Catch It, Like a Simien
KU basketball sensation and NBA star Wayne Simien Jr. has always had another sport, handed down from generation to generation
If you’ve spent much time near the waters around Lawrence, Kansas, then you might have come across three young brothers fishing together.
And if you know fishing, you’ll recognize the boys are accomplished anglers, as they launch long, accurate casts, catch fish when others are not, and tie on lures faster than most youth tie their shoes.
If their older sisters show up, it’s obvious they’ve fished a lot, too, as has their mother.
Now, if you also happen to know Jayhawk basketball, you’ll recognize one of the two men usually with the boys is Wayne Simien Jr. Twenty years ago, he was #23, one of Kansas’ best-ever big men.
Before and after his career as a consensus All-American basketball player at the University of Kansas and then as an NBA world champion, Simien has been dedicated to fishing.
He says some of his happiest times these days are passing his love for the sport along to his five children, like his father, Wayne Simien Sr., passed it along to him.
“Man, it’s like fishing is in our DNA,” says the younger Simien. “We’ve had fishermen in my family for generations, who keep passing it along. My dad grew up fishing with his dad, and I grew up fishing with him.”
First Castings
Wayne Jr. spent days afloat with his father as soon as he was out of diapers. He won a fishing tournament before he won his first organized basketball game. Media guides from his college days showed his favorite place in the world was Table Rock Lake. He says his best-ever day as a youth was the first time he out-fished his father and uncle.
Outfishing your elders is pure championship stuff in the Simien family, because it is no easy feat.
It’s common family lore that Wayne Sr. purchased a small boat he could haul atop his car when he got his first paycheck from Hallmark, shortly after hanging up his college basketball sneakers and graduation from Avala College.
Of his father, Wayne Jr. once joked, “He’d throw a [lure] into a mud puddle!”
His father was as good at fishing as he was avid. He once won a completely outfitted Ranger Boat in a bass fishing tournament championship. Wayne Sr. sold that dream boat to buy the van that carted his son all over the country for assorted basketball teams, tourneys and activities.
These days, Wayne Sr. fishes in a different boat, a gift Wayne Jr. bought his dad as soon as he turned pro after graduating from KU. It’s also a Ranger boat, bought specifically to replace the prize boat Wayne Sr. sold in order to make his son’s dreams and prospects come true.
Fishing Family
Wayne Jr. lived up to the family motto of “never marry a woman who can’t bait her own hook,” when he met and married his wife, Katie, during his NBA days with the Miami Heat. She, too, had grown up doing serious fishing with her father.
Wayne Jr. was playing professionally in Spain when he and Katie decided it was time to focus on more important parts of his life.
“We had two little kids and another on the way. Katie and I were looking for a place to raise them,” Wayne Jr. explains. “I told her ‘I know a place, a really good place.’ I was excited to start a campus ministry, and I wanted Katie and my kids to be around my family.”
Wayne Jr. is currently with the University of Kansas Athletic Department as the associate athletic director of engagement and outreach.
He, Katie and their five children now live in a quiet area of the city, with parents, Wayne Sr. and Margaret, in the house next door, built on the lot Wayne Jr. gifted them so they could be close to their grandkids.
Margaret Simien jokes the kids eat a breakfast their mother has made them, then hurry over and have her make them another.
Regular fishing trips with their grandfather will be some of those kids’ best and most frequent memories of growing up in Lawrence.
And the grandkids have already started making their mark among the Simien family fishing legends.
“I’m telling you, there literally is nothing else they’d rather do,” Wayne Jr. says. “They probably go fishing 80 to 100 days a year, but I know they’re talking about it 365 days a year. They like fishing for anything big, but they’re perfectly happy catching small bluegill for five hours.”
There are usually fishing poles in the family van anytime they travel out of town together.
“I really enjoy the slowed down parts of life, being outdoors and enjoying God’s beautiful creations. It’s really important, to me, to expose my family to all of those things,” Wayne Jr. says. “Being out there on that boat, watching my dad fish with my kids … that generational transfer is just so good to see.”
Story and photography by Michael Pearce. This article is adapted from Pearce’s original article, which appeared in the winter 2023 edition of Lawrence Magazine.
