TEXARKANA, Texas — Something happened inside Room 207 at the Comfort Suites one spring night three years ago.
The 62-room hotel with an indoor pool blends into the interstate access road's landscape of chain restaurants and convenience stores in this city divided by the Texas-Arkansas border.
It is only five minutes from sprawling Texas High School, which was celebrating its junior-senior prom. Half a dozen friends gathered there afterward. An older brother paid about $100 for the room. He paid for the alcohol, too.
Today, Chris Collins is a sophomore star-to-be linebacker at Oklahoma State. That night, the 17-year-old was there.
So was a 12-year-old girl.
What occurred in those early-morning hours of May 23, 2004, is a mystery a jury will decide.
Was that girl raped repeatedly?
Was Collins, described by an administrator as a good student and by a teammate as a quiet guy, involved?
This much we know — Collins was banished from Texas High, a program patterned after Mack Brown's Texas. The only thing missing is the Longhorn on the helmet. Sent to alternative school for his senior year, Collins did not play football that fall.
The University of Texas stripped his football scholarship, too. Once a bright Friday night light, he faded.
Almost two years passed before Collins played football again — in Stillwater.
Even as the Cowboys go through two-a-days, Collins is scheduled to return to Texarkana next month. He and three other men charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child will be in court Aug. 20. It might be the final pre-trial hearing before a trial date is set in Collins' aggravated sexual assault case.
Collins has denied having sex with the girl, but his future as an OSU football player is riding on this trial.
So, what happened?
In his two-plus years at OSU, Collins has not spoken to reporters. He was off-limits to the media last season as a first-year player, then suffered a season-endin
