Simonini left legacy of big hits, hard play
COLLEGE STATION — In the wee hours after Texas A&M defeated Texas in late November 1975, a Pontiac Firebird and a Ford Mustang whirled in circles just north of Kyle Field, where a fancy hotel now resides.
“Spinning doughnuts and kicking mud up all over the place,” Ed Simonini once recalled with a chuckle. “A campus cop came running with his flashlight, and so we got out of there. We couldn’t help ourselves that night — we were celebrating a big win.”
Chances are a few hours earlier the police officer had been celebrating the derring-do of Simonini (of the Firebird) and Garth Ten Napel (of the Mustang) and their A&M teammates in the Aggies’ 20-10 victory over the Longhorns at Kyle. It was A&M’s first victory over rival UT in eight years.
Simonini, 65, died on Monday following a long fight with cancer.
Simonini checked in at 6-foot and 215 pounds during his A&M playing days at linebacker from 1972-75, but any recipient of the All-American’s breath-stealing hits
knew he played much larger.
“I chose No. 77 because that was Ed Simonini’s number,” said Jacob Green, who played defensive end for the Aggies from 1977-79 and became an NFL Pro Bowler. “I wanted to be Ed Simonini, simply because he played the game so hard.”
Simonini led the Aggies in tackles in three straight seasons (1973-75). He’d later lead the then-Baltimore Colts of the NFL in tackles four straight years (197780).
“That’s not a great accomplishment,” an understated Simonini once said for a book on A&M legends. “Earl Campbell ran the ball a lot when he was playing in the NFL, and it cut short his pro career. There are only so many carries a running back has, and there are only so many tackles a defender has.”
Speaking of Campbell, for about a week leading to the 1975 UT-A&M game at Kyle, Simonini wore a tight T-shirt around the A&M campus featuring Campbell, the superb Longhorns running back, plowing over Simonini in the 1974 meeting, a 32-3 UT victory.
“The shirt read, ‘Campbell’s Soup, umm … umm … good,’ ” Simonini recalled with a grin. “It had a picture of Earl Campbell sort of running over me. It was a drawing from a picture from the ’74 game.”
Why did Simonini wear the silly shirt day after day leading to the collision between No. 2 A&M and No. 5 Texas?
“It was a reminder for everyone,” Simonini said, “that this is who we’ve got to stop.”
The Aggies and coach
Emory Bellard did just that, holding Campbell to 40 rushing yards. Darrell Royal lost to A&M for only the second time in 19 games between the old rivals, and UT had won the three previous meetings by at least 29 points each.
“It wasn’t even a monkey on our back,” Simonini said of trying to beat the Longhorns. “It was a huge gorilla.”
Simonini, who had a fun-loving wild streak away from the field, was lucky to play in the memorable game at all. The day before he and a handful of teammates had driven out to a pasture not far from Kyle Field to shoot Ten Napel’s new hunting rifle.
“I’m looking through the sight and I’ve got my eyeball right there and I pull the trigger and, ‘Bam!’ the sight slaps me right across the forehead,” Simonini recalled. “I was bleeding like a stuck pig.”
Simonini, who grew up in Las Vegas, had never shot a gun, and his teammates were rolling in the grass laughing, having set him up for the bloody kickback.
“I could have been knocked out with a concussion and they would have thought it was the funniest thing in the world,” Simonini said.
Back at Kyle Field, fabled A&M trainer Billy Pickard glanced at Simonini’s fresh wound and yelled, “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking it was a good way to blow off steam before our biggest game,” Simonini recalled with a shrug. “I wound up playing that game with a big BandAid on my head.”
For all his shenanigans, Simonini majored in engineering and finished his degree at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore while playing for the Colts. Fluent in English, Italian and Spanish, Simonini spent a solid chunk of his career as Hilti Company’s head of operations in Latin America.
“Ed stands out as one of the best players I was ever around,” said former A&M coach R.C. Slocum, a defensive assistant when Simonini led one of the top defenses in program history. “I’ve been in touch with him through his illness, and he was a fighter to the end.”
Simonini is survived by his wife of 40 years, Karen, and their two children, Ana and Nick, whom they had adopted from Guatemala.