NOT A SIMPLE SIMON : Marshall Star Plays for a Team That Prides Itself in Scoring as Well in the Classroom as It Does on the Basketball Court

Jerry Simon and the Marshall High basketball team went Hollywood last week, sort of, when their game at Franklin was televised by Group W cable. But Simon, the team’s star, hardly fits the lights-camera-action mold.

He carries just 165 pounds on his 6-5 frame, so intimidation is not his game. Don’t look for him in any slam dunk contests soon, either.

He plays for a school tucked away in a residential area on the Los Feliz side of Griffith Park that has a total of seven losses and has finished no worse than second in its league in the last four years, yet has made it as far as the City 3-A semifinals only once. It is a team that lists its combined grade-point average along with scoring averages, something certainly worth bragging about since the team has not been lower than 3.35 since 1979-80.

For college, Simon chose the University of Pennsylvania, one reason being that its Wharton School of Finance was the first business school in the United States and is still considered one of the best. Besides, he fits the Ivy League mold.

What we have here is someone who will never be called Flash, someone who off the court is much better at grinning and shrugging his shoulders than conversation, but someone who on the court is scoring as have few others in City Section history.

Simon is averaging about 33 points a game in Northern League competition, is shooting 61% from the field and 89% from the free-throw line, and is averaging 18 rebounds and 11.2 assists. He has carried the Barristers to a 14-3 overall record--the losses coming to No. 1 Crenshaw, Simi Valley, the ninth-ranked team in the Southern Section 4-A Division, and Van Nuys--and a 6-0 league mark.

“He’s kind of the MVP of the league,” his coach, Sandy Greentree, said.

Yeah, kind of.

It is also impressive that Simon scored his season-high--43 points--against Crenshaw, a team known for its tough defense, and that he scored 38 against Crescenta Valley of La Crescenta. His lowest output in a game he played for any sizable length of time--he was in for just a few minutes against a JV team in a Christmas tournament--is 17 against North Hollywood in the final nonleague game at the Sports Arena. No Northern League team has been able to contain him better than Eagle Rock did Jan. 22, when Simon scored 28.

“He could be scoring 60 points in some games if he was a different type of person, and the 11.2 assists tells you why,” Greentree said. “I have to push him sometimes to take more shots because that’s our best chance of winning.”

Simon averaged 16 points a game as a sophomore and 19.4 last season, when he earned All-City honors. He has always been adept at fundamentals such as scoring and dribbling, but Simon feels he really began improving last summer after attending basketball camps in Pittsburgh and Santa Barbara.

His ball-handling skills became a real attraction to college coaches, always on the lookout for someone 6-5 who is able to play point guard. For this year, though, those skills simply gave Simon another way to beat the opposition.

“If I tried, I could probably score 50 points or more before I leave high school,” he said. “But that would be bad. I like to pass the ball.”

Coincidentally, the City scoring record for one season that Simon is chasing belongs to a former Marshall player, John Starkins, who averaged 36.9 in 1968-69. It didn’t bring Starkins much respect, though, since he made only third-team All-City.

Don’t expect a similar fate for Simon.