The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Player from Dartmouth bucks odds
During his freshman season at Dartmouth, Seth Simmer was having trouble hearing the linebackers call signals from his defensive tackle spot just a few yards away.
What was first diagnosed as an ear infection brought on by a severe head cold turned out to be a brain tumor that was making him deaf in his left ear.
Simmer had surgery to remove the tumor in the summer of 2017 and didn’t return to school until the winter of 2018. Unsure about his football future, Simmer rejoined the team and by the spring game he was convinced he could compete.
Simmer is one of 30 nominees for the Mayo Clinic Comeback Player of the Year Award. Winners will be chosen in FBS, FCS and non-Division I NCAA football, and revealed on Dec. 18. They will be honored at the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 1 in Glendale, Arizona.
Persistent difficulty hearing and sinus pressure finally led Simmer to get checked out at Dartmouth Medical Center in the spring of 2017. An MRI revealed the tumor.
“I was dumbfounded,” Simmer said.
That was surgery, which was done at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, in July 2017. Simmer’s hearing would not return. He was also concerned about the left side of his face being paralyzed and his balance being permanently affected by nerve damage.
He was laid up for months and had to retrain his body to steadily stand and walk.
Simmer, who played this season at 285 pounds, ballooned to 310 from inactivity, but started feeling better through the fall and decided to return to Dartmouth for the 2018 winter semester — just in time for football conditioning. He was horribly out of shape, but otherwise OK.
Simmer was part of a 9-1 team that came up just short of an Ivy League championship.