Arthur Worth "Bud" Collins, Jr. (born June 17, 1929 in Lima, Ohio) is an American journalist and television commentator for ESPN. Collins was a television commentator for NBC Sports between 1972 and 2007. Bud is married to photographer Anita Ruthling Klaussen.

Collins is a 1947 graduate of Berea High School in Berea, Ohio and a graduate of Baldwin-Wallace College, where he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. After his U.S. Army service, Collins decided to attend Boston University graduate school. From 1959 - 1963 he served as the tennis coach at Brandeis University, where one of his players was Abbie Hoffman.

Collins started writing for the Boston Herald as a sportswriter while he was a student at Boston University. In 1963, he moved to the Boston Globe and also began doing tennis commentary for Boston's Public Broadcasting Service outlet, WGBH. From 1968-72, he worked for CBS during its coverage of the U.S. Open. In 1972, he joined NBC Sports as a tennis broadcaster.

For several years with the Boston Globe, he was a general and political columnist. In 1967, he was a candidate for mayor of Boston.

During the 2007 Wimbledon tournament, Collins announced that NBC had chosen not to renew his contract and was letting him go. Collins had covered tennis for the network for 35 years. He insisted that he had no plans to retire and would continue to cover tennis for the Boston Globe. On July 8, 2007, the final day of the tournament, fellow Globe sportswriter Bob Ryan, on the ESPN TV show The Sports Reporters, ridiculed NBC for this decision. He said the 78-year-old Collins "still has his fastball" and praised the Globe for retaining Collins.

Collins was hired by ESPN on August 7, 2007. He will team with onetime NBC partner Dick Enberg on the network's Wimbledon, French Open, and Australian Open coverage.

Collins has written several books, including The Education of a Tennis Player (with Rod Laver, 1971), Evonne! On the Move (with Evonne Goolagong Cawley, 1974), and a memoir, My Life With the Pros (1989). He has also produced several tennis encyclopedias, including "The Modern Encyclopedia of Tennis," the "Bud Collins Tennis Encyclopedia," and "Total Tennis."

In 1994, Collins was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

Although Collins has described himself as a "hacker", he is an accomplished tennis player in his own right. He won the U.S. Indoor mixed doubles championship (with Janet Hopps) in 1961, and was a finalist in the French Senior doubles (with Jack Crawford) in 1975.

Collins' trademark is his donning of "loud" pants, which he has custom-made from unique fabrics he collects while traveling for work. According to Bud's website, all of his pants are fashioned by tailor Charlie Davidson in his Andover Shop in Cambridge, MA.

In 2006, made a cameo appearance as himself in the episode Spellingg Bee of the television show Psych.

* * * * * * * * *

<div class="references-small">

</div>

*The Official Web Site of Bud Collins *International Tennis Hall of Fame profile *http://www.absolutewrite.com/specialty_writing/bud_collins.htm 2001 interview with Collins