Kurt Simon walked onto the campus of Carmi-White County High School in 1997, looking to turn around a football program that hadn’t seen the postseason in 22 years.
28 years later, Simon has coached his final game for the Bulldogs. A 35-30 heartbreaker at Warrensburg-Latham ended CWC’s 2024 campaign, and ended Simon’s legendary career as the Bulldogs’ head coach.
Kurt Simon grew up in Morris, Illinois, just 90 minutes southwest of Chicago. After leading Morris High School to number one ranking in Class 4A in 1983, Simon chose to continue his football career at the University of Hawaii, before transferring and finishing his playing career at Eastern Illinois University.
Once his playing days were over, Simon began coaching at the college level, with stints at UNLV and Western Michigan. Simon then took the head coaching job at Centralia High School in 1992.
Simon won just 13 games in 4 seasons coaching the Orphans, but in 1997 he made the decision to come to Carmi, forever changing his life and the landscape of football in White County.
“When I began coaching, I just wanted to go somewhere where I had a chance to compete,” said Simon.
Ironically enough, the Bulldogs had not been competitive since their 1975 undefeated regular season. A school and a program that was hungry for a change got exactly that, and then some.
It took Simon a couple of seasons to get the Bulldogs going in the right direction. A 2-7 campaign in ’97, and a 4-5 campaign in ’98 got the ball rolling, but in 1999 the Bulldogs made the IHSA Playoffs for the first time in 24 years. That began a trend of 8 playoff appearances in 9 seasons, including two trips to the IHSA 3A Quarterfinals.
In 2003, Simon led the Bulldogs to arguably the greatest season in CWC football history. Carmi finished the regular season 9-0 which included their first Black Diamond Conference Championship in school history. In the first round of the playoffs, Carmi defeated Pinckneyville 22-7 to win their first IHSA Playoff game in school history. The Bulldogs went on to defeat Carterville in Round 2, 19-14 before falling to DuQuoin a week later by that same score.
In less than a decade at the helm, Simon had turned the Bulldogs into a perennial powerhouse in Southern Illinois, and that trend continued throughout the 2010s. Carmi made it to the postseason in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2017.
After a 2-year playoff drought and a global pandemic, Simon brought the Bulldogs back to the playoffs in 2021, the first of a 4-year playoff run to end his coaching career.
Some of Simon’s fondest memories were the opportunities to coach both of his sons, Jake and Luke.
“People always ask me, ‘were you super happy when your son Jake threw his first touchdown pass?’ but in that same game, Jake had to run up and try to make a tackle on a guy twice his size. He didn’t make the tackle, he got ran over. I had just as much joy watching that than I did when he threw his first touchdown pass, because as a football player you have to overcome a lot of things that you don’t think you can do, so those moments are just as important to me than the others.”
Simon coached his fair share of incredible athletes in his career, many of whom came back to help him coach years later, but if you were to ask him who made the biggest impact on him in his coaching career, his answer would be Drew Haley.
From Simon’s arrival in 1997 to the time Haley passed away in 2015, Haley and Simon were inseparable. Two peas in a pod. Batman and Robin. Simon and Haley were the backbone of building the CWC football program into what it is today.
“He (Haley) was my best friend in my adult life,” said Simon “He was here when I got here, and the two of us got the ball rolling.”
Anyone who had the luxury of being coached by both Simon and Haley, graduated from CWCHS a better man than they were when they arrived.
In 28 seasons, Simon led the Bulldogs to 166 wins, 19 playoff appearances, 7 playoff wins, 3 Black Diamond Conference Championships, 3 undefeated seasons, and countless moments and memories that this town will never forget.
Friday Nights will not be the same without Kurt Simon on the Bulldog sidelines. His passion, knowledge, love for the game of football and for the community of Carmi will forever be cemented in Carmi-White County history.
“I can’t say enough about this community, and everyone that I’ve shared a locker room with,” said Simon. “It’s been a joy.”
On behalf of CWC Football, WRUL, CWCHS, and the entire community of Carmi… Thank you, Coach Simon.
photos courtesy of Toby Brown, Jack Baker, Clinton Wolff, and Stacy Simon.
