Bud Collins waits 54 years for BU degree

Bud Collins, the famed tennis journalist and TV analyst, received his MS in Public Relations degree Friday, May 15, 2009 -- 54 years after dropping out of Boston University to take a full-time job as a newspaper reporter.

All he lacked to graduate at the time was to complete a thesis paper.  Dean Tom Fiedler determined that Collins’ seminal work, The Bud Collins History of Tennis, more than satisfied this thesis requirement, thus earning Collins the long-awaited degree.

Collins quipped that, armed with this degree, he might now be able to find a “real job.”