“The Paper Airplane Guy” John Collins on SF sports & going for a new world record
John Collins holds the distinction of not only being nicknamed "The Paper Airplane Guy," but also holding a world record related to paper airplanes. As accredited by the Guinness Book Of World Records, Collins set the record for "farthest flight by a paper aircraft" in 2012.
Keeping to the rules, yet being just creative enough, Collins made this record happen thanks to a very specialized “throwing arm," that of a former college football star, former California Golden Bears quarterback Joe Ayoob.
Not one to just rest on his laurels, Collins is going to try tomorrow on July 20th to set a new Guinness Book-recognized world record. His goal is to get a paper airplane to fly over 240 feet, which is almost the length of an American football field!
But to make Collins' story even more distinct and heartwarming, it will also include Parker Andrews. Beyond being Collins' biggest fan, he also happens to be 6 years old. Andrews had directly reached out to Collins with the dare of setting that new world record in his hometown of Canadian's Fort St. John, British Columbia. Also stepping up to the plate within this interesting story is the travel site Orbitz, which has also gotten involved, providing the needed travel to make this dream a reality.
The success of John Collins goes far beyond the aforementioned Guinness Book Of World Of Records. He's been featured on Conan, WIRED, Nat Geo, Discovery, the NFL Channel, Hallmark, CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, and the cover of the Wall Street Journal, to name a few key media outlets. Harvard’s Graduate School Of Design, Carnegie Mellon University, Rice University, Stanford University, and Clark University are among the high-profile educational institutions at which Collins has been a featured speaker and/or headlining lecturer.
I had the pleasure of doing Q&A with John Collins, thanks to Orbitz. Not only is Collins as polite as one would hope for him to be, but he also manages to be entirely devoid of pretentiousness. Within our interview -- as can be viewed above in a video format, thanks to YouTube -- Collins addressed whether or not he is a sports fan and whether he looks at what he does with paper airplanes as a form of sport.
Collins also answered whether his work with the aforementioned Joe Ayoob had anything to do with him being a college footballer, also advising of whether Ayoob was the first football player he had worked with within the context of paper airplanes. Some highlights from the chat are given below.
John Collins on whether he was a fan of college football before working with Joe Ayoob:
"I had a passing interest in it. I thought the cool thing to do, when I was getting into this, would be to get a fast-pitch softball player... But I didn't know that Joe had played for Cal, so, sorry Joe. (laughs)"
John Collins on his go-to sports team:
"I like our local teams. The [Golden State] Warriors, unbelievable season. I can't believe they picked up a guy that's going to make them even better. (laughs) You're the best in the world, you got a better guy? That seems unfair somehow. (laughs) But that's okay, we have the [Forty-]Niners who are not so great. (laughs) When I first got to San Francisco they were awesome."
John Collins on his training regimen:
"I'm not the thrower, so my training regimen is yelling at Joe. (laughs) I have no regimen."
John Collins on whether he looks at what he does as a sport:
"Yes, in all seriousness, I do think of this as a sport. There's a highly-technical side of this thing. The science is really interesting... A lot of different things fly and they all do them in different ways. Pulling apart what the best approach for a paper airplane would be is really an interesting task. The athletic side of it, watching Joe do what he does, the throwing side, is incredibly-intricate and really nuanced. Paper airplanes really don't like being accelerated at 90 miles per hour, and they really don't like being accelerated over 90 miles per hour, as you can imagine. So Joe has worked out a really cool way to make that all happen."
The bottom line is that John Collins manages to pair up the worlds of science and sports in a way that ought to be interesting to followers of both fields. The potential breaking of his own world record, and also doing so with the assistance of someone from another generation, shows tremendous humanity and motivation. More on Collins and his journey can be found online within his aptly-named website, www.thepaperairplaneguy.com. We at Sportskeeda are rooting for you, John.