Sonny Collins
American football player
Alfred Eugene "Sonny" Collins (born January 17, 1953) is an American former professional football player who was a running back in the National Football League (NFL). He was selected by the Atlanta Falcons in the second round of the 1976 NFL draft. He played college football for the Kentucky Wildcats.
College career
Collins rushed for 3,835 yards with 26 touchdowns during his college career and was the 1973 SEC Player of the Year. He finished his collegiate career at Kentucky as the all-time leading rusher. The record would stand for 43 years until Benny Snell surpassed it in 2019.
In 2012, he was named an SEC Football Legend.
NFL career
Collins was selected by the Atlanta Falcons in the second round (#36 overall) of the 1976 NFL draft. He only played for a year before retiring with a career ending knee injury.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Sonny Collins” as american football player. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american football player. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18685476. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1976, 1973 and 2019.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Sonny Collins” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.