The conversation started out a love-fest and ended in a near brawl.
Collie: "Max is throwing the ball really well. He has what it takes out there. The more we throw, the more in sync we'll be."
Hall: "Austin's a physical receiver who can go up and fight for the ball. It's coming quick for him. He's progressing. We've thrown almost every day, getting our timing down. When the season comes, we want to be ready to go."
Collie: "Max has a little bit more than just what it takes."
Hall: "His routes are really good. Today, Austin caught a lot of balls. It just felt right.
"We both have goals. We know where we want to go. We both think we can do some great things. We're real similar. We go golfing, we play basketball, we hang out. He's just a great guy. I look up to the way he lives his life. But . . ."
Uh-oh.
". . . I have to mention that he's never beaten me at anything."
Collie: "What? Yeah, I have. [Undecipherable mutterings.]"
Hall: "No. Nothing. He's never beaten me at anything."
Collie: [Silent disgust.]
This might be the beginning of a terrific combination:
The receiver who caught not only just about every ball thrown his way as a freshman in 2004, but also the notice of everyone who watched him play, and the quarterback who transferred from Arizona State, redshirted, and since then edged toward the top of Bronco Mendenhall's list of quarterbacks to replace John Beck.
The yet-unproven Hall is smart to latch onto Collie, who played so spectacularly that freshman season, catching 53 passes for 771 yards and eight touchdowns before heading off on an LDS Church mission to Argentina. He returned home in January and is working furiously to gather back the skills that he basically ignored for two years.
"It's hard to know you've lost a little bit and have to get it back," Collie says. "Football is a bit more frustrating right now than normal. It's been rough, hard to adjust to a different mind-set."
A mind-set of violent aggression and in-your-mug competition, all in stark contrast to preaching kindness and love and charity to anyone with ears to hear.
Collie always wanted to do the mission thing. His older brother, Zac, a former receiver at BYU, went to Brazil for his missionary service, and Austin zealously yearned to follow that example.
The great season Collie had just one year out of high school, though, made him hesitate momentarily about leaving football behind.
"Your mind plays with you a little," he says. "I had a good year. You see guys who don't go, and, you're afraid of losing it. But I went and it was the best decision I ever made. It's a great time to help other people."
Collie says the rewards of voluntary service that came to him were "awesome" and typical. They helped him appreciate the existence he has, the life he lives, to see the way things are done in another country, and, combined together, helped him grow up.
There were also oddities.
Twice, he was robbed on the streets of Argentina, once in a park on the median of the largest road in the world, a 28-lane freeway.
"I was taking a picture, and some guy came up and stole my camera from me," Collie says. The thief took off running, clueless that his victim was a star receiver with blistering speed.
"He turned back and his eyes lit up when he saw me," Collie says. "I ran him down and got my camera back."
On the other occasion, a young thief swiped Collie's watch off his wrist. When the missionary caught him and shoved him to the ground, the perp pulled a gun.
"I let him go," he says.
Good call.
But those harrowing ordeals were exceptions.
"It was a great time," Collie says. "I loved it."
The receiver says he was so absorbed in his church service, so exhausted by the walking and the work, he "never exercised" and "can count on one hand the number of times I ran."
He did, however, take a football with him, and threw and caught in spare moments on assorted days off.
The whole mission experience is a remarkable sacrifice made by young athletes, and others, who interrupt sports and school and careers to follow their religious convictions.
Especially athletes the caliber of Collie, who put aside the honing and development of fairly rare physical talents that require repetition to keep them in order to follow that call.
"My skills came from God," Collie says. "If he wants me to go out and give back, I can't be selfish."
It's up to the player himself now to rediscover and polish those skills again and make of them what he will.
"As far as my strength, I feel like it's back to where it was before," he says. "But my endurance isn't there. By Sept. 1, it will be back to where it was. That's my goal. I've just got to keep progressing. As for the competitive mind-set, that's always going to be deep down in me, a part of me. I'll get it all back."
Maybe to the point where he can score touchdowns for Hall, and thump him in a little one-on-one or $2 Nassau for good measure.
gmonson@sltrib.com
