FAMILY FIRST
Nebraska player leaves football to care for his teenage brother
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- Thunder Collins was supposed to revel in the cheers of Nebraska football fans this season, priming himself for the big money of the NFL.
Instead, he quit the team.
The 23-year-old running back said last month he could not afford to play for the Cornhuskers. Taking care of his 17-year-old brother -- whom Collins moved from Los Angeles to protect him from gangs -- comes first.
Scholarship checks were not enough, so Collins plans to start work soon at a car dealership. His decision to leave follows a four-game suspension this season that left him a third-stringer when he returned.
"I got to do what I got to do," he said.
"Some people don't understand. A lot of people think my career is over, that I walked away from football. But they don't understand that it just began."
Collins is the oldest of eight children, seven of them boys. Worried about L.A.'s gangs, he moved his brother, Precious, to Nebraska in May.