Bald Facts From The Boston Hacker

When tennis boomed in the early 1970s Collins was as poised and ready as Jimmy Connors waiting to return serve: he had been broadcasting tennis for 10 years on WGBH; he had done Forest Hills for the commercial networks; he had written regularly for tennis magazines; his backhand was coming along nicely; and he knew everyone worth knowing in the game and remembered every name he learned. He had done everything, in fact, but embroider tennis samplers. Thus when PBS decided to televise the summer Grand Prix circuit in 1974, who better to sign on than our own Bud, the hacker's friend? When NBC needed an anchorman for a series of tournaments from such exotic venues as Monte Carlo, Palm Springs and Stockholm , the call went out for Collins .

"I was just doing what I'd always been doing, but I was like a guy playing trumpet in the desert," Collins says. "All of a sudden trumpet music was in. Now I'm the No. 1 guy and there ain't no No. 2, 3 or 4. I wake up every day amazed to find myself making a living, actually making a living, in tennis."

And not that bad a living, he might add, although he eschews conspicuous consumption—with the vivid exception of his wardrobe—with proper Bostonian reserve. He drives a red Fiat . His house is comfortable but not lavish and seems dominated by stairs and cats. His closets, however, contain the raiment of a star, the colors running to yellow and puce and fuchsia and pale burgundy, and the style ranging from restrained gaudiness to subdued exuberance. A priest who shook his hand after the World Cup matches told him that he admired his work and envied his slacks. For the last day of the matches he wore a blue velvet jacket, flower-patched dungarees and a tie containing all the colors of the eight countries of Central America .

Beneath the flash and dazzle, however, lurks just plain Bud from Berea , so approachable that he's in the Boston phone book, reliable as the Massachusetts Turnpike, affable, energetic, occasionally sophomoric but savvy. Perhaps because celebrity came late to Collins , he has not let it conquer him. He retains a sense of his own fallibility. "Bud is a humble egotist," says Greg Harney, and in Collins ' case it's not really a contradiction.

He frets that his dedication to tennis has made him too narrow. "I begin to feel like Eugene O'Neill's father doing The Count of Monte Cristo forever," he says. "You have to wonder about building your life around a net and a lot of overpaid athletes. I have misgivings sometimes."

Collins agonized indecisively for more than a month before accepting NBC 's offer to be its chief tennis commentator this year. "The commercial networks often shortchange tennis by putting on people who don't know anything about the game," he says. "And there's so much more freedom on the public network." He considers himself a writer first—he is working on a book about tennis people, and still does a weekly column for the Globe—although he now spends most of his time and earns most of his clothes-buying money in television. "I think I'm unique in being a broadcaster who writes," he contends. "I also feel some pride in working for both the commercial and public networks. I can play with the big boys and also...uh, well...with the good guys."

"Bud would rather talk tennis than do anything else," says a friend, "and he'd rather play than talk."

A high-quality hacker with quick reflexes and good touch, Collins plays wherever he is. In Hawaii he daily joins a foursome at 8 a.m. At whatever event lie's working he organizes a press tournament. In Boston he plays regularly at a spacious downtown club that was once a police riding academy. "You know, Bud's really as homely as a mud fence and so is his tennis game," says a fellow Boston hacker, "but he gets everything out of what he has. He's deceptively good. Ugly is beautiful in his case."

An elderly fellow member watched him cavort one recent afternoon at his Boston club. Collins was clad in a pink sweater, white warmup pants and had a towel wrapped tight around his neck. He smiled his winner's smile while he hit a succession of effortless lobs in the preliminary rally. The spectator clicked his tongue as he watched.

"I think of Bud as an Elizabethan actor," the man said. "He used to be bald in front, you know, with hair down to his shoulders in back." He watched Collins make a delicate volley that stopped two feet past the net.