When the Huskies took the field at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome on Saturday, it was a return home for NIU wide receiver Matt Simon.

Simon attended and played football at Farmington High School in Minnesota, about 30 miles outside of Minneapolis, where he was named first team all-state in football and first team Academic All-State his senior season.

In 2007, Simon enjoyed a breakout season with 52 receptions, 969 yards and five touchdowns.
On Tuesday, Simon took some time to talk to the Northern Star about returning home to Minnesota, continuing his education, and how he plans to back up last year’s performance.

Northern Star: Growing up just outside of Minneapolis, what was it like playing in front of the hometown crowd?
Matt Simon: It was a lot of fun. I had a lot of friends and family at the game. Actually my whole high school football team ended up going up to the game.
The coach worked it out where the whole team got up there and got some tickets.
It was a good experience to get a chance to play in front of some of the people that don’t get an opportunity to come down here to DeKalb or some of the other places we get to play.

NS: About how many friends and family did you have at the game?
MS: Like I said, we had our whole football team there. I probably had 15 friends from high school, and probably seven or eight of those guys had their parents at the game.
I had my aunt and uncle and some other relatives, my mom, my two brothers. So I would say right around 30 friends and relatives.

NS: As an all-state player coming out of high school were you recruited at all by Minnesota?
MS: I was called almost every week with them. I guess Monday was their big recruiting day during the season, so I would always get a call on Monday night. Every week was kind of the same story with them.

They basically said that they were waiting on two other guys they had already offered [scholarships to].

The guy that was particularly talking to me said that he was working to get me a scholarship and that next week he was going to call and offer me a scholarship and I heard that enough that I ended up accepting my offer down here to Northern.

I’m happy with my decision if I had the decision again. I love it down here.

NS: You received your bachelor’s in management in May. What are your plans now?
MS: I’m actually doing a second major with Marketing.
I want to finish out this semester and see where football takes me and if not, maybe get into something like coaching or try the corporate world a little bit.

NS: Do you have any pregame rituals or superstitions you follow?
MS: I listen to the same songs almost through every week. I’ll go out before the game and walk around half the field, down into the end-zone.
Me and DeMarcus Grady usually take some deep balls while playing catch. I always write my father’s initials on my wrists, on my tape. That’s about it.

NS: How long have you been following these rituals?
MS: I wrote my dad’s initials on my wrists since high school.
Me and DeMarcus just started that little thing last year, obviously with him being a red-shirt freshman. Some of the music stuff I just go year-by-year with.

NS: Anything particular you listen to right before the game?
MS: It kind of varies week-to-week. I guess I kind of like to not necessarily mellow out, but I listen to the song “Follow” by Sevendust before the game, before I go out.

NS: You had a pretty big season last year. What’s on your agenda to accomplish this season?
MS: Win. We went 2-10 last year. I’m not really too concerned about individual statistics or individual awards or anything like that.

Senior season, I would rather go down in Northern Illinois history as the team that went, I guess now 11-1 or 12-1 and won a MAC Championship than any kind of individual award.

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