Robert Anderson "Mickey" Sims (March 5, 1955 in

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Myrtle Beach is a resort city on the east coast of the United States in Horry County, South Carolina, Horry County, South Carolina. It is located in the center of a long and continuous stretch of beach known as Grand Strand, "The Grand Strand" i ...

– June 7, 2006 in

Parma, Ohio Parma is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, located on the southern edge of Cleveland. As of the 2020 census, its population was 81,146. Parma is the seventh largest city in the state of Ohio, the largest suburb in the state, an ...

) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...

defensive tackle in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...

. He was drafted by the

Cleveland Browns The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference ( ...

in the fourth round of the

1977 NFL Draft The 1977 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held May 3–4, 1977, at the Roosevelt Hote ...

. He played college football at

South Carolina State South Carolina State University (SCSU or SC State) is a public, historically black, land-grant university in Orangeburg, South Carolina, United States. It is the only public, historically black land-grant institution in South Carolina, is a memb ...

. Sims started for the Browns at defensive tackle in 1977, registering 19 tackles that season while filling in for the injured Jerry Sherk. Upon Sherk's return to the lineup, Sims played as a backup until he was released by the team after the 1979 season. Sims joined the Cleveland Metropark Police Department as a police officer in 1980 and was promoted to sergeant in 1997. He also was a part-time police officer at Cuyahoga Community College's West Campus in Parma. He was serving on the job at Tri-C when he died June 7, 2006, of a heart attack. He was 51. Sims also was a longtime deacon at Cornerstone Missionary Baptist Church in Cleveland. Sims' son Rob Jr., a former standout football player at Nordonia High School and The

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best pu ...

, followed his father to the NFL when he was drafted in April 2006 as a guard by the

Seattle Seahawks The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) West, which they rejoined in 2002 a ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sims, Mickey 1955 births American football defensive tackles South Carolina State Bulldogs football players South Carolina State University alumni Cleveland Browns players 2006 deaths