Collins Reconsiders Retirement

Sockers defender Ben Collins, who two weeks ago said he was contemplating a midseason retirement, said Sunday he has reconsidered.

On Christmas Eve Collins said indoor soccer had become laborious, and because it was no longer fun he wanted to leave it and begin a law enforcement career.

At that time he said he would make his decision after the team’s next four games, the last of which was played Sunday at the Arena, a 9-4 victory over the Tacoma Stars.

“What I was trying to say then,” Collins said, “was that if in trying to play defense I continued to mess up, then I would quit in immediately. But tonight I had fun again--and I have a whole week to think about that.”

Actually, he’ll have two weeks. The Sockers don’t play again until Jan. 18 in Wichita.

Collins said he was worrying about not scoring goals from his defensive position, a problem he did not have last year when he led Sockers defenders with 20 goals and 13 assists for 33 points. He also scored seven goals and assisted on four others during the playoffs, a performance for which he was named the championship series’ Most Valuable Player.

“I had a talk with my teammates,” Collins said. “And they told me to go ahead and play defense and not worry about scoring goals, that we had plenty of other players to score goals.”

Collins scored his sixth goal of the year in Sunday’s victory. It was his second goal in four games.

“And I didn’t even come in thinking about scoring a goal,” Collins said. “And that’s what I have to do. I can’t be greedy about scoring goals. I have to put that out of my mind.”