Marty Simmons is Coming Home

Eastern Illinois’ New Head Coach

(St. Louis, MO) – Marty Simmons is coming home. He’s coming home to a head coaching role he loves and coming home to his geographic roots. Simmons is the new head basketball coach at Eastern Illinois University.

After three seasons at Clemson, he will take up residence less than two hours from his childhood home of Lawrenceville, Illinois. While playing basketball at Lawrenceville High School Simmons accumulated 2,986 points and led his team to back-to-back state championships. They won a state record 68 straight games! Marty was Illinois’ 1983 ‘Mr. Basketball’.

Simmons’ college career included two seasons at Indiana and two at Evansville. His move to the then Midwestern Collegiate Conference school coincided with the hiring of Jim Crews as UE’s head coach. Simmons would go on to earn two all-conference recognitions and during his senior season was the nation’s sixth leading scorer.

Coming Home to Head Coaching

Simmons began his head coaching career at Division 3 Wartburg College. Wrapped around the one season at Wartburg were two assistant coaching jobs at his alma mater. With his apprenticeship with Crews complete, Simmons became the head coach at Southern Illinois Edwardsville. The Cougar program was a Division 2 school preparing for the move to D1. During Simmons’ five seasons the Cougars went to two NCAA Tournaments and won the 2006 Great Lakes Valley Conference championship.

A return to Evansville to replace Steve Mereld began an eleven year stay as the UE’s head coach. The 56-year-old Simmons remembers those Evansville days with great appreciation.

 

 

The Purple Aces played postseason basketball five times and captured the 2015 College Insider.com Tournament championship. Simmons coached UE’s top two all-time leading scorers in D.J. Balentine and Colt Ryan and the program’s all-time leading rebounder and shot-blocker Egidijus Mockevicius.

Crews has been a life-long mentor and friend. He coached Simmons at both Indiana and Evansville. Marty twice worked as his assistant and then he replaced the man he loves and respects.

 

 

EIU – Like Coming Home

Now Simmons is back in the midwest, back in Illinois and back where he has had some great successes. Eastern Illinois is like coming home. As a prep super-star he often played at Lantz Arena and during UE’s run to the 2015 CIT title, they defeated the Panthers at Lantz.

Simmons is enthused about returning to a place with so many fond memories.

 

 

While grateful for the chance to assist Brad Brownell at Clemson, Marty wanted to be a head coach and wanted to be closer to home. The opportunity to return was something too good to pass up. Simmons feels like he’s a much better coach now than he was previously. He owns 284 college coaching victories (184 at D1) but believes he’s better equipped now than ever before.

 

 

Eastern Illinois

While SIUE was not in the Ohio Valley Conference when he coached there, he knows the OVC quite well. His Evansville teams routinely battled OVC schools and this past season Clemson played Morehead State.

His long and rich history in the region makes EIU the perfect fit.

The new-look OVC provides great challenges, and is also in transition. Simmons has learned new things, but also has a foundation that he will draw upon. The opportunity to compete in a basketball-centric Ohio Valley Conference excites the veteran coach.

 

 

Our entire conversation can be heard at Valley Hoops Insider Podcast. Simmons is working on putting together his coaching staff, getting to know his existing roster and hitting the recruiting trail.

Do Good

 

 

Editor: Feature photo courtesy of eiupanthers.com.