Legends Behind the Lens: Jack Simmons One of the industrys nicest guys was also a the linchpin of Fox Sports' success By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - 12:00 pm
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The story of American sports television is engrained in the history of this nation, rising on the achievements of countless incredible men and women who never once appeared on our screens. During this pause in live sports, SVG is proud to present a celebration of this great industry. Legends Behind the Lens is a look at how we got here seen through the people who willed it to be. Each weekday, we will share with you the story of a person whose impact on the sports-television industry is indelible.
Legends Behind the Lens is presented in association with the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame and the SVG Sports Broadcasting Fund. In these trying times - with so many video-production professionals out of work - we hope that you will consider (if you are able) donating to the Sports Broadcasting Fund. Do so by visiting sportsbroadcastfund.org.
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By Jason Dachman
Upper management, production, remote operations, studio operations, on-air operations, accounting, purchasing, and even the mailroom - Jack Simmons has done it all in nearly five decades at Fox Sports and NBC Sports. And he has done it while being one of the most well-liked and -respected individuals in the business. By leveraging his experience in nearly every sector of the industry, he became the axis on which Fox Sports turned during his 20-plus years as SVP of production operations.
To me, Jack has always been the center of Fox Sports, says Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer and former Fox Sports Chairman David Hill. That's because he is like the jigsaw-puzzle master: he pulled together the elements of production, programming, promos, commercials and made sure it went where it had to go. He always managed to get everything done. No one knew what it was like during a Super Bowl as much as Jack. He was always on top of it and handled it perfectly.
A veteran of eight Super Bowls, 19 World Series, 13 Daytona 500s, three Summer Olympics (home-base master control), five Stanley Cup Finals, three BCS Championships, two French Opens, and three Heavyweight Championship Fights, the 25-time Emmy Award winner has seen it all in his storied career.
A Brooklyn Boy Finds His Inner Peacock
Born in Brooklyn, Simmons grew up in Valley Stream, NY, spending summers at Breezy Point in the Rockaways. His father, a WWII Navy vet, supported the family by working on the Brooklyn waterfront.
I think watching my father work and his work ethic is what really drove me in life, says Simmons. But, at the same time, everyone in my family had a great sense of humor. That's always been very important to me.
He attended Becker College in Leicester, MA, for a year, but, during a January 1970 jaunt into Manhattan, he and a friend took a tour of NBC headquarters, and Simmons found his true calling.
[30 Rock] was the greatest thing I had ever seen. I remember looking down in Studio 8H and seeing Bob Hope and Raquel Welch and I was truly star-stuck, he recalls. That [tour] was on a Monday. I started the job the following Monday, and I stayed at NBC for 24 years.
Moving Up the Ranks at 30 Rock
After just a few weeks in the mailroom, Simmons was elevated to executive messenger, running errands and delivering mail for the likes of NBC President Julian Goodman and Chairman David Adams.
He quickly worked his way up the ranks, earning a promotion to assistant buyer in the purchasing department and then moving on to accounts payable, where he became supervisor overseeing 20 people at the age of 23.
I found my niche at that point, he says. I realized that I loved [the television business] right away. During those early years, I got to discover the company by interacting with people from all the different departments. I think I built a reputation that I could get things done. I also started meeting the unit managers in the sports department and learned that I would love to get into that.
Breaking Into Sports: A Whole New Sportsworld
In 1978, Simmons got his first big break in sports when he landed a job as a scorer on the weekends for NBC's NFL 78 studio show. He impressed the staff and on-air talent enough to secure a gig as Bryant Gumbel's talent assistant on NFL 79 and then became a unit manager for NBC's 1980 Moscow Olympics coverage.
I have loved traveling the world and going to sporting events, but I've always loved the studio especially, he says. I really enjoy being around the studio and being a part of that team. On that 1980 Olympics, I didn't go to Moscow, but I worked virtually nonstop for two weeks. Bryant Gumbel was sleeping on the floor outside the edit room. We were all working towards the same goal. I think that's how you really learn to work in this business.
Says Steve Hellmuth, who shared a desk with Simmons when he started at NBC in 1979, Jack is one of the great operations executives of our industry. Rising from the mailroom at NBC to SVP at Fox Sports, he did it by keeping his head down and outworking and outthinking the next guy, and telling a few stories and sharing a few beers along the way. Jack parlayed all his sports savvy and production knowledge into a role as the cash register at Fox Sports, working in master control to express all the advertising inventory in Super Bowls, World Series, and every Sunday for the NFL.
By the end of 1980, Simmons was a full-time unit manager for Sportsworld, overseeing primarily boxing productions for the anthology series in destinations from Madison Square Garden and Atlantic City to Monte Carlo and Rome. In addition to boxing, he also worked a host of major events - includin
