May 4, 2018
THE FLATS – Jason Collier, who twice earned All-Atlantic Coast Conference honors for Georgia Tech’s basketball team in the late 1990s, will be inducted posthumously into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame Saturday, May 5, 2018, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Columbus, Ohio.
Jason Collier (1977-2005) passes away at the age of 28
The 7-foot center from Springfield, Ohio, with shooting range out to the three-point line, was a second-team all-conference choice in the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons for the Yellow Jackets, the last two years under head coach Bobby Cremins. He compiled a scoring average of 17.1 points and 8.3 rebounds over 55 games in a Tech uniform after transferring from Indiana. He earned his bachelor’s degree in management from Tech in 2000.
Collier was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2000 NBA draft and was traded immediately to the Houston Rockets, for whom he played three seasons. He started 44 games for Atlanta in 2004-05 and was about to begin his sixth professional season on Oct. 15, 2005, when he died in Cumming, Ga., of a “sudden heart rhythm disturbance” caused by an enlarged heart. The NBA’s D-League named their Sportsmanship Award after Jason after his death and the Atlanta Hawks invite Jason’s parents to Atlanta every year to present the Jason Collier Award, given to the player that does the most for the community.
Collier’s father, Jeff, was a member of the Tech team in the mid-1970s.
