Luke Simons - New Director of Basketball Operations

[agibson]

Just realized that Will Phipps is no longer listed as a coach.  Very nice person, sorry to see him go. He is now the Executive Director of the Greater Waco Sports Commission.  Guess he wanted to get back to Texas.

And no Director of Basketball Operations listed, yet. 

What are the guesses for the next Director of Basketball Operations?

http://www.valpoathletics.com/mbasketball/news/2015-16/15032/crusaders-announce-addition-of-luke-simons-as-director-of-operations/

Crusaders Announce Addition of Luke Simons as Director of Operations
Monday, November 09, 2015
Valparaiso University men's basketball head coach Bryce Drew announced today that Luke Simons has joined the Crusader program as its director of basketball operations.

Simons comes to Valpo with nearly a decade of experience working with Athletes in Action as an international team director and coach, as well as a regional coordinator. In his time with AIA, Simons helped assemble and direct multiple international competitive tours throughout Europe and Asia, including tours which current Crusader Vashil Fernandez and former Crusader Bobby Capobianco were part of. He also created Captains Camp, an AIA leadership initiative to serve influencers in basketball which current Crusaders Alec Peters and Keith Carter attended last summer.

Outside of AIA, Simons served as director of operations for Team USA at the last three World University Games and helped found the International Basketball Coaches Experience, held annually at the NCAA Final Four. He also brings a good deal of coaching experience with him, having worked as an assistant coach and director of player development for the Mongolian national team – which he helped lead to the final round of 2015 Asian Games – since 2012. Simons also previously spent one season as interim head coach at Black Hawk College and five years as an assistant coach at West Lafayette H.S.

[agibson]

Does that count as a non-traditional background?

Google suggests that he played varsity basketball at Shelbyville High School, Shelbyville, IN, graduating in about 2001.

And attended Purdue, but I guess probably didn't play basketball there? Seems like someone would have mentioned it, or it would google better.

Sounds like he _did_ start coaching High School JV (West Lafayette High School) already in his freshman year at Purdue.

[bbtds]

http://www.saturdayshelby.com/finalfour.html

FINAL FOUR CONNECTS BASKETBALL PROFESSIONALS WITH LOCAL TIES

INDIANAPOLIS - Downtown is abuzz this weekend with athletes and coaches reconnecting via serendipitous encounters on sidewalks and hotel lobbies.

Inside a Convention Center ballroom on Saturday morning, the Christian ministry organization Athletes in Action featured similar reconnections among those of faith. After a stirring Legends of the Hardwood breakfast, emceed by Clark Kellogg and Fanchon Stinger, pieces of Shelbyville history found each other to reconnect.

Given his coaching stints in East Asia, Luke Simons seems an unlikely candidate to bridge the gap in Shelbyville hoops history. But there he is, assertively moving around the 500 Ballroom, sought out by the likes of Ray Crowe's family, the famed Crispus Attucks coach.

Talk about six degrees of separation.

Simons graduated from SHS in 2001, playing varsity basketball in a gym named for William Garrett. Fifty years before, Garrett led the Golden Bears to the 1947 state championship, was crowned Indiana Mr. Basketball, and headed off to Indiana University to be the first African-American to regularly play in the Big Ten.

Following a stint in the Army, Garrett coached Crispus Attucks High School to three state championships in the 1950's. Three of those years, a child named David Wood served as team ball boy.

If you're still following, that same David Wood has led West Lafayette High school basketball the past 21 years. Through a connection with a youth camp counselor – and current supervisor at Athletes in Action – then-Purdue freshmen Luke Simons  joined Coach Wood's staff to oversee the junior varsity team in 2002.

Woods' mentorship to Simons continues and thus created a bridge to Shelbyville's hoops past. Though William Garrett died of a heart attack at 45 years old, his son and grandson are active forces in NCAA Division I and friends with Coach Wood, hearkening back to his Crispus Attucks ball boy days.

Thus, an improbable basketball acquaintanceship formed with the likes of Garrett, Wood and Simons.

A decade ago, Simons' promising coaching career led him to the quad cities area Black Hawk College.  He became the youngest head college coach in the nation at twenty-four years old.

"I knew X's and O's but had no idea how to lead young men," Simons now says.

In 2007, Simons accepted a position with Athletes in Action, where he serves as an overseas coach. He recently led the Mongolian national team to the 2014 medal round. This achievement came from a squad culled from a culture of nomadic herders that had never won a tournament game.

Simons, who speaks Mandarin Chinese and has been married less than two years, heads back to East Asia this May, where he will coach against professional teams.

"I made a lot of plans in high school and college and none of them happened," Simons said.

But his visibility and connections to some of college's biggest names make it clear he's found a home at AIA.

"So many people in Shelbyville make my work possible through missionary offerings," Simons said.

In the sprawling ballroom, Simons finally stops for a moment to have perhaps his first extended conversation of the day. The small group features Simons standing with William Garrett's son, Billy, and grandson, Billy Jr.

Despite the hubbub surrounding them, the three with Shelbyville connections reminisce and plan future playing opportunities.

Billy Garrett is an assistant coach at DePaul University in Chicago. Billy, Jr., a rising junior at DePaul, was the 2013-14 Big East Rookie of the Year. He is the only known college player to have sickle cell disease.

"Doctors have told me basketball probably isn't the best thing for me to do, that I should try other things that aren't as strenuous. I've never really thought about, 'I can't do this because of the sickle cell.' It hasn't been easy, but I really didn't want anybody to tell me I couldn't do it," Garrett, Jr. told Sports Illustrated last year.

Coach and Billy Garrett, Jr.'s passion for the game go beyond the court. They also have a sense of what the family name means within our community.

"We were just down in Shelbyville to see the gym," Coach Garrett says of the building with his father's namesake.

"We caught one of the (Golden Bears') games," Billy Jr. adds. "That was a lot of fun."

Promises to reconnect at the next event are made and the group splits before heading to the VIP reception.

And just like that, Athletes in Action and the Final Four created another space for the unlikely trio with Shelbyville ties to further forge a common bond of basketball and faith.


(I believe this story was written during Indy's most recent Final Four.)




Luke Simons




Simons, West Lafayette coach and former Crispus Attucks ball boy, David Wood and their wives




Simons at the AIA Legends of the Hardwood breakfast with Billy Garrett Jr of DePaul, on his left

[valpo64]

Simon's hire seems to be another class act that will join an already class act staff.  Congratulations, Bryce.  We can be proud of this program!