WUKY SportsPage: Wildcat Oliver Simmons talks '96 National Title, life after basketball

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Oliver Simmons was a member of Kentucky’s national championship team of 1996. He was recruited to UK by coach Rick Pitino after a high school career in which he was named Tennessee’s Mr. Basketball in 1994 and 1995. Simmons and other reserves worked their way through the same difficult Pitino practices and training as the stars who saw most of the playing time. The roster contained nine future NBA players, including current UK coach Mark Pope. Early in his sophomore season, Simmons transferred to Florida State, where he played for two and a half years and started a total of 47 games for the Seminoles. Simmons has had a long career in teaching and coaching. He and his family live in Stewartville, Minnesota, but he keeps up with the Wildcats and has some great memories of his time at UK. Here, he talks about the experience of being on a championship team and his long-standing relationships with his teammates, as well as some of the challenges of being part of the UK program in that era.