Serra Gridder Impresses Shrine Coaches

The football practice field at UC Irvine was filled with the usual pop of pads and shouts of coaches of a football practice.

The South team All-Stars were preparing for Saturday’s Shrine All-Star football game in the Rose Bowl. About every other play, an assistant would yell, “OK, Erik,” or “That’s fine, Erik” just before jersey No. 75 was about to crunch a running back or quarterback.

“Who is this Erik?” a visitor asked one of the players on the sidelines. “That’s Erik Simien, the biggest, buffest (muscular), studliest guy out there,” came the reply from one of the players.

Actually, the 6-foot-3, 230-pound Simien, from Serra High on his way to Notre Dame, is not the biggest player on the South team, but he has made the biggest impression, especially on co-Coach Ron Redell, formerly of Crespi.

Simien will start at outside linebacker Saturday in his last performance in California until Notre Dame plays Stanford at Palo Alto on Oct. 7.

Though few players had heard of Simien before the Shrine practice, he has been the talk of the camp, outperforming Russell White of Crespi, Perry Klein of Carson and Derek Brown of Servite.

But Simien’s Camino Real League opponents and scouts know all about him. All-league since his sophomore year, last fall Simien was named to all-state, all-CIF, and all-South Bay teams. His size and 4.5 speed in 40 yards make him an imposing force. Last fall Simien made 22 quarterback sacks.

“You mean Superman?” Redell said, when asked about the 18-year-old. “Erik Simien is as fine a linebacker as I have ever seen in high school football.”

Rick McCathron, a 260-pound guard from Thousand Oaks going to Oregon State, said Simien “cannot be blocked. The coaches put him on ‘restrictive’ rushing so he wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

Restrictive rushing, McCathron explained, means the defensive player can hit his blocker only once and then must let up.

“They won’t let us go full speed,” Simien said. “It’s frustrating.” Simien will have plenty of chance to go full speed tomorrow night and when he gets to Notre Dame on Aug. 3. He chose Notre Dame over Penn State because of the challenges.

“I like to challenge myself,” said Simien, who had a 3.4 grade-point average in high school. “They recruited eight outside linebackers and they will only let two stay at the position. I also want to graduate in four years.”

Notre Dame recruiting coordinator Vinny Cerrato saw Simien play in November and jumped to the first pay phone to tell the other coaches about the find. “He can run, he’s tough, and he can come in and play this year,” Cerrato said.”

Listening to Erik now, one would not suspect he almost quit football as a sophomore and junior. “Erik was kind of borderline, if you know what I mean,” Erik’s mother, Helen Jean Coleman, said. “We were hoping he would graduate from the eighth grade.”

Coleman, who raised Simien alone, credits the priests at St. John the Baptist parish and Dale Washburn, Simien’s football coach at Serra until his junior year.

“Coach Washburn kept me in football when I was tired of it,” Simien said. “He was an inspiration.”

Washburn said he was not surprised to hear of Simien’s emergence as an all-star player. “Erik was a unique player, he always went full speed,” Washburn said. “When he made mistakes, he made full-speed mistakes. And he’s also built like a miniature truck.”

The miniature truck, who bench-presses 350 pounds and has 18 1/2-inch arms, makes the first stop at the Shrine Game. Then it’s off to Notre Dame in preparation for the Kickoff Classic against Virginia on Aug. 28.