By Drew Beck
For the first three years of his high school career, Shayne Collins was a prodigy, a talent waiting for his moment to shine. The precocious Mansfield distance runner certainly carried with him a lot of hype. Coming from a family full of athletic talent, Collins has been chasing school records his older brother set several years ago under the tutelage of his mom. Like the new boxing movie, The Fighter, the road has had its fair share of potholes and, at times, seemed more circuitous than direct.
Now, in his senior season, the youngest Collins is beginning to see those records fall one by one. Scorching the indoor high school circuit this winter, Shayne’s accomplishments include: runner-up status at All-States, a school-record 9:09 two-mile, a school-record 4:18 mile, and a third place finish at the New Balance Indoor National meet held in New York. All those notable achievements came as a result of four years of talent, hard work and, more importantly, perseverance, for the road hasn’t always been easy for the Mansfield superstar.
Shayne Collins broke the mold of the successful distance-runner his freshman and sophomore years. Determined to stay multi-dimensional athletically when he entered high school, Collins wrestled varsity in addition to running cross-country and track. “Coming in freshman year, I fully intended to participate in XC, wrestling, and lacrosse,” explains Collins. “After a successful freshman cross-country season where I placed 2nd at the Northeast Freshman Footlocker Championships, I was persuaded to run outdoor track. However, I decided I would never regret giving it (wrestling) a try, so that’s what I did freshman and sophomore year.”
Unfortunately, the wear and tear of the winter sport caught up to Collins, and after hurting his shoulder, he turned to running full-time. “I was tired of the unhealthy lifestyle, always cutting weight for meets. It was hard leaving the sport, but I’m glad I did. Plus, wrestling in the winter wasn’t helping me during spring track,” chuckled Collins.
While Collins has always been successful in cross-country, running times of 16:55 and 16:16 5k’s at Franklin Park freshman and sophomore year respectively, track always frustrated him. It seemed as if the XC ace was having trouble meshing his awesome endurance with any substantial leg turnover to produce noteworthy track times. “I’ve always consider myself an XC guy, never cared much for running in circles. So my PR’s on the track were nothing special before this season, in fact my mile time was laughably slow. I tended to avoid the mile at all costs.”
Going into junior season with the ambition of leading his team to repeat as All-State XC champions, Collins paced himself behind another Mansfield great, Patrick McGowan. Training with both McGowan and Brendan Boyle in the fall of ’09, Collins looked to improve upon his already impressive fall resume. When the team won the title again and Collins placed in the top-ten for the second consecutive year (with McGowan winning the individual title), things appeared to going as planned even though Collins had personally plateaued in the fall season. About three months later, at the Division 2 Class Meet, Collins broke through, running a time of 9:32 for the deuce, which demolished his previous personal record by nearly thirteen seconds. Things were looking up, and with the three-headed monster of McGowan, Boyle, and Collins, Mansfield looked unstoppable in the distance events. Then, for Mansfield’s youngest distance stud, disaster struck. In the ensuing training after All-States for the outdoor season, Collins blew out his knee and was forced to sit the entire outdoor season.
After going to physical therapy for weeks and recovering from his season-ending injury, Collins trained harder and smarter than ever before in the summer leading up to his senior season. All the hard work paid off as he ran his way to an undefeated campaign through the All-State meet. “Winning CMI was very exciting for me,” says Collins when determining his favorite season memory. “The team was growing strong again since losing a lot of top guys from the previous graduating class. It just felt as if we were on a good foot again. I also got to break the 16 minute barrier at Franklin Park which was very important to me.”
The momentum continued into the championship season, where Collins led his Hornets to league and class championships while winning the individual titles in each. Unfortunately for Mansfield, the bid to three-peat at All-States came up short with the team finishing in eighth. Collins finished a disappointing twelfth place (his lowest since freshman year) due to a hip injury sustained at the end of the 2.9 mile race. His two major personal goals going into the season, to win All-States and qualify for Footlocker Nationals, both went down the drain.
“My hip injury ruined my life for a couple of months. I was crushed after XC. To watch my dreams go down in flames like that was hard, especially since I had trained harder than ever in the summer. During my time off before indoor, I decided I was going to dedicate myself to the oval fully for the first time.”
With a determined attitude and a revamped training schedule, Collins started the indoor season by doing the shorter events he hated so much to develop leg turnover. It was all in an effort to get a nice mile PR. Collins’ hard work showed itself when he ran 4:18 at an early season invite to break McGowan’s previous record. Incorporating some two-mile workouts towards the end of the season, Collins fought his way to All-American at this past weekend’s New Balance Indoor Nationals in a time of 9:11 and was the fastest finisher from New England. The talent, hard work, and persistence finally gave way to success and Mansfield’s long-time prodigy became its latest star.
Shayne’s Favorites:
Food: BBQ chicken pizza
Book: Running with the Buffaloes by Chris Lear
Movie: Cinderella Man
Music: Anything that pumps me up for race time
Clothes: Under Armour
Running Shoes: Mizuno!
Hobby: Hanging out with friends
Role Model/Favorite Athlete: Dathan Ritzenhein
Dream Job: Olympic Runner
College: Not yet committed
Pre-Race Ritual: Blasting my Ipod
Car: Dodge Durango
Can’t Live Without: My water bottle. I bring it everywhere.
Goals for Outdoor: Break 9 for the deuce and put together a great DMR team for Penn Relays