Former Husker, Simmons, lays it on the line

COLUMBUS -- The 32 teens gathered in Youth for Christ Tuesday laughed dismissively when Ricky Simmons caricatured the marijuana smoker: squint-eyed, giggling, puffing an imaginary joint and grinning widely.

“I used to tell my mom, ‘Man, this don’t do nothing else to you but make you happy and hungry,’” Simmons said.

“And sleepy,” someone from the audience offers. Everyone laughs.

There is less bonhomie as Simmons moved further down his drug history, a frightening toxicology report that included alcohol abuse and a cocaine habit that led to multiple jail visits.

“I’ve done enough drugs ... to kill everyone in this room,” Simmons said to a silent room.

That wasn’t always a foreseen trajectory for Simmons’ life.

The Greenville, Tex., native was a born into a family led by parents who held master’s degrees. He showed an early talent for athletics and enrolled in the local football program in fifth grade as a deal with his father: Simmons would play football, and his father would reward him with presents.

Simmons said that sort of arrangement persisted into high school, cultivating a reward oriented mindset that stayed with him. It became a consuming materialism, he said, that almost got him a spot at a big school that was interested in his football ability. There was talk of a luxury car, an apartment and a starting position with the offer.

Then Tom Osborne stepped in.

The former Nebraska Cornhusker coach – against Simmons’ expressed wishes, he reminded everyone – convinced the Texan to play wide receiver for his team from 1979-1983. Simmons didn’t have the same perks or a starting position, but Osborne’s offered him a full ride scholarship.

Simmons was the second leading receiver in 1983, the year the Cornhuskers scored the most points of any college team in history, garnering them the nickname “The Scoring Explosion.”

His success in school made him a shoo-in for professional football. He played with the United States Football League with the Washington Federals and Orlando Renegades before being offered a spot on the National Football League’s Atlanta Falcons in 1986.

Then Simmons suddenly quit playing to become what he described to his audience a full-time drug addict and a regular prison inmate for nearly the next 20 years.

His story ends with a miraculous letter from Osborne, a realization of his dreams to become a motivation speaker and a licensed drug addiction counselor. But issues preceded the happy ending, including neglecting his son and never becoming sober before his mom died.

Simmons told the kids he spends every Thanksgiving alone in a car driving the 12 hours back to his Texas home. He can afford the airfare, but he said the long car ride feels more comfortable, more deserved.

Once there, Simmons goes to his parents’ graves and apologizes to them both and promises them to realize the potential he never showed while they were alive.

“I throw Ricky under the bus so these kids don’t have to,” Simmons said before he took the stage.

Simmons plainly said there is a drug problem at some level in all of the nation’s middle school and high schools. Students lucky enough to be outside of that still have what he calls a “life problem” with bullying, he added. These are other ways to stumble into the wrong path and bigger life problems, too.

Simmons said his speech is focused on prevention by getting young adults to realize they don’t have all the answers, that they don’t need to confront either of these issues alone.

It’s a lesson he said he spent way too long recognizing.

“What did I learn from it all? I learned I’m the dumbest kid in the world,” he said. “(But) just because I’m an idiot, I don’t need to prove it every day.”

Simmons also visited the Madison County Detention Center Tuesday. He’ll visit both Columbus Middle School and Columbus High School today.

His visit was sponsored by the Back To BASICs Coalitions and the East Central District Health Department.