Mike’s Story & Legacy
The Mission
Inspired by the life and words of its namesake, the Mike Simmons Scholarship Foundation empowers students facing steep adversity, academic hardships, or difficult personal choices to reclaim their path. Mike saw each and every young person he served as individuals with immense potential who just needed someone to believe in them.
Through community athletics, and purposeful apparel, we help fund the Mike Simmons Scholarship to provide the second chances and resources necessary for resilient youth to stay on the road to success.
Turning a Second Chance into a Legacy
How Mike Simmons turned a lifeline on the court into a lifelong mission of lifting up youth.
The Tough Road
Long before he became a legendary Dean of Students at Kent-Meridian High School, Mike Simmons was a kid growing up in the blocks of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, New York. By high school, peer pressure and a dangerous environment took over.
As Mike later wrote in an essay during his college years:
"I became a serious hoodlum and got into the life of crime as well as gang busting... I could have been dead because we used chains, guns, knives and bats... I began to get tired of this wild and dangerous life style."
How Basketball and a Second Chance Saved a Life
Looking for an exit from the streets, Mike started spending his days at a local community center, pouring his energy into playground basketball. A local worker noticed his talent and his predicament, pleading with him to give school one more shot. He encouraged Mike to participate in a local basketball tournament, and he agreed to. That single tournament caught the attention of a west coast scout, who recommended him to a community college in Washington State.
Mike recalled the moment he broke the news to his family:
"When I got home and told my parents the news, I remember seeing tears running down my mother's eyes as she embraced me... I was more than glad to be leaving the fast city life for a nice slower atmosphere."
Mike packed his bags for Sea-Tac Airport with a 2.3 GPA, no high school diploma, and a dream. He took remedial reading and math, worked a summer job at Skipper's Fish and Chips, passed his GED, and fought his way onto the court and into regular college courses.
Living the Mission
In 1982, as a young college student trying to get his foot in the door at Seattle University, Mike wrote down a vision for his future:
"I would like to major in criminal justice and someday be a Parole Officer or Juvenile Counselor, so that I can help other kids and teenagers who are in the same position I once was... It's a tough road to success, but I plan on being on that road."
Mike made it through that road, and he spent his final two decades of life at Kent-Meridian High School making sure other kids could make it, too.
