Olympic-medal-winning attorney inducted in rowing Hall of Fame

By Pat Murphy
BridgeTower Media Newswires
 
BOSTON, MA — In winning an Olympic medal, Christine S. Collins had already made her mark as one of the world’s elite athletes. Now the Boston University associate general counsel can claim membership in another exclusive and prestigious class.

Earlier this month, the National Rowing Foundation announced Collins as one of its 2021 National Rowing Hall of Fame inductees.

The foundation cited Collins, 52, for her accomplishments as a member of seven U.S. National Women Rowing Teams from 1991 through 2000 that collected a combined five World Championship medals. Collins ended her career in international competition with a bang, winning a bronze medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

Rowing in the Lightweight Women’s Double Sculls competition, Collins and teammate Sarah Garner crossed the finish line in 7:06.37, less than .04 seconds behind the gold-medal-winning Romanian team in the 2,000-meter event.  (“Double scull” refers to each boat being propelled by a pair of rowers, with each rower using two oars or “sculls,” one on each side of the boat.)

“You’re basically as sick to your stomach as you possibly can be because you are so nervous,” Collins says of how she felt at the starting line for that final heat of her Olympics race. “You’re about to embark on this incredibly painful experience over the next seven minutes, hoping that everything goes according to plan. All you can think about is, ‘Don’t screw up.’”

Approaching the finish line, Collins had a single thought in mind.

“I just remember hanging on with every last ounce of strength I had to try to pull us through, to inch us back into silver and gold medal position,” Collins says. “Crossing the finish line, there’s this mixture of absolute exhaustion, elation because it’s over, and a little bit of sadness because it didn’t come out the way you wanted it to.”

Collins began competitive rowing as an undergrad at Trinity College in 1991. She trained for the Olympics while earning her J.D. at George Washington University Law School.

Growing up in Darien, Connecticut, Collins competed in all kinds of sports.

“My parents supported me through every sport a kid could possibly try growing up in the ’80s,” she says. “The list grew to eight to 12 different sports.”

Collins says she was “moderately successful” in whatever she tried but never a standout.

“Rowers are generally people who have ‘struck out’ — no pun intended — at a lot of other sports generally involving hand-eye coordination,” Collins says with a chuckle.

As a runner in high school, Collins had built the aerobic foundation necessary to excel in rowing. And her athletic background built up the core muscle strength that allowed her to compete in rowing at an international level at the lightweight (less than 130-pound) women’s level.

“[Rowing] has this magical mixture of power and grace,” Collins says. “To be successful in the sport, you need to have the ability to apply all of your body weight — all of the power you can generate in your body — in a very constrained and limited way, over and over again. You need to have rhythm, but you also need to be incredibly strong, both mentally and physically.” 

As Collins tells it, she became involved in rowing almost as an afterthought, joining the team at Trinity as a walk-on during her freshman year.

“I saw an eight [crew rowing boat] outside in front of the student center and thought, ‘This looks pretty fun,’” Collins recalls. “I was burnt out from running [track] for six or seven years and wanted to try something new. I loved being outside and on the water.”

It wasn’t until her sophomore year that she realized she could be really good at the sport. A couple of coaches at Trinity who were plugged into the U.S. National Rowing Team saw something in Collins as well.

“They said, ‘Hey, you might want to think about this,’” she says.

In 1991, after her senior year at Trinity, Collins tried out and made the U.S. team. The rest is history.   

Collins joined the General Counsel’s Office at BU in February 2014, prior to which she was a partner at Bowditch & Dewey in Worcester. It was there that Collins discovered her calling in higher education.

“I fell in love with that niche,” says Collins, who later worked as in-house counsel in various capacities at the University of Massachusetts.