Journalist Bud Collins colored the tennis world

In a profession of expensive suits and neutral colors, Bud Collins was never seen reporting on tennis without flashy, exuberant pants.

“His tailor at one point suggested he needed some more color and that he looked like a sailor on TV because all he was wearing was white trousers and a blue blazer,” his wife, Anita Ruthling Klaussen, said. “He said he would make him some trousers, and Bud loved it.”

On their travels around the world, Collins and Ruthling Klaussen collected swatches of fabric to be made into pants.

“We would have a competition to see who could buy the craziest clothes,” said Murray “Murf” Klauber, owner of the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort, where Collins owned a unit for 30 years and hosted the Bud Collins Hackers Open tournament for nearly two decades.

The colorful Arthur Worth “Bud” Collins, of Brookline, Mass., died March 4. He was 86.

Born June 17, 1929, in Lima, Ohio, he grew up next to tennis courts, in Berea, Ohio, where fell in love with tennis at a young age.

Collins began his tennis reporting career in Boston while working at a local newspaper, and in 1963, he began working for the Boston Globe and WGBH, Boston’s Public Broadcasting Service channel. From 1968 to 1972, he covered the U.S. Open for CBS Sports, and from 1972 to 2007, he worked for NBC Sports.

“He had a generous spirit,” Ruthling Klaussen said. “He would always help out the young journalists coming along, and the players also trusted him. They revealed more about themselves because they knew he wouldn’t take advantage. He was just a really good, decent person.”

Collins received several awards and recognitions, including the Associated Press Sports Editors’ Red Smith Award, the country’s most revered sports writing honor, in 1999. He was also inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame in 2002.

Throughout his 30 years at the Colony and in recent years, Collins remained close with Klauber.

“He loved Longboat Key,” Klauber said. “This was his home away from home.”

In addition to Ruthling Klaussen, Collins is survived by his daughter, Suzanna Mathews; stepsons, Rob Lacy and Karl Klaussen; and stepdaughters Betsey Bartlet, Sharon McMillan, Kristin Hunt, Gretchen West, and Danielle Klaussen.

A service will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, June 17 — Collins’ 87th birthday — at Trinity Church, in Boston.