Hunter Collins isn’t a superhero. He just plays one on the mat.
A 187-pound terror in tights, Collins has a physique that was meant
for wrestling. Either that, or a marble slab.
Hunter Collins isn’t a superhero. He just plays one on the mat.
A 187-pound terror in tights, Collins has a physique that was meant for wrestling. Either that, or a marble slab.
Currently in the midst of his senior year at Gilroy High School, only a couple months stand between Collins and doing what no other grappler in the illustrious history of GHS wrestling has ever done. Starting today at Mid Cals, an annual two-day tournament being held in the hometown of the kid who personifies his first name, stalking opponents like prey, Collins will begin his quest to pull off an unheard of trifecta.
He is attempting to become a four-time champion of Mid Cals, a four-time champion of the Central Coast Section and a four-time placer at the CIF State Championships. Ask anyone close to the Gilroy Mustangs’ wrestling program, and they’ll tell you Collins, a five-time All-American, is a shoe-in to accomplish the first two goals.
The third won’t be so easy.
Because just like every superhero, Collins has an adversary, an archirival – a foe that he has yet to conquer: Modesto Central Catholic’s Luis Bland.
Collins, who accepted a full athletic scholarship from the University of Michigan last year, has never beaten Bland in four career matchups. While he is currently a natural fit for the 171-pound weight class, Collins moved up to the 189-pound division because Michigan coaches have him slotted for a higher wieght class, 197 pounds, in the future. Collins also did it so he can see Bland later this year at state.
“Those were pretty much my only two reasons for this weight class,” Collins said. “All I want to do is pretty much beat him. If I beat him, then I pretty much win the state.”
But to confuse Collins’ confidence with cockiness would be foolish. As those who know him best will attest, Collins is as fiercely competitive as he is grounded.
“Hunter’s always been a great kid,” Gilroy coach Armando Gonzalez said. “He’s always done everything I’ve asked him to do.”
And that is how the muscles that every superhero must have were formed. No one can ever claim to have outworked Collins.
Starting at the age of six, Collins’ father introduced him to wrestling. He enrolled him in gramby camps, which gave Collins a base of fundamentals, and knowledge of how to score points from almost any position.
But according to Collins, success didn’t come easy.
“I didn’t win a match for the first three years I wrestled,” he said. “But then I started to win and I could never get out of it.”
Part of the reason Collins didn’t win, and one that he doesn’t use as an excuse – which says something about the person he is and is becoming – is that every opponent he faced those first few years was several years older than him.
“Hunter was really big. He was a tall kid,” said Collins’ mother, Shannon. “He was wrestling kids three or four years older. I thought he would be too kind to be a wrestler. I always call him my gentle giant because he has a heart of gold.”
While being a good person is something that isn’t easy to trace back, Collins’ work ethic is.
“I push myself every day, kind of like my grandfather,” Collins said. “He just does everything as hard as he can. And I just kind of fell into that.
“If you’re going to do something, why not do it as hard as you can?”
This outlook on life is most evident when listing the places Collins has traveled to train. Since the summer after his freshman year, he has been working out at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. He also has traveled overseas, wrestling in Greece and the Ukraine.
Thoughts of Sylvester Stallone slogging through snow and working out in abandoned buildings in scenes from “Rocky IV” aren’t too far off from the surroundings Collins encountered.
“That’s pretty much what it was like,” Collins said about his time in the Ukraine. “It wasn’t that cold, but we trained in some pretty gruesome places. Bathrooms with basically holes in the floor. A big gymnasium with a bunch of mats rolled out but there were bats in the (ceiling). We slept in a place and we had to be in at 10 o’clock because they sweep the streets and our beds were made out of plywood.
“But it was fun. I enjoyed it.”
The chance to settle the score with Bland is now what drives Collins. That and a future that knows no bounds.
“I’m training to be a national champion (in college), but I’m always aiming a little bit past that,” he said. “So, I’m training to be on the world team. [Olympics] are definitely something I’m looking at.”
To get there, Collins and family all agree that it wouldn’t be possible without the supporting cast he’s had in place.
“Without [Coach Gonzalez], Hunter wouldn’t be anywhere without him,” Shannon said.
“There’s not really much I can say,” Collins said. “He taught me how to wrestle. I’m pretty much one of his boys … He’s more than a coach to all of us (wrestlers).”
Being a part of a squad that won CCS five straight years, and is a heavy favorite to win again this season, has formed a brotherhood amongst the wrestlers that starts with coach Gonzalez.
“This is where our hardest matches are,” Collins said last week, pointing to the portable classroom that has been converted to a wrestling room on the GHS campus. “That’s why we’re always ready for tournaments.”
So with only weeks remaining in his high school career, Collins has only a few more barriers to break through to further cement his place as the greatest wrestler in Gilroy history.
Coach Gonzalez believes it’s a battle that only a coach and wrestler can fully understand.
“The bond between a father and son is like a coach and wrestler,” Gonzalez said. “When you go through these types of events, go through victories and defeats, you become closer. There are no secrets or mysteries. All weaknesses are exposed.
“That’s why I say wrestling is one of the best sports in the world, because you measure yourself against another human being. If Luis (Bland) makes one mistake we’re going to capitalize and beat him, and that’s true for any sport.”
