DETROIT (12/21/12) -- Roy Franklin Simms, known as “Sleepy”, was a member of the Detroit Titans men's basketball team from 1979-83. Simms recently passed away in November at the age of 52 and the University family remembers the Titan great.
 
Titan Hall of Famer Earl Cureton was a senior on the 1979-80 basketball team at Detroit when Simms was just a freshman and Cureton remembers someone who was a team player.
 
“He was a real good guy. I remember him being an all-around athlete, a good teammate, and he was always upbeat with a willingness to do anything he could to help us win basketball games,” said Cureton.
 
Simms, a 6-3, 192 pound guard in his final year at Detroit, came to the Titans and played under Willie McCarter for three seasons and Don Sicko in his final season.
 
Simms finished his basketball career with 396 points and 344 assists playing in 108 games for the Titans making 31 starts overall. In his senior year of 1982-83, he started 24 of 29 games, had 122 assists (4.2 apg) and averaged over two steals per game finishing with 80 on the season on his way to taking home All-Conference honors. His 80 thefts set a new Titan single-season high for steals that also led the league and broke the previous school mark established by Terry Tyler. His 344 career assists is now 10th (after being pushed to ninth recently) on the all-time Titan list before Ray McCallum passed the mark in a game against Alabama State on Dec. 10, 2012.
 
Simms was a two-sport captain at Detroit as he was a senior captain for both the basketball and baseball teams. In baseball, he was a starter in the outfield and after his junior season, he took home the Edmond T. Nolan Golden Glove Award for making just two errors and having .974 fielding percentage. At the plate that year, he hit .295 with 28 runs and 32 RBI with a .436 slugging percentage. Simms was also a hurdler on the track and field team at Detroit.
 
Coming out of high school at Elkins High School in West Virginia, Simms was an all-around athlete earning All-State recognition for football, basketball, baseball, and track and field. He was a former coach of the Elkins High School boys basketball team and also served as an assistant coach of the Davis & Elkins College men's basketball team.
 
Simms was the youngest of eight children growing up and is survived by his wife, Mary Diann “Dee” Simmons.