Trailblazing trooper waged courageous fight with leukemia

Eileen Crehan Collins, CJ'89, was clearly a "can-do" kind of person.

As a student, she was a track star, both at North Quincy (Massachusetts) High School and Northeastern.

As a police sergeant, she was the only woman ever to ride with the Massachusetts State Police's motorcycle unit, lifting and handling an 800-pound Harley with ease.

She was an ace at juggling full-time police work and her home life, too—she and her husband, Scott, who is also a state trooper, were raising four children.

And when she became sick with leukemia in April 2004, says Scott, she kept a positive attitude. She was going to beat the disease.

When it became clear that might not happen, though, Crehan Collins started making lists and organizing paperwork, doing what she could to help Scott out. She died in late August at age forty.

Michelle Bell, N'87, a friend of Crehan Collins since age nine, says that even after she got sick, she never sought special accommodations.

"We would be in two-hour waits in lines at wakes, and she would never ask to be brought to the front of the line," Bell remembers. "And when she'd be admitted into Brigham and Women's Hospital for chemo, if there were any kids there, she'd want to talk to them to give hope and encouragement."

Bell calls Crehan Collins a "phenomenal athlete."

Scott Collins agrees: "She ran all the time. Even after the babies, as soon as she could hit the pavement and start working out with weights, she would."

As a senior at North Quincy High in 1984, Crehan Collins won the state championship in the javelin throw, says Bell. She went on to win the New England championship and the Eastern Seaboard championship.

That was the year Crehan Collins was ranked first in the country for the longest throw, Bell adds.

Two years later, at Northeastern on a track scholarship, she set a school javelin record of 156 feet 2 inches.

She graduated from the police academy and started working with the Metropolitan Police (which later merged with the State Police) while she was still a student.

Scott recalls how Eileen, then his girlfriend, would work a midnight to eight a.m. shift, head to Northeastern for classes until noon or one p.m., catch a few hours of sleep, then return to work for a four p.m. shift.

She served as a police officer for nineteen years.

Crehan Collins also earned a master's in criminal justice from Anna Maria College. Before she fell ill, she was considering going to law school. "She was a very motivated person," says Bell.

As the lone woman in the motorcycle unit, Crehan Collins met a host of dignitaries over the years and was profiled in the Boston Globe Sunday magazine and on WCVB-TV's Chronicle.

Scott says his wife was well-equipped to handle the occasional ribbing from her fellow officers, which came with being the only woman in the group. "If she had to use the bathroom," he says, "she'd have to take a lot of gear off. All the guys have to do is go behind a building. So they'd be saying, 'Eileen, let's go. Let's go!' But she'd just laugh."

Though she got a kick out of serving as a motorcycle escort for VIPs, Scott says his wife's favorite job was escorting the buses that carry special-needs children to events. "She said that was much more satisfying than being in a motorcade for a dignitary," he says.

On her time off, Crehan Collins loved taking early-morning walks at the beach and attending her kids' sporting events. And she prided herself on taking care of her family—Patrick, eighteen; Erin, sixteen; Mark, fourteen; and Aislinn, nine—while working full-time. "She was really good at it," says Scott. "It meant a lot to her, to be able to do that."

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