John Collins, Jr. was born and raised on the Badger property with camp taking place in his backyard for his entire life. John attended camp himself, followed by his four children, and today, his two grandchildren can be seen roaming the property as proud Badger campers.

For the past 40 years, John Collins has created a world class swim program that calls the Badger pool their home. He is one of America’s most successful club coaches. Himself, an All-American butterflier at Indiana University, he went on to coach many world champions including Rick Carey (1983), Lea Loveless Maurer (1998), Tobie Smith (1998), Cristina Teuscher (2001), and Jenny Thompson (2003, 04) U.S. Olympic gold medalists include, Carey, Loveless, Teuscher, Thompson and most recently, Cody Miller.

John Collins has been a U.S. National Team coach from 1984-2007, serving on numerous international trips with team USA including head coach in the 1995 Pan American Games, head coach of the 1997 Pan Pacific Championships, head coach of the 2001 World Championships, and most recently, head coach of the 2007 World Championships in Perth, Australia.

Johh was named “coach of the year” by the American Swimming Coaches Association (ASCA) in 1983 and is an inductee in the Metropolitan Swimming Hall of Fame, the Westchester County Sports Hall of Fame, the ASCA Hall of Fame and many others.

In 2014, Collins was named Senior Coach of the year for Metro Swimming. He was also named the Senior Co-Chair of Metro Swimming.