Owls' Parker Simson Could Go Both Ways

By Howard Tsumura, The Province

Parker Simson’s athletic abilities are rare enough that as university recruiters attempt to get a handle on the all-everything talent from Kelowna Secondary School, they aren’t sure if they need to put on a full-court press or a safety blitz.

Will it be the hard court, where as a 6-foot-3, 192-pound guard he is considered among the very best players on an Owls team which was the runaway choice to start the 2015-16 B.C. School Sports senior boys quad A basketball at No. 1 in The Province’s Big 10 rankings?

Or will it be on the gridiron, where Simson — who projects as a university defensive back or receiver — has put up prodigious numbers in just his second full season as the Owls’ starting quarterback?

“Being straight up and honest, I don’t know if he even knows yet,” says Owls head football coach Ben Macauley, who last week, in his team’s 37-6 win over visiting Vernon, watched as Simson threw three touchdown passes and rushed for two more. “I think he’d like to do both, but that is a gruelling schedule.”

Ask Simson, and it’s clear the willingness is there to play both sports at the collegiate level.

“That is definitely 100 per cent what I would want to do,” Simson says. “Every school I’ve talked to, that is the question I have asked. I would like to see if it is going to be an option, but that said, it would be hard with classes.”

There have been a number of B.C. high school standouts in past years who have been blue-chip basketball-football stars, and Simson is doing enough early in the season to suggest he can reach the same kind of level that athletes like Mitch Berger, Bret Anderson, Bobby Singh, Jacob Doerksen and Lemar Durant did during their senior years in high school.

The next six months will go a long ways towards writing the first chapter of his journey, but for now, it’s fun to just appreciate the talents he has brought to the Owls football team, one which opens its triple A Eastern Conference season on the road Friday in Surrey against the Lord Tweedsmuir Panthers.

“He will most likely get that ‘athlete’ tag placed on him,” says Macauley of Simson. “University coaches know that he could play receiver, but besides having great hands, he has such great range that defensive back might be the most likely fit. They love his ability to close gaps quickly and easily.”

At Kelowna, Simson’s all-round ability has led to the quarterbacking role, even if it might not be his most refined position.

“Typically, he’s been the guy to go get the ball,” continues Macauley. “But that is the conundrum that every coach has been in. What’s the best way to get your best athlete the ball? Just give it to him.”

Yet watch Simson on the football field and he can’t be described as your typical cookie-cutter player, and that’s a compliment because it just makes him all the more deceptive.

“He does some things that are unorthodox,” begins Macauley. “When you see him breaking the pocket and looking to run, he’s holding the ball like he’s still going to throw it. He seems to see the game a step ahead, and coaches pull their hair out. He can sell everyone on the run and then throw it 30 yards into the end zone.”

Simson doesn’t know the precise origins of all of his idiosyncrasies, but he’s not about to dismiss the fact that he excelled at yet another sport from ages five through 12: BMX or bicycle motocross.

“I don’t think a lot of people know, but I travelled around the world with that sport when I was younger,” laughs Simson.

He was so good at it, that in 2007, he won a world championship title when the event was held in Victoria. He subsequently travelled to China and Australia competing against the best in the world.

“I think that might be a reason why I was so fast at a young age,” he says. “In BMX you’re up on a hill with a gate, and when it starts it’s sort of like in football, when someone is rushing at you. I just feel that the quickness you need on the football field, those two steps to get around the corner, it’s like when that gate drops and you start to pedal and you have to get going as quick as you can.”

Who knows, if he decides to balance an academic course load with a dual-sport university career, his talents on a bike might just come in handy.