ROCKY MOUNT—Northern Nash High School has promoted former varsity assistant baseball coach Bernard “Bard” Collins to its head baseball position, according to a press release from the school system and a report in the Rocky Mount Telegram.

         Collins will replace Leonard Allen, who resigned last month to become the head baseball coach at Riverside High School in Williamston. 

         Collins graduated from Northern Nash in 1992, where he played football and baseball. He went on to play football at Methodist University in Fayetteville before transferring to N.C. State. He worked in the private sector before earning his teaching certificate and returning to Northern Nash, where he teaches in the business department.

         From 2009 to 2013, Collins was the junior varsity head coach and varsity assistant coach. Collins, who donated a kidney to his two-year-old son in 2005, stepped away from coaching baseball in 2013 for family reasons.

         Collins also serves the head junior varsity football coach at Northern Nash.