Collin Vataha is the CEO of Game Plan Special Services LLC, a firm specializing in sports team investment banking. With over 20 years of extensive experience in buy-side and sell-side mergers and acquisitions within the professional sports industry, Collin has brokered significant transactions for major and minor league sports teams. Notably, he has been involved in the acquisitions of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Golden State Warriors, and Sacramento Kings, as well as the sales of the St. Louis Blues and multiple affiliated minor league baseball teams including the Triple-A Louisville Bats, Oklahoma City Dodgers, and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. Collin has also facilitated the sale or purchase of non-controlling interests in teams such as the Golden State Warriors, New York Yankees, Miami Heat, and Chicago White Sox. He holds FINRA Series 79 Investment Banking and FINRA Series 82 Private Securities Offerings registrations as a registered representative of StillPoint Capital, LLC located in Tampa, FL.
Collin earned a BA in Political Economy from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he won the 2001 Arthur B. Graves Prize in Political Economy. He also served as a wide receiver and place kicker on the Williams varsity football team, earning the 2001 Francis X. Keating Award presented by the National Football Foundation for outstanding character and achievement. He is remembered on the Williams College campus for his last-second field goal that secured a victory over archrival Amherst College on November 8, 1997, in what has been called one of the greatest college football games of all time.
Joining the OCYSF Board in 2016, Collin has held positions such as Treasurer and has been actively involved in the Scholarships and Banquet Committees. Explaining his motivation for joining the board, Collin said, “My two passions in life are sports and kids, and I wanted to help give those kids less fortunate the same opportunities to participate in youth sports programs as those kids from wealthy families.” He believes in the mission of OCYSF, which, in his words, is “to help low-income and disadvantaged kids get access to sports programs that provide the physical and emotional benefits that help kids develop into well-rounded, engaged, resilient and determined adults.”
Collin resides in Ladera Ranch, California, with his wife Heather and their four children, Laila, Juliet, Logan, and Cecily. His father, Randy Vataha, is an Orange County football legend who played at Rancho Alamitos High School and Golden West College, won the 1971 Rose Bowl catching passes from Jim Plunkett at Stanford, and enjoyed a seven-year NFL career with the New England Patriots and Green Bay Packers.
