{"id":8142,"date":"2015-10-15T04:30:24","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T09:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/?p=8142"},"modified":"2015-10-15T08:27:42","modified_gmt":"2015-10-15T13:27:42","slug":"nsr-area-director-teaches-prospects-to-learn-from-his-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/nsr-area-director-teaches-prospects-to-learn-from-his-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"NSR Area Director teaches prospects to learn from his mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jim<\/a>
Jim Simpson taps into his unique college career to help families in Northern Virginia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Virginia’s high school football Player of the Year.\u00a0 Not bad.\u00a0 Recruited by some of the region’s premier college football programs. Even better.<\/p>\n

But for Jim Simpson, National Scouting Report’s Northern Virginia area director, that’s where the good news ended — or so it seemed — in 1976.<\/p>\n

“My story should have been an athletic success story,” said Jim, 56.\u00a0 “It’s definitely a story to avoid if you’re a player or have a player as part of your family interested in playing in college.\u00a0 It\u2019s a painful past, but a good reason why my sons were later so successful.\u00a0 I truly don\u2019t want other potential athletes experience what I did.”<\/p>\n

After leading Falls Church\u00a0High School to the Virginia state 1A championship game in 1976, Jim was one of the top quarterback recruits in the Mid-Atlantic region.<\/p>\n

“Back then, it was D-I or bust where we came from, so everyone headed for the biggest, brightest lights,” Jim said. “Only problem, I was a tad small at 6 feet, 175 pounds, yet still able to play D-I.\u00a0 In hindsight, I could have had a much more successful career in a lower division.\u00a0 I signed at D-I William & Mary, which later pulled the scholarship.”<\/p>\n

The reason the school gave Jim was that his SAT verbal score was too low.\u00a0 National Letter of Intent rules in the mid- to late-’70s were much different than today’s far more rigid requirements.<\/p>\n

Jim then signed a second NLI, this time with another in-state program, Virginia Military Institute, but once again the vagaries of how the NLI worked allowed Army to come calling and recruit Jim away from VMI.\u00a0\u00a0U.S. military academies were exceptions to most all recruiting rules at the time and the staff at Army, knowing about Jim’s stellar high school career, jumped at the chance to land him.\u00a0 However, military life was not for Jim. In midseason, Army’s No. 2 signal-caller transferred to Virginia Tech, his fourth D-I school in less than a year out of high school.<\/p>\n

Finally, Jim thought he was back on track. Not so fast. Virginia Tech’s entire coaching staff was fired following the season.\u00a0 The new coach said openly, “I don’t expect to win the first year or so because the players aren’t mine.”\u00a0 Not exactly a good omen for a walk-on transfer.\u00a0 So, Jim started looking again for a spot to land and stay. He chose West Virginia University.<\/p>\n

\"Jim<\/a>
Jim Simpson was Virginia\u2019s 1976 Football Player of the Year at Falls Church High School.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After Jim was named the Mountaineers’ starting safety (the coaches had moved him to defense during spring practice), something went awry again before the start of the season. Jim’s quarter-based courses at Virginia Tech would not transfer to WVU’s semester-based system.<\/p>\n

By now, Jim resigned himself to the fact that football simply wasn’t in his future.<\/p>\n

“I use my life lesson and make it my business to help others do what\u2019s needed specifically for them to be successful,” Jim said. “I really didn\u2019t want to think about it again, but my experience does motivate me to keep all of my athletes from repeating my story. At 18 years old, I just really believe most athletes and their families need more than just a little guidance.\u00a0 I\u2019m certain that my family and I could have used some help, and now I have a great platform to work from with my players and their families today.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virginia’s high school football Player of the Year.\u00a0 Not bad.\u00a0 Recruited by some of the region’s premier college football programs. Even better. But for Jim Simpson, National Scouting Report’s Northern Virginia area director, that’s where the good news ended — or so it seemed — in 1976. “My story should have been an athletic success … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[31,278,56,277,222],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8142"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8175,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8142\/revisions\/8175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}