Our 2021 Coaching Staff
Paul Collins
Coach Collins has been involved with educational, mentoring, and youth sports programs for over 18 years as a coach, teacher, and program director beginning with regularly working with young students in Chicago Public Schools on the city’s West Side before relocating to Elgin in 2007 and coaching with the Burlington Central girl’s feeder basketball program at both the in-house and travel levels. After becoming aware of the lack of options for girls’ club level basketball in the Fox Valley area and looking back on his own youth experience with its lack of quality programs, Coach Collins founded Illinois Hoop Dreams in 2010 to provide an environment where girls that were dedicated to being successful student-athletes could train and play with and against the best available competition. Today IHD fields teams on several grade levels and has grown to be one of the most successful and competitive programs in Illinois, winning multiple tournament championships, placing several underclassmen players on HS varsity rosters, and helping to secure college scholarships for girls that wish to play collegiately. Coach Collins is devoted to player development and spends countless hours in gyms working with athletes challenging them to improve their fundamental skills. His relationships with some of the best skills trainers in the country have allowed IHD to host multiple elite level clinics. Coach Collins lives in Elgin with his beautiful wife Yvette and is an active member of the local educational and sports community. He is a firm believer that education should be every young person’s top priority, earning his bachelor’s degree at Texas A &M University and an MBA from Indiana University.
Jackie Collins
Jackie Collins A 4yr varsity player at Burlington Central HS, Collins was a team leader and an integral member of a group that collectively established the Rockets as one of the premier Class 3A programs in the State of Illinois while completing the most successful era in school history that included setting school records for wins each season, 3 undefeated BNC Championships, 3 Regional, 3 Sectional, and 1 Super-Sectional Championship. Jackie decided not to pursue basketball collegiately despite a full ride academic scholarship/walk-on offer from D1 Florida A & M University, to attend her dream school. A graduate of The University of Notre Dame, she worked as student manager for the nationally ranked women’s basketball team and attended every practice and game working with several All-American athletes while expanding her knowledge of the game while learning from Basketball Hall of Fame Coach Muffet McGraw and the coaching staff of one of the Nation’s most elite college programs.
