Simard transfers to Mizzou

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/08/2023 (931 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Andrew Simard went from a small Brandon school to NCAA Division I last year. Now he’s off to race for one of the biggest conferences in North America.

The former Neelin Spartan has transferred to the University of Missouri from Manhattan College for the 2023-24 Southeastern Conference track and field season.

“I’m pretty excited about it and think there’s going to be big things coming,” Simard said.

“From an athletics standpoint, Year 1 was great, got a lot of opportunities to compete, and got a gold medal at conference in the 4×400 (relay) which is always nice. I was travelling all over the eastern U.S., from Boston down to Jacksonville.

“Overall, the decision for me to transfer was mainly my student experience, just knowing it could be better somewhere else just sparked that. Being a little bit faster than when I was in high school opened up a little bit more doors and led to me talking to Mizzou.”

Simard entered the transfer portal — which was created in 2018 — following his freshman season in New York. Previously, athletes needed to sit out a year if they switched schools but the portal circumvents that.

Once he entered, he fired off emails to coaches, and replies came quickly. However, it wasn’t so easy to find a team.

“It’s pretty late in the game.”

“We don’t have any money.”

“We don’t have spots on the team.”

Simard just received another rejection when Mizzou coach Kyle Levermore called.

“It checked all my boxes,” Simard said of the school’s engineering program, the more competitive conference and more.

“We connected and I feel like he’s a great coach, new guy but had lots of success over at Georgetown. I think we both got a pretty good feeling about where the program’s going and the potential that I have.

“Competing against the best of the best is really exciting and knowing I can be part of that is really exciting. I want to contribute like I did at Manhattan College and really looking forward to it.”

Simard was essentially an 800-metre specialist at Manhattan, mixing in a few other races throughout the 2022-23 campaign, which included cross-country and indoor and outdoor track.

He got his 800m time down to around one minute 51 seconds and felt he grew as an athlete. He said it was a great experience with the team and met a lot of good people.

But not everything was great. When he signed up for courses before the general registration wave — athletes get priority due to their busier schedules — he was told hours later that a few of the courses he signed up for weren’t happening. The residence staff moved him from one room to the next and it was tough to settle in.

Simard hopes this move is to greener pastures on that front. He heads down to Columbia, Mo., next week.

“There was just a lot of miscommunications,” he said.

“School’s expensive enough and knowing it could be cheaper somewhere else in a somewhat better program and good academics as well, I think that was just what happened.

“I wasn’t sure if it was going to happen. The whole thing about the transfer portal is you have to bet on yourself. Times are going to speak for yourself. You can only talk about how much your potential is but at the end of the day if you’re not doing all the right things, sending emails, coming off as a good guy, and having good grades, it might not work for you.”

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com

» X: @thomasmfriesen