Quinn Collins Character Sketch

Name of character: Quinn 

Your age and physical appearance: 

17, white, basketball player, athletic 

Your house, city/area, favorite place: 

West side of Springfield, MA; multi-family buildings—I live on the second floor above Mr. And Mrs. Langone. The neighborhood used to be a good one, but apparently has gone to shit, as in they don’t fix streetlights anymore and cops patrol the neighborhood now. 

Your passions, “soap box topics,” deepest desires (which may not be mentioned in the text): 

I know that standing up for what I believe is right is important. I mean, my dad died doing it. But learning how to do that is harder than I thought it would be. I always thought there was just black and white, right and wrong. Turns out there’s way more grey area than anything else. I’m tired of being the All-American Boy and not even really knowing what that means. 

Your main goal: 

I want to figure out who I am and what I believe in. I want to play basketball and get into a college so Ma doesn’t have to worry. 

Your biggest obstacles and problems: 

I’m trying to be the kid that everyone wants me to be—the great basketball player, the good student, the dutiful son and brother—but it’s hard. How can I figure out who I am if I’m too busy being who they want me to be? 

Your greatest strengths: 

I am dutiful, determined, and well-rounded. 

Your greatest weaknesses: 

I’m timid. I’m too scared to act on things that I want or believe in because I’m terrified of making one wrong move. I care way too much what people think of me. 

What one or two words best describe you: 

Dutiful. “I just wanted to take care of my brother and fix everything before she came home the next morning” Progressive. I knew that what Paul did was wrong and I was determined to shine light on that. “If I didn’t want the violence to remain, I had to do a hell of a lot more than just say the right things and not say the wrong things.” 

List quotations from the text that reveal most clearly who you are and what you are about: 

“I wasn’t a stand-in for Dad. Nobody could be that. When the IED got him in Afghanistan, he became an instant saint in Springfield. I wasn’t him. I’d never be him. But I was still supposed to try. That was my role: the dutiful son, the All-American boy with an All-American fifteen-foot deadeye jump shot and an All-American 3.5 GPA.” 

“I felt like such an ass. I’d quickly convinced myself I had no idea who that kid with Paul was that night.” 

I could be all the way across the country in California and I’d still be white, cops and everyone else would still see me as just a “regular kid,” an “All-American” boy. “Regular.” “All American.” White. Fuck.” 

Prepare an opening monologue of one to two brief paragraphs to introduce yourself to the audience: 

My name is Quinn Collins and despite what most people think, I’m not the All-American my friends and family thought I would turn out to be. Sure, I’m a good enough basketball player and a good enough student; my dad is an All-American hero in every sense of the word; and I’m a dutiful son and brother, but I’m not the blindly loyal, silent, sit-back-and-watch type of kid that I’ve been in the past. I used to think that it was so annoying to be looked at in a light that I didn’t deserve—the light cast down by my heroic father’s memory. I hated that the narrative was written for me because of his death—the great kid, with the great father, getting a great scholarship and making something of himself—and feeling like I had no chance to rewrite it. 

No chance, that is, until I witnessed something that rewrote my narrative for me. Seeing Paul pound on Rashad in person from the front row would change anyone, let alone someone like me who lived in a very small, very white bubble. Watching someone you know and love doing something you never thought they were capable of doing would change you, too. So yeah, I may be the son of an All-American hero, but I’m determined to make sure that his death was not in vain and that I also become a man courageous enough to stand for his convictions and what is morally right, not morally easy.