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Memorandum To: The punk who recently stole my 1991 Chevrolet Caprice From: Florida State junior linebacker Ernie Sims Re: Bodily Harm "If it were legal, I'd punish you until you regretted ever seeing my car. You'd want to give it backand extra. You'd give me two extra cars. Might be walking with a limp? If I catch you, you might be paralyzed. So please don't let me find you. Please." SIMS LOVED that old Chevy. He'd recline the front seat so that it was nearly parallel to the chassis, grab the wheel with one hand and activate a pair of 12s with enough bass to trigger seismic readings. His folks, Big Ernie and Alice, bought it for him when he was in 11th grade. They helped him buy a set of 22-inch rims, and last Christmas they chipped in to get the dings repaired and have it painted candy-apple red. Little Ernie (hey, it beats Ernie Sims III) treated that car like he wanted to take her to the prom. Then, one day in February, Sims rolled out of bed for a 5 a.m. workout, walked down four flights of stairs to the covered garage and stared in disbelief at the empty space where his Caprice had been the night before. The police say it could be anywhere by now, who knows what chop shop it died in? All anyone knows is that the thief had better not bump into Sims in a confined space. The officer who filled out the report all but begged the six-foot, 218-pound Sims, whose dreadlocks have muscles, not to take matters into his own hands in the unlikely event he ever spotted the Caprice. Sims promised, but his teammates aren't so sure he could restrain himself if the opportunity presented itself. "I wouldn't want to see it," says safety Pat Watkins. "I hope I'm not around." Wait a second. This is Little Ernie we're talking about, right? Adores his parents? Dotes on his younger brother Marcus, a big-time D1-A linebacker prospect himself? Melts like Häagen-Dazs around Brooke McGriff, his girlfriend of two years? Sims, a 2004 second-team All-ACC selection and FSU's second-leading tackler, is a sweetheart. That's what everyone says. He gets chick-flick gooey if he sees a turtle struggling to cross a road, going so far as to bring it home to release it. He pampers his five pooches and gives equal time to his pet tarantula, iguana, baby anaconda and boa constrictor. During January's Gator Bowl win against West Virginia, he benched himself so a senior could get more minutes. "He's got an easy-going tenderness about him," says Alice, who says Little Ernie used to forbid her to kill cockroaches. "A real nice kid," says tight end Matt Henshaw, "who kind of keeps to himself." Unless, of course, you happen to steal his ride. Or carry, pass or catch a football. Or wear an opposing jersey-especially with a Miami Hurricanes logo on it. Then he'll hit you so hard, you'll need MapQuest to locate your senses. Daggummit, even his teammates are at risk. Sims has never been one to dial it down in practice. He once made a tackle in a high school drill with such force, he fractured one of the tailback's vertebrae, reducing the player's height by three inches. "My No. 1 hit," says Sims. "And the only one I ever felt bad about." When the two Sims boys were playing high school ball at North Florida Christian School in Tallahassee, Alice got a call from her husband, who was attending preseason camp. "Don't be alarmed, but we had to take Marcus to the emergency room," said Big Ernie, who played fullback for Bowden's Seminoles 25 years ago. "He's okay, but he got a mild concussion while he was running the ball." "A concussion?" asked Alice. "Who hit him?" There was a long pause, and then: "Ernie." At the time, Alice told Little Ernie that if he ever hit his brother like that again, she was going to break one of his legs. She was kidding--or so everyone thinks. But these days, Alice, who ran track at FSU, better understands the essence of her eldest. "He didn't see a brother," she says. "He just saw someone carrying the ball." During his first year at Florida State, Sims laid out Miami All-America Kellen Winslow with a blow that almost knocked the U off the tight end's helmet (see above). As it was, Sims knocked Winslow's helmet almost to Broward County. A poster-size photo of the hit hangs today in Sims' apartment. "It felt real good because he talked so much trash," says Sims. Every team has a hitter, a player addicted to the primal act of inflicting pain. Sims is the Nole who could most benefit from 30 days at Betty Ford. "When I'm on the field, I get in some mode-rage, really," he says. "I'm thinking, but I'm thinking in a new sense. I'm in a whole new world. I just do things. When I sit back and think about it, it's like, why did I do that?" Bowden, entering his 52nd season, says he's never had a more ferocious linebacker, and he's coached both Derrick Brooks and Marvin Jones. Some coaches might not want their star around the poisonous fangs of a tarantula. Not Bowden. "I worry about Ernie biting the spider," he says. "The whole reason he runs from point A to point B isn't to get the guy down," says FSU executive head coach Kevin Steele, who oversees the linebackers. "It is to have a collision. That's what he thrives on, to have a collision as often as he can, as violent as he can." Sims' patron saints are Ray Lewis, LaVar Arrington, John Lynch, Rodney Harrison and Brian Dawkins-heavy hitters skilled in the art of causing hematomas. Reciting the hitter's prayer, he says: "Between those two whistles, I'm trying to hurt them, punish them, any way I can." He doesn't remember the name of then-Georgia Tech sophomore safety Chris Reis. None of the FSU coaches or players does. But they remember Reis' jersey number. And they remember the Sept. 13, 2003, moment now referred to simply as The Hit. "You have three degrees of hits," explains Bowden, to set the scene. "You have the one where the guy has to go off the field. Then you have 'carry-offs.' Then you have 'refusals to return.' This was a 'refusal to return.' " In the semidarkness of the defensive coaches' meeting room, Steele aims a red laser pointer at the big screen where No. 34-Sims-is positioned on FSU's kickoff return team. Georgia Tech kicks off … Reis moves forward, tracking the ball … Sims vectors toward him … and then … Reis is airborne, his helmet cartwheeling out of the frame. "See those two white things spinning in the air?" says Steele. "Ernie knocked the kid's ear pads out." Reis lands on his back, tries to get up, but can't. You can't see it on the video, but Steele recalls Sims motioning to the Tech sideline and yelling, "Y'all better get out here!" Not surprisingly, Reis, who suffered a concussion on the play, can provide no more details. "I remember running and then waking up in the locker room," he says. "Bar none, for sure, without a doubt, the hardest I've ever been hit. But it was clean. I respect how he plays." The way Sims plays does have its drawbacks. He has crunched so many FSU walk-ons and true freshmen in tackling drills that Steele now arranges more appropriate matchups with veteran players. But even seasoned ballcarriers glance nervously at the line of defensive players, searching for Sims. "They do the eye count," says Steele. "You can see guys shuffling." No one is spared. In last fall's first scrimmage, Sims single-handedly obliterated the team's offensive depth chart, sending two tight ends to the sideline with injuries—one for the season. Soon after the second knockout, Bowden, whose team was preparing to open against Miami, sidled up to Steele. "Kev, does Ernie know what he's doing?" asked Bowden. "Yes, sir," said Steele. "You think you'll teach him to hit or play any harder?" "No, sir." Sims didn't play another snap that day. But by the time Sims suffered his second mild concussion of the camp, Bowden had officially seen enough. He made Sims the rarest of FSU rarities: a blueshirt linebacker. Blueshirts are banned from hitting anybody. As if that wasn't enough, Bowden at one point instructed a trainer to take Sims' shoulder pads. Another time, his helmet was taken away. Finally, he was held out of contact for the remainder of two-a-days. "Which was fine by me," says Henshaw. It wasn't fine by Sims, though, who began this spring without the blueshirt, but may see it again during fall camp. "I hate the blue jersey," he says. "Football is a contact sport. When they tell me I can't hit nobody, to be honest, it kills me inside." Sims is clearly fearless. At times, unfortunately, he's also clueless. During one light-contact sevenon-seven drill last spring, a running back thumped him hard, and a handful of players began to tease Sims about it. When a seething Sims exacted retribution, it was on an innocent bystander. And not just any innocent bystander. "I was relaxed, enjoying the day," says quarterback Wyatt Sexton. "I drop back, slip around on my play-action. I don't even have my chin strap buckled, because I'm not expecting any contact. Then I get my helmet taken off, kamikazed right under the chin. I pop right up to fight the guy who hit me. Then I realize it's Ernie." Steele was speechless as the play unfolded. "It was like, 'I didn't just see what I saw,'" he says. "We'd called a blitz, but there are no blockers. They're on another field. And he still blows the quarterback up." The defender's defense? "I was just running, and all of a sudden Wyatt is on the ground." But Sims didn't help the quarterback up. He doesn't help anybody up. "When the game is over with, then we can be friends," he says. SIMS IS late for an early-evening study hall. He puts the boa back in its cage and says good-bye to Brooke before taking those four flights of stairs to the garage. Waiting for him there is a rental Impala, courtesy of his insurance company. He turns on the tinny stereo, leans as far back in the seat as he can and makes the five-minute drive to Doak Campbell. In front of the stadium is a bronze statue of a player extending his hand to a helmetless one on the ground. It's called Sportsmanship. Sims snickers. "I see it every day as I drive by," he says. "What they need to do is put a statue up of somebody hitting somebody else, laying them out. Have Marvin Jones put someone in midair." He turns wistful. "I'm still waiting for one of those hits. I can't wait to catch me one of those receivers coming across the middle. I want one of the Miami guys real bad." He gets Miami in FSU's season opener on Sept. 5. Until then, he'll have to satisfy himself by ringing up members of his own team. Better them than that punk who stole his car.
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