Cecil J. P. Collins (born November 19, 1976) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive handoffs from the quarterback to rush the ball, to line up as a receiver to catch the ball, and block. Ther ...

for the

Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team p ...

of the

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(NFL).

Early years

Collins attended

Leesville High School Leesville High School is a school located in Leesville, Louisiana, United States. The 9-12 school is a part of the Vernon Parish School Board. School uniforms This means that students can wear clothing that conforms to the Vernon Parish Dress ...

in Leesville in

Vernon Parish Vernon Parish (French: ''Paroisse de Vernon'') is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 52,334. The parish seat is Leesville. Bordered on the west by the Sabine River, the parish was founde ...

in western

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. There, he amassed 99 touchdowns and 7,833 yards over his

high school football High school football (french: football au lycée) is gridiron football played by high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both countries, but its popularity is declining, part ...

career including 3,079 yards during his senior season. Leesville was the 4A state runner-up that year and Cecil was selected as Louisiana's very first "Mr. Football". Collin's struggles began during his senior season at Leesville when the NCAA Clearinghouse declared that he would be required to retake his ACT Test. Cecil had taken the test during his Junior year and had not scored well enough to qualify for Division I schools. At the beginning of his Senior season he retook the exam and improved five points giving him an acceptable score. After reviewing his case however, the NCAA Clearinghouse notified his family that this improvement was unusual and that it would be necessary for him to retest. On his third attempt, Collins failed to make the required score by one point and was forced to sit out his first year at LSU.

College career

After sitting out his freshman year he began his football career at

LSU Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

in less than grand fashion, sitting out the first game of the season serving a suspension for breaking team rules. After this ignoble beginning, however, Collins compiled 596 yards in his first four games before breaking his leg in the game against Vanderbilt. He was kicked off of the LSU squad before the start of his second season after having been twice arrested for illegally entering dwellings. He claimed he was sleepwalking and had no recollection of entering the girls' rooms. He received probation as his sentence and made a second attempt at college football at Division I-AA (FCS)

McNeese State University McNeese State University is a public university in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Founded in 1939 as Lake Charles Junior College, it was renamed McNeese Junior College after John McNeese, an early local educator. The present name was adopted in 1970. M ...

in Lake Charles, Louisiana but violated his probation when he failed a

drug screen A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via inhalati ...

and was kicked off of the McNeese squad as well.

NFL career

Collins was selected as the first pick in the fifth round of the 1999 NFL Draft by the Dolphins out of McNeese State University by then

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Jimmy Johnson. Signing a three year contract, His nickname with the Dolphins was 'Cecil the Diesel'. He appeared in eight games in the 1999 season, accumulating 414 yards and two

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Amer ...

s. Collins was suspended indefinitely after his burglary arrest, then released shortly afterward.

Career statistics

Burglary case

On December 16, 1999, Collins committed burglary in Palm Trace Landings, an apartment complex in

Davie Davie is a surname and a form of the masculine given name David. It can refer to: Surname * Alan Davie (1920-2014), Scottish painter and musician * Alexander Edmund Batson Davie (1847-1889), Canadian politician and eighth Premier of British Co ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. He admitted that he broke into the home of a married woman that he knew from the gym, but said he only wanted to watch her sleep. After conviction on the charge, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison on March 27, 2001 and released on May 1, 2013.

Personal

Collins has three children. During his prison sentence, Collins said he found God and married a woman he met while she was visiting another inmate.

References

External links

Florida Department of Corrections

{{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, Cecil 1976 births American people convicted of burglary Living people People from Leesville, Louisiana People from Elizabethtown, Kentucky Players of American football from Kentucky American football running backs LSU Tigers football players McNeese Cowboys football players Miami Dolphins players American prisoners and detainees Place of birth missing (living people) American sportspeople convicted of crimes