Penn State’s Shane Simmons finds positives amid uncertainty
The loss of the time spent bonding with teammates has been the gain of priceless family time.
Missing on-field work for the purpose of fine-tuning skills for the best senior season possible is difficult, but the abundance of free time has allowed for personal exploration into newfound hobbies.
For Penn State fifth-year senior defensive end Shane Simmons, the stay-at-home orders because of the coronavirus pandemic have unearthed some silver linings.
“This quarantine has been real beneficial for me,” Simmons said during a video call with media this week. “I am a very creative person. I have been looking into real estate — commercial real estate, residential, all that stuff like that. I have been trying to (look into) some ideas … CGI animation and all that.
“I’ve gotten a lot of free time to do what I wanted to be able to do but I couldn’t ever do because of football stuff.”
Spring practice was canceled, and players still are banned from Penn State’s facilities. Though FaceTime has provided opportunities for learning, coaches are prevented from working in person with players.
Those have provided challenges from a football perspective, but Simmons said he has been running outside “a lot.” He also has been able to work out with friends, “very small groups” of three to four people, appropriately socially distanced, of course.
“We run outside. Some of us have workout equipment, some benching, squatting all that stuff that we do up at Penn State,” Simmons said. “Workouts have been really good to put on, I would say, five pounds of muscle — pure muscle. I have been eating a lot more. My mom makes food. My father makes food, too. So I have been eating about four meals a day.”
Plenty of talent remains at defensive end and tackle for Penn State in 2020, even if a player at each position was taken in the NFL Draft last month. Via @C_AdamskiTribhttps://t.co/hSxqGOnbt7
— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) May 21, 2020
Simmons, a DeMatha graduate from Laurel, Md., has embraced what might be his final opportunity to live with his parents. Like most team-sport athletes, though, the void of the camaraderie among teammates is difficult to fill.
“Probably the hardest part is being away from my boys, my teammates,” Simmons said. “ … Not being around them is pretty hard.
“But I probably say the main part that I am mostly grateful for is spending time with my family here. We rarely get breaks like this, so I am just real grateful to be around them and them to make food for me and vice versa. I do love spending time with people that I love.”
Chris Adamski is a TribLive reporter who has covered primarily the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2014 following two seasons on the Penn State football beat. A Western Pennsylvania native, he joined the Trib in 2012 after spending a decade covering Pittsburgh sports for other outlets. He can be reached at cadamski@triblive.com.
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