Be a hero, or be a villain. Those are pretty much the choices on Survivor, the country’s longest running reality competition, which still pulls a good 10 million viewers to its spectacles of tropical hardship and Machiavellian strategizing. (Remember Rhode Island’s Richard Hatch? Here’s the other way.)

By Shane Donaldson ’99

Jeremy Collins is used to a fast-paced life. As an eight-time Atlantic 10 champion during his URI track and field career, he is one of the school’s all-time great performers. At one point, he held six different program records for the Rams, and even now, the 47.5 seconds he clocked in the 400-meter sprint at the 1999 A-10 Championship remains both a conference and Mackal Field House record.

He left URI before graduating, enticed by an opportunity to begin his dream career as a firefighter. Even then, Collins found time to play semi-pro football—despite not having played in college. He can handle a lot. But even for him, life has been a whirlwind lately. In December, he won CBS’s Survivor. The same week, he and his family were guests of honor for New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft at the team’s December 20 home game against the Tennessee Titans. Kraft presented jerseys to Collins’ daughters Jordyn and Camryn, with their names and the number 31 on the jerseys, in commemoration of their father’s victory in the 31st season of the enormously successful reality show.

The day after the game, Collins’ wife, Val, gave birth to their first son, Remy Bodhi.

Add in personal appearances, People magazine interviews and all the other adjustments that come with being the latest $1-million winner of Survivor, and it’s fair to say life went a little crazy.

“My wife has been going into the same Target every day for years to get her cup of coffee,” says Collins, who works for the fire department in his hometown of Cambridge, Mass. “Before the show finale, she went in and nobody said a thing to her. The next day, she had four different people stop her. The day after that, I had five people stop me and ask about the show. That’s when you start to understand the reach of Survivor. People notice us now.”

Collins has noticed the show’s reach for years. When he outlasted 19 other competitors over a brutal 39-day stretch in Cambodia, it wasn’t his first stint on the show. He and his wife Val competed together in season 29, Survivor: San Juan del Sur, before Collins was brought back for the Cambodia show, which was subtitled Second Chance. In fact, Collins had been in contact with show officials for more than a decade trying to get a chance to compete.

“Back in the day when I was running track at Rhode Island, I would throw up during the team workouts. It would happen every day,” Collins says. “So I stopped eating before our practices, because who wants to throw up all the food they have eaten? I found I could still do the workouts and then binge a bit, eating food at night. When I started watching Survivor, in my mind I thought, ‘I could do that.’ I figured my approach to not eating during the day and still being able to train and compete was something that could help give me an edge if I ever got on Survivor.”

As a former college athlete and professional firefighter, Collins knew he had the kind of compelling back story that Survivor producers like, but he couldn’t sell them.

“I would send in videos and say, ‘Listen, I will dominate the physical challenges,’” Collins said. “They would call me and tell me, ‘You are not ready for Survivor.’ It took 10 years of trying before I got it. I had to change my approach, because the game is about much more than the physical challenges.”

Collins learned all too well the emotional impact Survivor can have on contestants during the San Juan del Sur season. That season featured pairs of loved ones who were placed in different tribes to compete against one another. “When you are playing with a loved one, you can’t just play for yourself,” Collins said. “When the game started, Val was all I was thinking about. It was too much emotion.”

In that season, Val Collins lasted six days before being the second person voted off. Jeremy Collins lasted 24 days before the competitors he had formed an alliance with decided he was a threat and took him out. The performance was strong enough to land him on the final jury, but Collins had unfinished business.

For Cambodia: Second Chance, Collins was on his own against 19 other people, all of whom had competed on previous seasons. Show producers picked 32 former contestants to be part of an online vote in which 20 people—10 men and 10 women—were chosen by show fans.

“The second time on the show, it was all about focus,” Collins said. “I didn’t care about anyone else in the game. I was there to bring it home for the people I loved.”

Paranoia runs deep for contestants in Survivor, causing strategies to change, sometimes on an hourly basis. For Collins, the key to his game was treating people with respect and building sincere relationships. At one point, he used an immunity idol to spare fellow contestant Stephen Fishbach from elimination—a move that paid off when Fishbach ended up on the final jury. During deliberations, Fishbach said Collins brought “trust, honor and integrity” to the show.

“I think people respected me because I spoke with everyone in the right way,” Collins said. “Even in the times I got into it with someone else, I went at them the right way. A lot of people were playing against each other, and that’s part of the game. I tried to be straightforward and honest with everyone.”

Honest, but not entirely forthcoming. Collins made sure not to let his fellow contestants know that Val was pregnant with the couple’s third child. Val was early in her first trimester when he left to start filming.

“Every day on the show, each contestant ‘goes on the walk,’ which is when you film the segments talking to the camera,” Collins said. “At the beginning, I wouldn’t talk about what was going on with my family, but it was taking a toll emotionally and I could see after a few days that my game was falling apart. So I used that time in those interviews to talk about my family. It was like therapy. I would cry a bit and be human, feel those emotions. Doing that let me open up my game and focus on what I was there to do.”

His ability to keep his personal news to himself was tested late in the game when loved ones were brought to Cambodia for a visit. Val revealed to Jeremy that their third child would be their first son.

“Even though we are competing in this game, we’re all becoming friends out there,” Collins said. “That is the kind of news you want to share with your friends, but if I tell anyone, they may use the information against me.”

A firefighter with a third child on the way would be a formidable opponent heading to the final tribal council. With this in mind, Collins saved his news until he earned one of three spots in the finals, then made his big reveal. In the live finale aired on Dec. 16, Collins learned he had won in a rare unanimous vote.

It took a few weeks after being home from the show for Collins to recover from the mental drain.

“The game is wild,” Collins reflects, laughing. “When I first got home and went back to work, I would think people were lying to me about wanting to go eat dinner together. You spend so much time on the show trying to figure people out and determine their angle, and it takes a while to get out of thatmindset.”

Collins took a couple weeks off following the birth of his son, but then returned to work with the Cambridge Fire Department. He grew up just a half mile from his station.

“A bunch of my family members are firefighters,” Collins said. “When I first got to school, I thought I might want to be a gym teacher or a coach. Over time, I realized I loved being a firefighter, and I knew it was what I wanted to do.”

He’s been getting some ribbing at the station house over his newfound celebrity. “If you get too big for your britches, these guys will bring you right back down,” Collins said with a laugh. “More importantly though, if you get too low, these are the first people to bring you back up. We all keep each other right in that money zone, which keeps us all grounded. You need that in this line of work.”

In a post on the Cambridge Fire Department website the day after Collins was revealed as the Survivor winner, Chief Gerald Reardon praised the manner in which Collins conducted himself.

“All of us are very proud of Firefighter Collins and the way he represented the department throughout his Survivor experience,” Chief Reardon said. “As many in America witnessed, he carries himself with grace and dignity. He is focused on the task at hand and that’s what we are used to seeing in the fire department. All of us in the Cambridge Fire Department couldn’t be happier for Jeremy, his wife Val and their beautiful family.”

Still, Collins and his wife have made sure Survivor will be a part of their lives moving forward. They named their son Remy Bodhi. The name Remy gives Collins’ son his own identity while still keeping a piece of Jeremy with him. The middle name Bodhi stems from the Cambodian word for enlightenment.

“The time in Cambodia obviously had a huge impact on our family, and we wanted something that would signify that,” Collins said. “Our time with Survivor has come full circle. This season showed me how much I love my family.” •