KAMLOOPS — Austin Collie is one of six National Football League draft picks on the roster of the B.C. Lions and easily the most wary.

Impassive, aloof, circumspect, those words already are being attached to the former Brigham Young Cougars’ and Indianapolis Colts’ receiver, who appears to have come to his first Canadian Football League training camp with a helmet in one hand and a shield in the other.

“I think most players, who have been in the NFL, are guarded around the media,” explains Lions backup quarterback John Beck, a former second-round pick of the Miami Dolphins. “There are a lot of reasons. I kinda think Austin feels, because of the media attention around concussions — and he happened to be the guy who got a couple of them around that time — that he feels labelled.

“Everybody knows it’s not the media’s fault. But sometimes the media can put people in certain situations, take what they say and make it come out a certain way. That experience makes someone guarded. I’d say that’s true of most players.”

Beck, whose college career overlapped with Collie’s for one season at BYU, was a major factor in the recruiting process that landed the former NFL receiver with the Lions.

Collie’s professional career, as one of Peyton Manning’s favourite targets, began with great promise in Indianapolis. A tough, reliable slot receiver, he caught 118 passes and 15 touchdowns in his first 25 games. But two severe concussions — six weeks apart, in the 2010 season — made him the poster boy for groundbreaking research into the long-term effects of brain trauma, just as the league, public and media were developing an acute and heightened sensitivity to the issue.

“Yeah, it bothers me big time,” Collie told The Vancouver Sun. “Basically, that forced me out of playing in the league. If it didn’t happen, right when it did, at the height of the concussion issue, I’d still be playing (in the NFL). Everybody can comment on it, and have their opinion. But I’m not them. This is a childhood dream for me.”

Following surgery for a torn patella tendon — Collie still wears a compression sleeve on his right knee — a stint with the New England Patriots, and tryouts with the San Francisco 49ers and Washington Redskins, his dream has been transplanted to Canada, a move brokered by Beck.

Knowing that Collie could play as a Canadian under the CFL’s liberal qualification rules — Austin was born in Hamilton, Ont., when his dad, Scott, a receiver, played for the Tiger-Cats in 1985 — Beck began lobbying the Lions to bring him north from his home in Utah.

“I contacted Neil (Lions player personnel director Neil McEvoy) and told him Austin might be interested in coming here,” Beck says. “The Lions went to the CFL and found out he did, in fact, count as a Canadian. I still believe, if he didn’t have those concussions, and that knee injury, he’d be in the NFL. He’s that good of a player. I still believe he’s a guy with a lot of football left in him. I believe he’s the perfect guy to help this team get better.”

Scott Collie, who developed a tight and lasting friendship with Jeff Tedford when they were Tiger-Cat teammates 30 years ago, said there is a comfort level in having his old friend coach his son.

“He knows Austin has the commitment and discipline to make good choices on and off the field,” Scott says. “Jeff knows what he’s getting — and he’s getting an athlete.”

Indeed, the six-foot, 200-pound Collie has looked terrific in training camp. Tedford calls him “one of our better receivers, whether there’s a C (Canadian) or A (American) on his chest. As far as talent, there’s no difference.”

All the same, there is a sensitivity with Collie that swirls around him like storm clouds, a curtness with the media that he doesn’t yet know and therefore seems reluctant to trust.

If only he would lift the shield …

“I understand where he’s coming from,” explains Collie’s roommate, injured wide receiver Lavelle Hawkins, a former fourth-round draft pick of the Tennessee Titans. “We (ex-NFL players) don’t expect anything to be given to us, because we haven’t done anything yet. We have no background in this league. It’s just a respect for guys like Solomon Elimimian and Adam Bighill, who have done something in the CFL.

“We’re coming out here humble, just to work like any other man. Until he proves himself, I can understand why Austin doesn’t want any attention. It’s a respect thing.”

Maybe so. But you still get the sense Collie would make a dynamite player on the World Poker Tour, such is his reluctance to give anything away.

“I’m looking forward to competing,” he responded generically, before Friday’s first pre-season game in Calgary. “I haven’t been out there for a while.”

In time, as he becomes more familiar with the Canadian game, the hope is that Austin Collie reveals himself as an approximation of the explosive route-runner he once was.

Yet, while they may grow to appreciate him, one wonders if Lions fans will ever get to know him?

mbeamish@vancouversun.com

Twitter.com/sixbeamers