One of the biggest reasons for Western Kentucky’s success under Michelle Clark-Heard is the constant that’s been by her side since the beginning.

Greg Collins enters his sixth season with the Lady Topper basketball program and fourth year as the associate head coach, making him the longest-tenured assistant or staff member with Heard. Together, Collins and Heard have worked side-by-side to build a level of consistency rarely found in today’s ever-changing culture of college basketball.

“It’s awesome,” senior forward Ivy Brown said. “When people have success, they tend to move on to bigger and better things. Both of them love Western and love their teams. Just to see them stay at home and produce something very special they could’ve done somewhere else is awesome and it shows their loyalty to us as players and Western as a school.”

Collins, a 1988 University of Louisville graduate who attended WKU as a freshman and sophomore, worked as an assistant at Arkansas and UofL before joining Heard’s staff as an assistant coach in 2012. He was promoted to associate head coach in 2014.

With the two working side-by-side for six seasons, WKU has won 130 games and three conference tournament championships.

“I think the most important thing anyone can tell you when they get a head coaching job is you’ve got to have that beside you,” Heard said. “It starts from us. The players see those things. Greg has been here with me the whole time from the beginning when we didn’t know what would happen that first year. Probably one of the most selfless individuals I’ve been around. Loves the game, loves the girls and loves this university. It’s important that I feel as a head coach, you find those individuals that you surround yourself with.”

Collins’ responsibilities fall in line with creating game plans, in-game adjustments and player’s skill development. Ivy Brown, Tashia Brown and Whitney Creech each expressed during the team’s Media Day in October how much Collins and Heard complement each other with their different personalities working toward a common goal.

Ivy Brown called it “amazing” to see how fast Collins’ mind works during a game when breaking down plays.

“Coach Collins is more on the quiet side,” senior Tashia Brown said. “I know y’all see Coach Heard in the front and they kind of even each other out. He’s the brains. He knows everything. I don’t know anyone besides Coach Heard that knows more about basketball than him. … He knows what everybody is going to do. We’ll be in practice and he’ll just tell us it’s going to happen, and of course we’re like, ‘No.’ Then in the game it happens. He just enjoys the adversity of games. His wheels just turn on the bench.”

That Collins and Heard share the same basketball mind gives the head coach comfort when she’s on the road recruiting and Collins stays behind to lead practice as an extension of anything Heard might say or do as a coach.

Collins echoed Heard’s sentiments in that being selfless has been the biggest reason for the longevity of success.

“I think the key is what is the priority?” Collins said. “If the priority is for the program to win and everyone has that as their primary focus, then that takes care of itself. If your focus is on something other than the team winning or the team improving, then that’s when things get distracting. … You’ve probably noticed if we’re in a tight situation, she’ll say, ‘Here, you tell them what to do.’ She doesn’t care who is going to get the credit, she just wants the team to win.

“That’s the same thing I want to see. That’s how we’ll be judged in the end is by team success, not individual success.”

Collins is given a lot of credit to how Ivy Brown changed her game between her freshman and sophomore seasons. Coming out of LaRue County as Miss Basketball, Brown had a signature spin move where she’d drive left, spin and use her right hand over her left shoulder.

Collins told her to do away with the move because it wouldn’t work against better defenses at the college level. He worked with Brown in learning how to play the power forward position, a spot WKU had to have her play out of necessity.

Before Brown, he helped Chastity Gooch wipe away her flat-footed shot by putting her on a gun shooting machine daily. In the way he worked specifically with Brown and Gooch, Collins is also working with sophomore Whitney Creech.

“I think they complement each other really well,” Creech said. “They’re both great basketball minds and they’ve helped me transform as a player from the time I’ve had last year to this year.”{&end}