That changed after an incident in his sophomore year of high school. Collin was playing ping pong with friends in the student lounge, and another student entered and took the paddle from him, declaring that it was his turn. Collin's friends demanded that the boy give it back—it wasn't his turn and, if Collin wanted to, he could take it back by force since he was bigger. Still, Collin insisted that it wasn't worth it and let it go; the other student agreed.
"Collin's smarter than that," he said. "He knows if he takes it from me, if he physically touches me, he'll definitely end up working at McDonald’s in ten years." Stunned, Collin left the lounge, went to a bathroom down the hall, and cried.
"I thought about all the fights I got into and how they were similar," he says. "I'm a big optimist so I used to think, 'Oh, that person didn't mean it that way, it's not like that.' I really thought that I was part of the community and a valued person, but I was still this little charity case. It was like he was saying, 'My grandparents' grandparents went to Harvard, so my life is set. You got this one chance, but if you fukk it up you've got nothing to fall back on.'"
smh