By John Brice
Special Contributor
The car rides, perhaps, are too many to count.
Their impact today, then, far too significant to quantify.
Four hundred miles, one way, from the parking lot of David Crockett High School in Jonesborough, Tennessee, to Ohio State University.
Make that more than nine hours each direction and well beyond 1,000 miles to go from the eastern edge of the Volunteer State, steps, really, from the North Carolina border, here to the stunning reflections of the Golden Dome and the University of Notre Dame.
The memories of those journeys, Kevin Ramsey ferrying around this prodigiously talented kid with worldview perspective beyond his means and years, represent foundational elements in Prince Kollie’s path to Notre Dame.
They directly intertwine on this Veterans Day weekend, as the No. 20 Fighting Irish travel to Baltimore to face Navy in college football’s most poignant historical rivalry.
“So, it started really when I started getting recruited, and I was unable to transport myself to those visits and he was really selfless,” said Kollie, who mostly had known Ramsey as an assistant coach for John Kollie Jr., Prince’s brother and now a member of the Bluefield College (Virginia) team. “Without him doing that, I really wouldn’t be in the position I’m in. I probably wouldn’t be here [at Notre Dame].
“Ever since then, we’ve just been tightknit.”
Ramsey estimates traversing “at least 15 or 20” of those recruiting trips along Kollie’s path to becoming that East Tennessee region’s most-prized prospect in two decades, when Jason Witten starred at Elizabethton High School some 18 miles from Crockett’s campus.
Similarly, those moments – and the ones Ramsey doesn’t personally recall but knows because of his family’s reflections — are no less than bedrock components today in the life of Ramsey, a retired United States Air Force Lt. Col.
Be it due to a debilitating case of COVID-19 that resulted in Ramsey’s lengthy stay inside the James H. Quillen V.A. Medical Center or the pulse-pounding, anxiety-amplifying solitary confinement of that situation hearkening back to his myriad military deployments, many of them special operations missions in the Middle East, ushering in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Ramsey points to Kollie for his being here today.
Here, as in anywhere.
Alive.
“One of things tough for military people is the isolation,” says Ramsey, a University of South Carolina graduate and married father of two. “When I was isolated in the hospital room, once I kind of started figuring out where I was and what was going on, I had the same feeling of separation anxiety that I would feel when I would leave my family to go overseas.
“I wasn’t even able to call anyone because I couldn’t even remember the passcode on my iPhone. I could answer it when my wife would call, and she would call as many times per day as she was allowed, and that helped. But when you’re isolated like that, and with the COVID procedures they had to go through, I might see a nurse every three or four hours for five minutes to draw blood. Covid brought a lot of PTSD, anxiety, depression-type things.”
Unbeknownst to Ramsey, who lay in the hospital battling a bout with COVID so severe the results included delirium, pneumonia and renal failure, Kollie was emotionally supporting the Ramsey family, leaning into his faith and praying, with coaches, teammates, family and friends, almost around the clock for Ramsey’s recovery.
“It’s scary to see somebody you know who knows you well not be able to recognize you or remember conversations you had,” Kollie says. “That’s scary for anybody. I think he had a David Crockett wristband on his wrist, and he would flick at it and somehow he was able to remember who I was. And I would text him almost every day to tell him that I’m here for him, praying for him, that he’ll get through it.”
Among the most severe COVID cases not to result in death, Ramsey’s fight included days of not knowing anything other than his own identity and an inability to recognize the very family and friends for whom he had served 23 years in the U.S. Air Force. Ramsey was told more than once that death had seemed imminent.
Kollie was praying incessantly, including at the Grotto alongside then-Irish defensive assistant Nick Lezynski – who likewise today remains a close companion of Ramsey.
“Prince has been really supportive of me and we really had a strong bond,” Ramsey said. “One of the first calls my wife would make would be to Prince.
“Him doing those prayer vigils and talking to my wife every time she talked to me, that’s who he is. He wants to service others, whether it’s now or down the road; that’s who he is. I hope Irish Nation can really understand what kind of kid from East Tennessee that Prince is.”
Irish fans, and the rest of the college football world, are a bit more aware with each passing week the type of on-field player Kollie is.
Inside sold-out Notre Dame Stadium last Saturday against then-No. 4 Clemson, and with some 3.25 million people tuning into NBC’s national telecast, Kollie snares the punt-block from teammate Jordan Botelho from midair and, flashing moves reminiscent to his 2020 Tennessee Titans Class 5A Mr. Football days, darts untouched 17 yards for his first career collegiate touchdown.
It’s the opening salvo in a statement-making, program-solidifying wire-to-wire win for the Irish and first-year coach Marcus Freeman.
Even in that moment, Notre Dame special teams coordinator Brian Mason sees Kollie’s character.
“Certainly, I think Prince is talented but for me he is awesome, because he really has been getting heavy reps on special teams and has really bought into that role and just wants to do whatever he can for the team,” says Mason, whose coverage team leads all of college football with six punt-blocks this season. “It takes a selfless person to kind of do some of those things on special teams, and that’s who he has been.
“[I told him] ‘Thank goodness you caught it, and you know what to do.’ He showed some of those skills he had as a running back.”
Kollie’s football skills are why he already owns appearances in 19 of 22 career games at Notre Dame, with 22 tackles, his first career sack last month against BYU and now the touchdown.
Kollie’s vision beyond 100 yards of grass is why his perspective carries him beyond football and to greater aspirations in life.
“They’ve done a lot for our country; they’re really selfless, and Kevin Ramsey embodies that,” Kollie says in describing his respect for this country’s military personnel on this Veteran’s Day weekend. “He’s a selfless guy, putting others first and I’m just drawn to that, that’s how I try to be – selfless. I’m just really appreciative of our military and what they’ve done. …
“My mom and my dad, we’re a spiritual family, I’m a spiritual guy and there are better things in this life than football. The game will end for everybody at some point, and I’m always looking past it to try and see how I can be better and that is one of the ways, giving back. That’s been instilled in me since I was young.”
Thus, Kollie donates an ongoing percentage of his Name, Image and Likeness earnings directly to Ramsey’s Tennessee Chapter of the Music for Veterans nonprofit, and Kollie visits the local YMCA here in the Michiana area while continuing to lean of the learning experiences of visiting nursing homes and shopping to food on the table of impoverished youths back in rural East Tennessee.
“That’s not something that’s just happened in the last year or so,” says Ramsey, one of three former veterans on Kollie’s coaching staff at Crockett along with head coach Hayden Chandley and defensive assistant Ron Sillmon. “Ever since I’ve known him, Prince talked to anybody in the school and would help anybody in the school. People not necessarily in a certain crowd or whatever, it didn’t matter.
“I would tell him a lot of times, he almost hardly ever says no to anyone for anything. It’s just who he is. As successful as he already has been, he’s humble — gosh almighty is he humble. He always wants to help others.”
On the eve of Notre Dame meeting Navy for the 96th time in a series that includes 92 years without interruption from 1927-2019, the Irish again do so with the son of a veteran leading their sidelines. As does Kollie, Freeman carries with him an immense appreciation for veterans following the service of Freeman’s father, Michael, in the U.S. Air Force.
“The history of the rivalry and the meaning behind it and how it came about, but then also it being Veterans (Day) weekend, it’s personal to me with my father serving and being a veteran,” Freeman says. “It’s a great reminder of the bigger picture.
“We’re fortunate enough to play and coach this game that we love. We’re fortunate to live in this country because of the many people that fight for our freedom. There’s a lot of meaning behind this game and for many different reasons.”
Kollie, who has two “brothers” currently serving in best friends Mark Seidler and Gage Skalecki, marvels at the sacrifice.
“Seeing how hard it can be to live that life, I’ve grown to appreciate that,” Kollie says. “Now having two of my, we’re not related but they’re my brothers, you’ve got to take those kinds of things, you’ve got to cherish them, because that kind of life is a dangerous line of work.”
It’s life’s path, part of the journey; Kollie’s is touching countless lives along the way.