about it. Perhaps I’ve become a role model in that sense.

“How many times does anybody go through life without a problem? I don’t think it happens.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

NO PAIR OF ACES, BUT . . .

The New York Giants’ Kerry Collins and Baltimore Ravens’ Trent Dilfer have been called the worst starting quarterback duo in Super Bowl history. However, their combined passer rating this season, 81.1, is better than nine other Super Bowl quarterback duos:

Comb. Rating: 71.7

Super Bowl: 1980 (XIV)

Quarterback: Terry Bradshaw

Team: Pittsburgh

Quarterback: Vince Ferragamo

Team: Los Angeles Rams

Comb. Rating: 74.1

Super Bowl: 1975 (IX)

Quarterback: Terry Bradshaw

Team: Pittsburgh

Quarterback: Fran Tarkenton

Team: Minnesota

Comb. Rating: 74.8

Super Bowl: 1971 (V)

Quarterback: Johnny Unitas

Team: Baltimore

Quarterback: Craig Morton

Team: Dallas

Comb. Rating: 75.0

Super Bowl: 1970 (IV)

Quarterback: Len Dawson

Team: Kansas City

Quarterback: Joe Kapp

Team: Minnesota

Comb. Rating: 75.2

Super Bowl: 1986 (XX)

Quarterback: Jim McMahon

Team: Chicago

Quarterback: Tony Eason

Team: New England

Comb. Rating: 75.3

Super Bowl: 1968 (II)

Quarterback: Bart Starr

Team: Green Bay

Quarterback: Daryle Lamonica

Team: Oakland

Comb. Rating: 76.9

Super Bowl: 1987 (XXI)

Quarterback: Phil Simms

Team: New York Giants

Quarterback: John Elway

Team: Denver

Comb. Rating: 79.7

Super Bowl: 1983 (XVII)

Quarterback: Joe Theismann

Team: Washington

Quarterback: David Woodley

Team: Miami

Comb. Rating: 80.8

Super Bowl: 1973 (VII)

Quarterback: Bob Griese

Team: Miami

Quarterback: Billy Kilmer

Team: Washington

Comb. Rating: 81.1

Super Bowl: 2001 (XXXV)

Quarterback: Kerry Collins

Team: New York Giants

Quarterback: Trent Dilfer

Team: Baltimore

Comb. Rating: 81.6

Super Bowl: 1969 (III)

Quarterback: Joe Namath

Team: New York Jets

Quarterback: Earl Morrall

Team: Baltimore

Comb. Rating: 82.8

Super Bowl: 1976 (X)

Quarterback: Terry Bradshaw

Team: Pittsburgh

Quarterback: Roger Staubach

Team: Dallas

Comb. Rating: 83.5

Super Bowl: 1981 (XV)

Quarterback: Jim Plunkett

Team: Oakland

Quarterback: Ron Jaworski

Team: Philadelphia

Comb. Rating: 84.8

Super Bowl: 1979 (XIII)

Quarterback: Terry Bradshaw

Team: Pittsburgh

Quarterback: Roger Staubach

Team: Dallas

Comb. Rating: 84.9

Super Bowl: 1978 (XII)

Quarterback: Roger Staubach

Team: Dallas

Quarterback: Craig Morton

Team: Denver

THE COLLINS CYCLE

New York Giant quarterback Kerry Collins’ six-season NFL career can be divided into three segments. First, a rise to prominence from being the expansion Carolina Panthers’ first-ever draft choice to leading them to the NFC championship game in their second season. Then, the middle two seasons when his fortunes took a nose dive as personal problems--mainly resulting from alcohol dependency--led to his release from the Panthers and New Orleans Saints. Third, a career resurgence as a recovering alcoholic in which he has led the Giants from mediocrity to the Super Bowl:

Seasons: 1995-96

Team: Carolina

GS: 27

Comp: 414

Att: 797

Yards: 5,171

Pct: 51.9

TD: 28

Int: 28

Rating: 69.9

W-L: 17-10

Seasons: 1997-98