He was a United States men's national artistic gymnastics team member and was named to the 1970 and 1974 teams for the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.

He also represented the United States at the 1971 Pan American Games where he won two medals.

[2] With multiple schools pursuing him offering full scholarships, Simmons selected Iowa State University to pursue gymnastics.

[5] In his senior season, he was the 1971 NCAA Parallel Bars and Horizontal Bar champion as Iowa State won their first NCAA team championship.

Simmons was inducted into the Iowa State Cyclones Hall of Fame in 2002.