John Simon the IV. Lover of ladies. Eater of quarterbacks.
Since his freshman year, John Simon has been a Buckeye fan favorite. He won fans over with his drive (remember him leaving the Toledo game to get an IV in him?). He never complained, always was positive and never seemed to play dirty. He just played really, really hard and probably played above his physical abilities. Hard work and putting in the time definitely paid off for Johnny Simon
He was a freak of nature and he was a freak in the weight room. That may have been what endeared him the most to a lot of us, myself included. I still think about This Dispatch article about his workout “hobby” and that time he talked to The Lantern about how he and his dad work out on Christmas morning and even our own SYR had this anecdote about the Simon’s love for working out:
My neighbor told me when you walk in the Simon house they have a weight room in their living room, not a couch and TV.
And finally there’s the coup de grace of quotes, the highest of praise from head coach Urban Meyer:
Because nobody likes two-a-days, except maybe John Simon.
To top it all off, Simon is an Ohio guy. Actually, being from Youngstown makes him the Ohio-est kind of guy there is. Hard-working, carry your lunch pail to work Youngstown (with a slight hint of possible mafia violence) is as Ohio as it gets. And we love Simon for it. He is going to be missed but he has cemented himself as one of our favorite Buckeyes. If nothing else, he’s an automatic lock for the 2010’s version of the Buckeye Mount Rushmore.
So let’s open for discussion: What are your favorite memories of John Simon?
For me, I think I’d have to go with his performance against Wisconsin in 2011. I still maintain that he is the single biggest reason why we won that game and has the performance of a lifetime to show for it.
(Things start getting good around the 2:20 mark)
What are your favorite Simon moments?
For me it will always be the story of him breaking the OSU Bench Press record as a High School Sr. It spoke about how strong he was but also how dedicated to work he was. In the end it proved to be true as OSU coaches had to put a max limit on how much wieght he was allowed to lift everyday lol.
Yeah, if nothing else that definitely told us he was going to be fun to watch. For some reason, us Buckeyes love our Bench Press stories.
Big Daddy, anyone?