Cal State LA Athletics

A former NCAA Division I national champion and six-time All-American at USC, Allen Simms returns for his second season as an assistant coach for jumps/multis with the men's and women's track and field programs. He is also the Director of Operations for both teams.

In his first year with the program, Simms helped three jumpers earn national qualifying marks, two on the men’s team (Solomon Kirven and Michael Davis) and one on the women’s team (Chantiel Harden). Harden earned All-West Region honors in the long jump and triple jump and was second in the CCAA in the long jump, while Davis was second in the CCAA in the triple jump and Kirven and Davis both earned All-West Region honors.

Simms came to Cal State L.A. from the University of Idaho, where he was an assistant coach working with the Vandal jumps program in 2013.

He coached one All-American – who finished sixth in the nation in the pole vault - in his one year at Idaho and two student-athletes were NCAA regional qualifiers. His student-athletes also won a Western Athletic Conference championship, earned six All-WAC awards and set two school records.

Simms coached previously at Davidson, where he worked with sprinters, hurdlers and jumpers from 2008-11 and at Utica College, where he coached the school’s jumpers to five school records and two conference titles in 2011.

Simms holds an International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Level III Jumps coaching certification and a USA Track & Field Level I coaching certification.

Simms enjoyed tremendous success as a jumper at USC, where he won the 2003 NCAA indoor triple jump title with a mark of 56-7.50 while breaking the school and Pacific-10 Conference records in the process. He finished that season ranked No. 4 in the United States in the triple jump.

He completed his USC career as a six-time All-American. He earned his first All-America award as a freshman in 2001 in the outdoor triple jump. He finished second in the nation in 2005 in the outdoor triple jump and he won the 2004 Pac-10 triple jump title and then swept the long and triple jumps at the NCAA West Region championships. Simms was named the West Region Field Athlete of the Year in 2005.

Simms represented the United States at the 2003 and 2005 World Outdoor Track & Field Championships and at the 2004 and 2006 World Indoor Championships. He was the 2004 United States champion in the indoor triple jump and swept the USA junior national titles in the long and triple jumps in 2001 – a feat that was unprecedented in the meet’s history.

He was third in the triple jump at the 2010 USA Indoor Championships and he took sixth in the triple jump at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in multimedia technology from USC in 2005 and completed his Master's of Art degree in liberal studies with a graduate certificate in global studies at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.