Kevin Simon spent his off-week visiting those he cares about the most. Simon made a trip home to California to see his father, Cy, and also made a trip to the cemetery to visit his brother Ken’s grave.

“He brought home an orange Tennessee teddy bear to put on his grave,” Cy Simon said. “Ken would have loved that. He was so proud that his brother was playing at a place like Tennessee.”

The Simons lost Ken in the spring of 2001 when he was shot and killed at a restaurant in California while trying to stop an argument between two people.

The Tennessee bear on the grave is a tribute to the fact that Ken is the main reason Kevin Simon is playing at Tennessee. Cy Simon was not pleased with his son’s decision in 2001 to sign with the Vols and nearly put his foot down to prevent it from happening. Thanks to the persuasion of Ken Simon, however, Kevin got to make his own choice.

“His brother disagreed with me,” Cy Simon explained. “He told me that it was going to be demanding for Kevin to play at that level and in order to be successful, he first had to be happy with where he was.”

It came as a shock to no one who knew Ken Simon that he would be helping out his little brother because that is what he had been doing for years. Kevin’s best friend is Miami linebacker D.J. Williams. Williams says helping Kevin is what he remembers most about Ken Simon.

“I met his brother a couple of times,” Williams said. “Kevin and his brother were close. His older brother always looked out for Kevin. Anytime Kevin had something new and you asked him where he got it from, he would tell you his brother got it for him.”

Cy Simon’s resentment towards Tennessee was nothing against the Vols, but he was not comfortable with the distance factor or the area.

“I was really afraid of the environment he was going into,” Cy Simon’s offered. “He was going along way from home and I did not know how he would react. He was sheltered at home.”

Kevin Simon grew up about two miles from De La Salle High School and his father said that he knew everyone around his house and the school so there was a support group around him as well as a bit of a sheltered lifestyle.

The elder Simon also had a bad impression of Tennessee because of some time he spent in the state many years ago.

“I had a problem with Tennessee,” Cy Simon admitted. “I lived for a year in Memphis in the old days and it was not a great experience.”

In fact, had Kevin’s late brother not been in Kevin’s corner about being a Vol, Cy Simon might not have signed scholarship papers. Cy Simon wanted his son to stay on the West Coast so that he could see him play and so that Kevin would have a family support system around him.

“Selfishly it is tough because I cannot afford to come see him play every game,” Cy explained. “I have seen him play every game no matter the sport since he was eight and now to watch it on television is not easy.”

Cy Simon understood why Kevin did not want to go to UCLA (poor official visit) and USC was out initially because of the change in coaching staff that came during January. However, if Cy Simon had talked to the Trojans new coach Pete Carroll right before Signing Day things might have been different.

“Coach Carroll called the house right at the end and Kevin would not talk to him,” Cy said. “Had I gotten to talk to him I might have just put my foot down and told Kevin that was where he was going.”

During the last year, Cy Simon has made a trip to Knoxville to see the town and the school and has a very different appreciation for it.

“Since I have seen it, I really like Knoxville,” Simon offered. “It is a nice place. It is about the same size as our nearest town, Oakland. They have a good football reputation, but they should promote their town more. It is not “Hickville” like many make it out to be.”

After becoming a Vol on Signing Day, Kevin Simon was in the middle of rehabilitating his knee and after his brother was tragically killed the youngest Simon was on a mission to get on the field.

Simon was privately doing two times the rehab he was supposed to be doing and that is what sent his recovery process in the wrong direction.

“It was excruciating,” Cy Simon recalled. “He actually aggravated the situation and made it worse. He was going to the surgery center and rehabbing then he was going to De La Salle to rehab. He was doing two times the work because he wanted to get back and get on the field as a freshman. It was excruciating. He wanted desperately to make a statement and to honor his brother, who was so proud of him.”

But Simon could not get rehabilitated fast enough and in the spring of 2001 doctors actually shut him down and basically forced him to start the rehab completely over. Simon’s former teammate and current Miami linebacker D.J. Williams said that starting over was the toughest days of the comeback for Simon.

“When he had to start over he knew he was going to red shirt,” Williams said. “And he had a hard time with it. I remember he called me when he woke up one morning and his knee was so stiff he could hardly move.”

Williams also remembers the call he got that spring from Kevin telling him that he had lost his brother. Williams remembers the devastation and the immediate concern that Kevin had for his father.

“I remember when he called and told me,” Williams said. “Kevin just broke down on the phone and I was in total shock. I was here in Miami and there was just nothing you could say. I have just always told him that I am here to listen. Kevin’s biggest concern is about his father. He just worried and still worries about him being alone. Every time I go home, Kevin asks me to stop by and see his father.”

Kevin and his father Cy really did not talk about the loss as Cy says it is their nature to keep things inside.

“We just did not talk about it a lot,” Cy explained. “Both of us were so devastated and of our respect for each other we did not bring it up.”

But both knew the pain each other was dealing with the first time Kevin came back home to visit after being at Tennessee.

“The first time he was home we stopped by Ken’s grave on Sunday before he left to go back to Tennessee and neither one of us handled it well,” Cy Simon said. “It has become the last stop we always make before we go to the airport and Kevin goes back to Tennessee.”

Simon spent the entire fall of 2001 rehabbing his knee. He would only come out a few times to watch his team practice and he never went to a game. His biggest reason for not going to the game was that he was not allowed to stand on the sidelines with his team and so he never got to enjoy the ups and downs of the game. For Cy Simon, it was so troublesome that he starting looking around at other schools for his son.

“He was not able to sit on the sidelines with his team and that pissed me off so I called other schools to see if they had room for him,” Cy Simon said. “But Kevin wanted no part of talking about transferring.”

Then came another low point for Kevin Simon: Christmas.

“We saw each other around Christmas last year in California when we were both on break,” D.J. Williams recalled. “I asked him how he was doing and you could tell he was real frustrated and riding a roller coaster. He said it was going good some days and other days it was not going well.”

Simon’s struggles were trying to deal with his knee and the loss of his brother around the holiday.

“Christmas was really tough,” Cy Simon said. “Kevin and Ken were a lot closer than people will ever know. They shared the same bedroom with each other for nearly 18 years. Ken was really into Christmas more than the rest of us.”

Also while Kevin was home on break around Christmas he did not get the best of news from doctors.

“We visited with two independent specialists here in California and both told him that with that much scar tissue at that point his knee might be the as good as it was going to get,” Cy Simon explained. “There was some talk of removing the scar tissue but there was a concern that it would weaken the knee.”

Then starting in winter workouts Simon seemed to start turning the corner. The doctor who did his surgery told him he just needed to push himself through it, which is what Kevin elected to do and day-by-day it has been a slow progressive process.

“His spirits were a lot higher in the spring when he got on the field,” D.J. Williams said. “He was just so happy to be out there with the team participating even though his knee was just around 80-percent.”

In the opener against Wyoming in Nashville, Cy Simon was sitting in the stands when he son got the call. Kevin Burnett had been carried off the field with a torn ACL and Kevin Simon was his replacement. Kevin Simon admits it is not the way you want to get a job, but being on the field marked the end to a long journey. Simon was scheduled to play in the game regardless of Burnett’s injury and Cy Simon was there because that hot August afternoon was the most important moment of Kevin’s career.

“I came to the Wyoming game because Coach Chavis told me that he was going to see some action and I told Kevin I was coming to that one because it was the most important game of his career,” Cy Simon said.

And the moment was one neither Simon will forget. After every tackle he made, Kevin Simon pointed to the sky to pay respects to his fallen brother, while his father looked around and could not help but have a bit of a hollow feeling.

“I remember I just wished my son Ken was there,” Cy Simon emotionally said. “That would have been the greatest moment.”

A week later against MTSU, Kevin Simon earned himself a lot of new fans with nine tackles and a fumble recovery for a touchdown. Again he pointed to the sky after each play. Meanwhile, Cy Simon was watching the game back in the bay area of California happy for his son, but hurting because Kevin had no one in the stands supporting him. In that game, Simon’s first big play was going over the top of a pile on third down to stop a drive. It caught the attention of the fans and the media and for his father it was Kevin’s way of pronouncing he was back.

“That was a play he needed to make for himself,” Cy Simon offered. “It was an exclamation point to everyone including himself that he was back.”

This Saturday against Florida, Kevin Simon is starting in the type of game Ken Simon envisioned when he helped his little brother convince their dad that he should become a Vol and while Cy Simon is watching from his home in California and Kevin plays in front of 107-thousand fans both will be doing the same thing.

They will both be pointing in sky in remembrance of a son and brother.