Why Tennessee Titans star Jeffery Simmons is sending 'second dad' to Super Bowl | Estes

High school football coach Tyrone Shorter long believed his first Super Bowl would be to see former pupil and current NFL star defensive lineman Jeffery Simmons.

In a way, Shorter was correct.

While Simmons’ Tennessee Titans won’t be playing in Sunday’s Super Bowl, it’s because of Simmons that Shorter and his wife are planning to be in Las Vegas to witness the game.

As the Titans’ nominee this season for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award, Simmons had two Super Bowl trips — tickets, flights, hotel accommodations — to give out.

“They were the first people that came to mind,” Simmons said, “because he has done so much for me, just mentally or off the field. . . . He’s not just my high school coach. I look at him as a second dad.”

Simmons surprised Shorter in person, telling him he had a Christmas present for him.

Shorter and his wife are to fly out Friday and back on Monday, enjoying a weekend that’ll include time spent with Simmons, his former player at Noxubee County High School in Mississippi.

"It's just the guy he is,” said Shorter, now the coach at nearby Louisville High School. “To me, I'm just glad that I had an influence on his life and helped mold him to be the man that he is today. He could have given those tickets to anybody, but he decided to give them to me and my wife. It just makes me feel good. That's the reason why I do what I do, coaching high school football."

The Payton Award is one of the most prestigious in the NFL because it recognizes outstanding service and impact away from the field in addition to strong play on it.

The reasons for Simmons’ inclusion, according to the Titans, are his community efforts for families and children both in Nashville and back in Mississippi.

Among the highlights: In November, Simmons handed out more than 500 turkeys to families for Thanksgiving. In July, he held a full week of events in his hometown of Macon, Mississippi, hosting a football camp and community fun day while giving gift cards to local athletes for a shopping spree.

"Some of the things that he's doing now (in giving back),” Shorter said, “we talked about that stuff when he was in high school. . . . It makes me so proud of the man that he’s become.”

Simmons referred to Shorter as “Coach Dad,” an indication of a relationship that’s far deeper than most high school coaches and players have. It goes back to when Simmons was a fifth grader, hanging around the football fields. Shorter put him to work as a water boy then.

Years later, when Simmons entered high school, he was determined to play quarterback. That wasn’t going to happen. “You’re going to be a d-lineman," Shorter told him.

“He looked at me like, 'Huh? I ain't going to play football then if I can't play quarterback,' " Shorter recalled with a laugh.

Shorter wasn’t about to let him quit playing football, either, telling him as far back as ninth grade that he had the potential to make it to the NFL.

"I think (the tight relationship) is because he looked up to me as a father,” Shorter said. “He called me Coach Dad, because he didn't grow up with his father. He didn't have that male figure in his life. . . . I was there for him, whatever advice, whatever he needed, we made sure that he had it.”

At the Super Bowl, Shorter says he'll be rooting for the Kansas City Chiefs, because he coached against defensive lineman Chris Jones and linebacker Willie Gay — both attended Mississippi State, like Simmons — during their high school careers.

For Simmons, too, it'll be a nice moment. He was thrilled to get the chance to treat someone who he says taught him how to be a man and told him: “Use football. Don’t let it use you.”

“He always held me accountable,” Simmons said. “I was grateful to have him in my life, so it's like a small token of appreciation to him and his wife to get to go to the Super Bowl.”

Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @Gentry_Estes.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Titans' Jeffery Simmons sends his former coach to Super Bowl