Coach Simon

Coach Simon met and became good friends with Coach Dingboom at the University of Buffalo where they both played football while getting their educations between 1946 and 1950. He had entered UB after a one-year stint in the Navy at the end of WWII. Jim earned his Bachelors Degree in Physical Education. With jobs short for teachers in the early ‘50s, Jim decided to go to Physical Therapy School in New Orleans and then began working as a Physical Therapist in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

As he began to think about settling down, he decided he preferred Buffalo to the Deep South and thus returned. He married Virginia in 1957, a fetching young lady that he had met on a blind date in Buffalo while he was visiting from Arkansas. They subsequently had two sons, Mark (1960), and Chris (1963). Both boys are still living in the Buffalo area near mom and dad. 

When Coach Dingboom was assigned to Riverside in 1959, he was eager to get his old UB buddy to be his Assistant Coach – and Jim was ready and willing to sign-up. This team stayed together through our years and on until 1964, when Jim got an opportunity to join the UB football staff as a trainer. While there, he put back on his thinking cap and earned a Doctorate in Education. This led to an opportunity to go to the University of Miami and setup a physical therapy program for them. While there, he had the chance to teach Jim Kelly (the future Bill’s QB) a little sex education. Some say that he taught him too well.

Jim always was searching for new challenges and thus he followed his efforts at Miami with additional creative assignments at the U. of Scranton in Pennsylvania and finally at D’youville College in Buffalo. Now retired, Jim and Virginia are relaxing and enjoying life. They have a winter home in Naples, FL to avoid the Buffalo blizzards, and spent a beautiful three weeks in Europe in May 2000. At home, a little carpentry, a little swimming, or gardening keep him satisfied. Oh yeh, I shouldn’t leave out the major relationship he has with the TV remote control.