Sibling Pair Runs in Stride

Many pairs of sibling athletes tend to play the same sport at Harvard. Joe and John Sweeney both play hockey. Betsy and Mary McCagg both row crew. Anne and Mary Moon both play rugby.

But not so with Colleen and Kevin Collins. She does track, he plays basketball.

That doesn't mean they're alienated from each other. "If we don't call each other every day, we see each other," Colleen says. "Sometimes we call each other at three, four in the morning, too."

Colleen, a Kirkland House senior, came to Harvard because, well, it was an offer she just couldn't refuse. "I was really set on going to Dartmouth, because I wanted to run track," she says. "I never thought I would get accepted [to Harvard]. I was absolutely astonished."

Kevin, who played football and basketball in high school, had different reasons for choosing Harvard. "I knew wherever I played, it would be nice if my parents could come and see me play," the North House junior says. "And so, it really wasn't that my sister was here, but that I had more flexibility to choose which sport I wanted to play--and it's only 45 minutes from my home [Westborough], so it was the perfect spot."

Now that they're in the same environment, they have been doing great things on the Harvard athletic fields. Kevin has discarded football and has used his 6-ft., 6-in. frame to play swingman for the men's basketball team.

Colleen, a former sprinter, has turned her efforts to weight-throwing. She took fourth place in that event in the Greater Boston Championships during the indoor season.

Though they play different sports, the Collinses do a lot for each other. "When I get down on myself, he's one person I can call up, and he makes me feel better," Colleen says. "He puts everything back in perspective."

"It [Harvard] is such an intimidating institution," Kevin says. "We're from a small town, and we did well there. You come here and you're another fish in the sea."

Kevin and Colleen watch and support each other in their athletic endeavors. "I've gone to almost all the home games," Colleen says.

*** and Colleen played sports with each other as youngsters--they were teammates on an eight-to-14 year-old soccer club--they rarely have competed against each other athletically after junior high school. This all ended a month ago.

Kevin, on a whim, decided to run the Boston Marathon with Colleen, who had been training for the event for several weeks. "Typical Kevin move," Colleen says. "He decided the night before that he was going to run it. I beat him by a good 32 minutes."

But it wasn't that much of a gap at first. "We ran the first seven miles together," Colleen says. "It was funny because we talked strategy during the race, because he didn't know what the heck he was doing."

And what was the plan? "I'll get in shape the first half of the race and then I'll be in shape for the second half," Kevin says.

Kevin and Colleen do many things together, especially when it comes to having fun. One Halloween, they went to a Fleetwood Mac concert--dressed as each other.

Not every brother and sister will do anything like this. But Kevin and Colleen are not your ordinary pair of siblings.

"If everything's lost, you still have your family," Colleen says.