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Princeton University Athletics
Going Forwards By Moving Backwards
September 30, 2002 | Football
Sept. 30, 2002
Let's start this story off with a basic assumption. You walk forwards, not backwards.
Are we safe to continue? Good.
OK, take two hours out of each day for four months and walk backwards. Make it three on Saturday, and you can have Sundays off. And no, you aren't pledging a fraternity.
You're just doing it to keep your job.
Sound good? No?
Well, it probably didn't sound very appealing to Paul Simbi either. Here he was, a second-team all-state selection from Roseville, Minn., a running back with top-notch credentials. Running straight ahead was his thing in high school; he was so good at it that his 4x100 relay team set a Minnesota high school record en route to a state title.
Running forwards was his thing. The key word there is 'was.'
"When Paul came here, be brought good credentials with him," defensive coordinator Steve Verbit says. "His high school film was excellent. We were fortunate to have a number of running backs at the time, and we were thin in the secondary." That was about to change.
During the preseason, the coaching staff will get together to discuss personnel and potential position changes. When that conversation arose in 1999, Verbit's hand was the first raised. He wanted Simbi to move from running back to defensive back. Verbit saw the athleticism in him and thought he could turn into a fine defensive back.
Good call.
It took a great deal of work for Simbi to grow into the player he is today, but hard work is anything but foreign to the 5-8 computer science major. In fact, it's just about par for the course.
He started working at sports in the fifth grade, when he joined with friends on the athletic fields. His friends were his primary athletic influences, since he was the only male in his family. He was playing football, basketball and baseball, and by the time he got to high school, he was doing football, basketball and track and field.
And he was doing quite well in each.
He stopped playing basketball during his junior year - an admittedly "weird" transition to have a season when he wasn't playing a sport - to continue his focus on football. Simbi wanted to continue his football career past Roseville High, and he wanted to do it at the right place. "I wanted to play football in college at a good academic school," Simbi says. "There were a couple of nice schools in Minnesota."
And there were a couple of nice schools in the East too. In the end, Simbi had to choose between two of them. He had originally made a verbal commitment to Yale, but felt pressured to make a decision before he actually got to visit the Princeton campus.
Simbi decided to still visit the school and had a change of mind. From the campus to the financial assistance to the people he met, Simbi knew that this was the place for him. It was the people especially. His high school coach stressed that. Even to this day, he calls Simbi and asks him about the people.
Forgive him if he didn't always give the most positive answers, though. From all accounts, Simbi is the definitive team player, but even he had to have some negative thoughts about it all during his freshman year.
"I continued to drive and drive Paul to make sure he saw what ability he could have in the secondary," Verbit says. "It's difficult mentally. Your heart is still in the offense. Fortunately, he was such a good person from a team-oriented standpoint."
And he was a hard worker. To succeed, he had to be, because there was so much to do. Forget the complex coverages, the blitz packages and everything else that went into a typical Saturday game plan.
Simbi had to learn the difference between running fast forwards and running fast backwards. "There were times when I would force him to stay after practice," Verbit recalls. "We would work on backpedalling, change of direction, getting high for the ball."
And there they were, while the rest of the players were showering and heading to dinner, Verbit and Simbi continued to develop a former running back into an eventual starting defensive back. "When you start, you can only concentrate on one thing," Simbi says. "As the years go on, stuff comes more naturally."
That one thing, the fundamentals, would come in time. Everything else would develop with it, including the mentality necessary to be a consistent and strong defensive back.
"When I first arrived here, Paul was a sophomore who was just getting a grasp of what we were trying to do defensively," head coach Roger Hughes says. "One of the things he tried to do was to make all the plays himself. He had to learn to develop a trust in the others in the secondary to do their job and, therefore, all he had to do was his job. He also lacked confidence. Part of being a good corner is expecting to make the play, knowing that you will not let your receiver catch the ball, and if he does, have a short memory and forget about it. Early, Paul would let a bad play carry over into the next. Now, he has gained the confidence in both himself and his teammates that comes from experience. The added confidence has taken the 'thinking' out of his play and has replaced it with 'reacting' so he is better able to use his athletic abilities." And the ability to react within a play allows you to do your thinking before the play. That can be a solid advantage to the defensive side of the ball.
"At the beginning of my junior year, stuff just started to come together," he said. Simbi started to watch more film, got his techniques down and started focusing on the opposing offenses. What was the formation? What can you expect from this offense in this formation? Simbi became a heck of a lot more dangerous when these were his concerns, not the backpedaling and the jumping.
Well, the jumping actually does stay a concern. At a time when all levels of football are going to the taller wide receivers who can jump high and bring down the long lob passes, Simbi stands shorter than most men he lines up against. In these situations, athleticism and technique are his only hope.
"I just have to make sure I jump my highest," he says. "I have to be a little quicker, and I have to be in the right position."
All the hard work has paid off. In his first three years, Simbi has made 44 tackles, defensed 18 passes and intercepted five. He has blocked a punt, and he has recovered a fumble. Against eventual Ivy League champion Harvard last year, Simbi picked off two passes. That alone is a pretty substantial resume.
But to truly appreciate his athleticism, competitive drive and work ethic, check out another aspect of his resume.
He is also a Heptagonal champion.
Yeah, he still got to do some forward running in college, and he did it pretty well. Simbi, along with football teammates Patrick Schottel (also a former high school teammate) and Cameron Atkinson, led Princeton's outdoor track and field team to a 2000 Heptagonal title by winning the 4x100 meter relay. At a time when most football players get to relax, Simbi was back at work. While his speed made him a dangerous competitor in the event, he had another advantage over the competition.
"Where he really helped our team was leading off the 4x100," head track and field coach Fred Samara says. "He passed the baton to Pat Schottel, who he worked together a lot with in high school. They had a good feel for the exchange."
You get that good feel from constant work, just as you get the technique down on your new position. And not just work during the practice season.
"Sometimes I think I should settle down," Simbi says. "Even in the summer, I feel like I'm always running around... doing things, working out - the summer can be as busy as the school year."
But Simbi has gotten used to it, as have his peers in the secondary. Once a batch of inexperienced youngsters, the likes of Simbi, Blake Perry, Brandon Mueller and Kevin Kongslie have developed into one of the strongest units on the team.
"They've grown up together," Verbit says. "They challenge each other. Who is going to make the play? If it's a blitz, who will get the sack? If the ball is in the air, who will come down with it? They push each other, and that makes it a lot of fun for the coaches."
Fun for the coaches, a nightmare for the opposing receivers. Simbi knows what it's like; it was only a few years ago when he was the offensive star, trying to figure out how to move against a talented, experienced defense.
Now he is the experienced one, playing in his final season and looking for that elusive Ivy League ring. It would complete a career that has consistently moved forwards, starting when he learned how to go backwards.