 |
 Simmie Hill
is considered to be not only one of the best basketball players to
come out of Midland but also one of the best ever produced in Beaver
County. In his junior year, Sim was a mainstay of Coach
Hank Kuzma
and his talented 1964 Leopards, along with
Norm Van Lier.
Simmie
tallied 481 points that season before the Leopards were eliminated
in the WPIAL championship by Uniontown, which went on to win the PIAA
state title. It was as a 6'-6" senior in 1965 that Simmie
helped lead the Leopards, regarded by many as the best high school
basketball team in Pennsylvania history, to the state title. He
scored 652 points for the well-balanced Leopard team, giving him
1327 for his career. He set a record in the WPIAL title game against
Aliquippa with 38 points, and in the PIAA state title contest
against Steelton-Highspire with 31 points. Simmie then led the
freshman team at Wichita State University in scoring before
transferring to Cameron Junior College at Lawton, Oklahoma, where he led his team to a third place finish in
the National Junior College tournament and was named a Junior
College All American. He then moved on to West Texas State for the
next two years, leading the team to an 18-8 record and an NIT berth
in 1969 but his team lost to Ohio University in an 82-80 thriller. For
his efforts that season, Simmie was named to The Sporting News Six Man
All American team, along with Rick Mount of Purdue, Jo Jo White of
Kansas, Pete Maravich of Louisiana State, Spencer Haywood of
Detroit, and Lew Alcindor of UCLA. Simmie played professional
basketball in the ABA with the Los Angeles, Miami, San Diego, and
San Antonio teams before retiring in 1974. |
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