Published: November 16, 2006 11:44 pm      

Simon claims CFL honor

Johnstown’s Geroy Simon received the Canadian Football League’s highest honor on Thursday night.

The British Columbia Lions receiver claimed the Rogers Most Outstanding Player Award during the CFL Awards ceremony in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Simon earned the Jeff Nicklin Trophy awarded to the West’s most outstanding player last week.

He won the league’s outstanding player award over East winner Charles Roberts, a Winnipeg Blue Bombers running back with a CFL-high 1,609 rushing yards.

“I played with three different quarterbacks this year. I’ve had great chemistry with them all year,” Simon said. “I work with each one of them every week in practice. I just got every opportunity in the world to catch balls. We had two of our starting receivers get hurt early and a third one was hurt in the preseason. I trained my butt off all offseason. I came into this season prepared to have a big year but I never thought it would be like this.”

Simon was the CFL’s top receiver this season with 105 catches for a British Columbia-record 1,856 yards and 15 touchdowns. The Greater Johnstown graduate put up those numbers despite the Lions using three different quarterbacks.

Simon had more than 100 receiving yards in 11 games this season.

The Lions advanced to the 94th Grey Cup championship, where they will face the Montreal Alouettes on Sunday for the league title.

A University of Maryland product, Simon, 31, has more than 8,582 receiving yards in eight CFL seasons.

At Johnstown, Simon caught 127 passes for 2,086 yards and was also a standout in basketball and track. He had 2,059 receiving yards at the University of Maryland. The receiver spent two seasons on the NFL’s Tampa Bay Bucs’ practice squad and also had tryouts with Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Kansas City before catching on in the CFL.