Josh Sims '00 first Princetonian ever to win NCAA Top VIII award

Josh Sims '00 stared as Chris Massey's shot rebounded off the goal, then he streaked forward. The game was in overtime against perennial lacrosse power Johns Hopkins, the score knotted at 6-6. Sims scooped up the ball, slipping around the scrambling, frantic Blue Jays and slammed the shot home. It would be the game-winner.

It was the opening game of the 1997 season and Sims' first appearance in a Princeton uniform. The players piled on the freshman, roaring as they pressed his exhausted body into the ground. But the performance was only a hint of things to come.

Last week Sims was awarded the Top VIII Award, which recognizes outstanding achievement in athletics, scholarship and community service and is given to at least one athlete in Division I, Division II and Division III. It was the final chapter in a career that included two national championships, three consecutive selections as a first-team All-American and first-team All-Ivy as well as awards in 1998 and 2000 for national midfielder of the year.

"I was really surprised," Sims said. "I didn't know anything about the award itself. But then when I got the information on past winners, and looking at the company from this year, it's quite an honor."

Princeton was 24-0 in the Ivy League during Sims' four years as he finished with 103 goals, the most ever by a Princeton midfielder — though Sims switched to attack his senior year.

He is the first player from Princeton to receive the award, and only the fourth Ivy League athlete in the award's 27-year history. A lacrosse player had not been honored since 1983.

"It came as a great surprise," men's lacrosse head coach Bill Tierney said. "To be considered with this kind of award — it never crossed my mind. But then as I thought about it, I thought who could be more deserving of the honor? It's not great just for Josh or Princeton, but for lacrosse as a whole."

When Sims arrives at the awards ceremony in Disney World on Jan. 7, he said he is expecting to encounter people who have never heard of lacrosse. It has happened before.

So for Sims, this award is not only for him. It is for lacrosse, too.

"It's good for the sport to get publicity like this," said Sims, who plays in the indoor league and fledgling outdoor league which officially begins play next summer. "[Lacrosse has] been growing over time and had its high points and right now it's going through a transition unlike anything in the past."

But there were times when lacrosse actually prevented Sims from participating in all of the projects he wanted to. Though he was interested in joining Habitat for Humanity, "I always felt like I had a conflict," he said.

He still helped the Tigers to raise what Tierney estimated as $60,000 for the Central Jersey Pediatric AIDS foundation and worked with the Special Olympics as a hugger — someone who works with a single athlete, encouraging them throughout a day of athletic competition.

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He began working with disabled athletes in high school — against his will.

A mandatory community service program required that the reluctant Sims help out.

He was amazed.

"I'd never had experience with handicapped people before, never interacted with handicapped persons," he said. "It's very humbling to see someone who doesn't have all the blessings that someone else might have but is still enjoying life."

The economics major also enjoyed academic success and was named a first-team academic All-American last year.

"There was never a time when you felt that he was putting his lacrosse on the backburner for the academics, and there was never a time where he ever shortchanged his academics for his lacrosse," Tierney said. "He's a young man who's always been just pure quality as a person."