Former 'Hound coach Sims hired by Garden City

Used with permission of the Garden City Telegram

---

GARDEN CITY -- Garden City Community College announced the hiring of former Fort Scott Community College head coach Jeff Sims on Thursday.

During a noon press conference inside the Hall of Fame room at the Perryman Athletic Complex, Sims was introduced as the 21st head coach in program history, replacing Matt Miller, whose two-year stint at the helm ended on Nov. 9 when he was fired after a 4-6 season.

In an opening statement, GCCC President Herb Swender said he was pleased to announce the hiring of Sims, who currently is the director of player personnel at the University of Indiana.

"The absolute most important thing we do at Garden City Community College, before we have great teaching and learning take place in the classroom and on the field or court, is selection of personnel and people," Swender said. "With no exception, we are very pleased and excited for (Sims) to serve as head football coach for Garden City Community College."

Sims, 42, led the Greyhounds to a 32-12 record over four seasons in Fort Scott from 2007 to 2010, including three consecutive bowl games and an appearance in the 2009 NJCAA Championship Game before moving on to four years in the Division I ranks, two each at Indiana University and Florida Atlantic University.

Sims, who has a wife and three children, will continue to perform his duties as the director of player personnel at Indiana until Dec. 1, when he will assume his duties at GCCC.

"I love my job at Indiana," Sims said about what brought him back to the junior college ranks, "but I don't get to work with the players. I evaluate players. That's part of my job is to be stand-offish, to be judgemental. I miss the interaction. I miss that opportunity, and I think I'm a good head football coach."

Sims said he was selective when choosing the right opportunity for him to get back into coaching, though.

"I would only come back to a junior college that I felt like wanted to be the best junior college program in the country," Sims said. "We're a long way away from that right now. We have a lot of work ahead."

The Busters are coming off a two consecutive losing seasons under Miller, who was 6-14 overall, and have just one winning season since 2008. The Busters have also not won the Jayhawk Conference title since 2001.

Athletic Director Ryan Ruda said he believes that Sims is the type of coach that can help revive a once proud program.

"As we went through this process (of hiring a head coach) -- it wasn't an easy process -- but we knew the qualities, we knew the attributes that we were looking for," Ruda said. "We were looking for character. We were looking for integrity. We were looking for professionalism. And we were looking for somebody student-centered. Right here's your man (Sims).

"Athletics is important to me, but what's more important is taking care of the students. We are truly excited about the direction of Broncbuster football."

The process of hiring Sims took "two to three weeks," with Sims having several conversations with Ruda, Swender and others within the athletic department. He finally accepted the job late Wednesday night, and was announced on Thursday before he was scheduled to fly back to Bloomington, Ind., ahead of the Hoosiers' game against Ohio State University on Saturday.

"The way it started from my perspective was, I saw there was an opening, and I wanted to get back into community college football," Sims said. "There's only certain schools that I would have considered, because some schools value it, and some schools it's just a recruitment tool."

But when GCCC's job opened, Sims said, he sent an email expressing his interest and questions for the type of coach for which the college was looking. Sims thought he fit the description, and the two sides talked until both sides were comfortable that Sims was the right candidate.

"You have to believe that the individual you're bringing in is that right person," Ruda said, "and there's no question in my mind."

Ruda and Swender both confirmed that Sims' success during his time at Fort Scott played, at least, a part in the decision.

Sims' highly successful stint at Fort Scott preceded an NJCAA-levied probationary period for Fort Scott, however.

In August of 2011, a month after Sims resigned at Fort Scott, the football program was placed on probation by the NJCAA for the 2011 season, and reduced the numbers of scholarships for the 2012 and '13 seasons, according to a Fort Scott Tribune article on Aug. 30, 2011.

The punishment was placed on the school, according to a press release cited by the Tribune, because the NJCAA ruled "17 students were recruited to play football at FSCC by signing an institutional scholarship, not a National Letter of Intent. All students that are recruited to play a sport at a NJCAA school must sign a National Letter of Intent."

Sims said that he was asked about the probation during the interview process with GCCC, and answered questions about the 17 students cited in the report as the basis for the punishment, who Sims said he did recruit while at FSCC.

"Fort Scott was put on probation after I left," Sims said. "When I was there, everything was in order. Why Fort Scott was put on probation, the entire time I was there, everything was in compliance and was agreed upon between the president, the administration staff, the coaches. There's nothing we did at Fort Scott that we were not proud of, that did not suit and fit the community college model and what was not best for Fort Scott."

Sims said he was doing what was best for the college, in compliance with the guidelines.

"We followed the letter of the law, as we saw fit," he said.

He plans to lead Garden City with that same mindsight, Sims said.

"I work for Garden City and I do what's best for Garden City and our administration, our community, our players, our athletes," he said.

Sims acknowledged that the NJCAA's reason for punishment was based on what Fort Scott called a "needs-based" scholarship.

"They (NJCAA) put Fort Scott on probation because our needs-based scholarship, which every community college in the state of Kansas has," Sims said. "They said it looked too close to a national letter-of-intent. I don't believe what they were doing at Fort Scott (was anything) that they weren't doing at every community college in the state because we are enrollment driven.

"Sometimes there's more things to a story and a conference and things like that. I'm proud of everything we did there. I think we did what was best for our school, and that's what we did."

Ruda was clear that he was comfortable with Sims' explanation about the probation.

"From the very beginning, the discussion we've had is that honesty and loyalty are two things that we both have to have. I think as you have those discussions, you can tell there's trust and you can tell there's trust and you can tell when you're getting the answer that you're looking for," Ruda said. "Quite honestly, he gave us the answers we were looking for, and were ready to move forward."

Swender was equally satisfied.

"As soon as I heard the facts, I was good," Swender said. "I didn't need the opinions of it. Tell me the facts and I'll make my own judgments of it. That's pretty clear to me."

In July of 2011, after Sims resigned at Fort Scott, he accepted a position as the head of recruiting at Indiana for his first stint with the college in the 2011 season.

For two seasons in 2012-13, Sims served as the wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator at Florida Atlantic University under head coach Carl Pelini. With Sims' help, the Owls became bowl eligible in 2013 with a 6-6 record a year after the Owls were 3-9 and two years after a 1-11 season.

However, Pelini's tenure ended in scandal midway through the 2013 season when he tendered his resignation after accusations of illegal drug use with an assistant coach, according to a South Florida Sun Sentinel article on Oct. 30, 2013.

Sims was not involved in the alleged drug use, and coached the rest of the season at FAU before returning to Indiana, this time as the director of player personnel.

"Indiana has been awesome to me," Sims said. "I think they're doing an awesome job. They've educated me and I'm a better coach today than I was when I left Fort Scott."

Sims listed some of the experiences at the Division I level that he believes will help him now in his fourth stint with a community college, after two years as an assistant at Mt. San Antonio, Calif., College in 1999-2000, two years as head coach at Mesabi Range, Minn., Community College in 2002-03 and then Fort Scott from 2007-11.

"There are some things that I learned in the four years that I was away from community college football that I think will make me a better community college coach," Sims said. "Because when I was in community college I didn't understand why you're not taking this kid. I didn't understand why he's not a fit. Now I kind of understand the dynamics a little bit better -- how and why they choose guys. I think that'll help me."

Sims also said that the process of building a program at Indiana has helped him learn some of the challenges he will also face at Garden City, such as recruiting.

While he doesn't have a specific plan on how he will put together a recruiting program at GCCC yet, he does have a specific goal.

"We're going to close off western Kansas," Sims said. "The reality is, there are battles on the eastern side of Kansas -- I'll go talk to certain guys -- but we may not be their community college. We are the western Kansas community college, and every kid that leaves here to go somewhere else to play community college football, he's making a mistake."

Sims also laid forth the type of program he wants to build at GCCC, based off what he was able to establish at Fort Scott.

"Our program when I took over at Fort Scott Community College was based on three things: graduate, championship, scholarship," Sims said. "At Garden City, we will be better than that. We will add a component to that. I really believe that service is important, also, so we will service this community.

"We will service this community every day we are here. We will work every single day to graduate our student-athletes, every single day. We will work every single day to be the best junior college football program in the country, and we will get our young men opportunities out of here. That's what my job is and that's what we will do."

According to Ruda, a letter of agreement had been approved by both the college and Sims, but the details of the agreement, including salary, were not available Thursday.

Sims and his wife, Lecia, have two sons, Dylan, 13, Jake, 12 and a daughter, Samantha, 10.

Sims is a native of Maryland Heights, Mo., a St. Louis suburb, and graduated from Pattonville High School. He then attended Bakersfield College (Calif.), where he earned an Associate of Science in Liberal Arts degree. He moved on to Baker University in Baldwin where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in physical education and then a Master of Liberal Arts degree.