Community center named for 'Zastrow'

At about the same time the public ceremony honoring Simms was held, however, a promising applicant turned down the offer to serve as the troubled agency's director.

Simms, a lifelong resident of the Clay Street area of Annapolis, went from being, in his own words, a young "hoodlum," to mentoring countless inner city young people. He came to count among his friends the likes of the late Abe Pollin, owner of the Washington Wizards.

On the podium with Simms was former Baltimore Colts running back and NFL Hall of Famer Lenny Moore.

Simms is best known for his role in April 1968, when his close friend, Mayor Roger "Pip" Moyer, bailed him out of the state penitentiary in Jessup in time to walk around the city together, calming tensions in the wake of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.

Their action is widely credited with saving Annapolis from the race riots that broke out as close as Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

Simms said a group of Black Panthers were on their way to Annapolis to burn the city, but he and Moyer met with them and they left, going instead to the Eastern Shore, where they burned much of Cambridge.

"When you paint me, use all the colors, tell the good and the bad," Simms said in an interview before the ceremony.

Simms said he could not remember the number of times he went to jail or prison as a young man, but he described it as "doing life on the installment plan." His favorite crime was theft, he said. He received a full pardon from the governor in 1971.

Perhaps the best line during the 90-minute ceremony came when Joseph S. Johnson, former Annapolis police chief and now chief of security for the Annapolis Housing Authority, looked around at the police officers working in traffic control during the event and said, "Zas, you've gone and done it again; you have got the whole police department down here again."

Simms, 76, turned his life around years ago when he had to beg for a few hours parole so that he could attend his mother's funeral.

"I had brought enough embarrassment and humiliation and shame on my family," Simms said.

Simms was, by all accounts, a powerful athlete who could throw a football 80 yards with accuracy and hit a baseball 400 feet.

People gave him the nickname "Zastrow" because his abilities reminded them of Navy's record-setting quarterback, Bob Zastrow.

When talking to young people, Simms has been able to show that crime does not pay. He was an honor student in high school, but his criminal record cost him a scholarship at A&T University in North Carolina. Another time, he said, his crimes cost him a chance to try out for the Kansas City A's.

After mending his ways, Simms went to work for the city of Annapolis and for the county schools, creating and running youth programs.

He turned a condemned building into the Stanton Community Center, and he became famous for persuading the owners of professional sports teams to give him tickets so he could take children to see teams such as the Redskins, the then-Bullets, the Orioles and the Colts.

'Irrepressible'

"The thing about Zas is, he is the most irrepressible personality I have ever met in my entire life," House Speaker Michael E. Busch, who represents Annapolis in the General Assembly, told the audience of about 200 people.

Busch, himself a former coach and teacher, said Simms repeatedly persuaded team owners, managers and athletes to donate tickets.

He recalled how Simms on one occasion landed 20 free tickets to a sporting event and got him, Busch, to provide a bus. When Busch got there with the bus, Simms had about 45 kids ready to go and, somehow, he got them all into the game.

"There is never a moment when Zastrow does not advocate for this community," Busch said. "He has influenced more kids in a positive way than anybody in this community, so far as I am concerned."

Housing Authority Commissioner Richard Callahan, who headed the city's Department of Recreation and Parks for decades, said to Simms during the ceremony: "You have always looked for the good in people; you have never bad-mouthed anybody."

The recently refurbished community center named for Simms is located at Clay Street and Bertina A. Nick Way, formerly Obery Court.

The City Council recently approved renaming the street for Nick, who died in 2004. She went from being a school dropout and teenage mom to serving on the Annapolis Housing Authority board for 14 years. She also worked as the authority's housing director.

Nick led the lobbying effort that resulted in renovation of her former school, now the Stanton Community Center, and she founded the Greater Clay Street Community Development Corp.

No director

The housing authority was to have announced an interim executive director yesterday, but the person who was to be named declined the position.

Johnson, who is heading the office temporarily as well as serving as chief of security, said the woman, whom he declined to name, refused to accept the pay that was being offered. Also he said, she did not want to work with the media, which will be an essential part of the job.

Johnson said the applicant had worked in a number of cities.

"My goal, though it is interim, is to find the best person I can," Johnson said of the position.

Johnson declined to say what the salary offer was, but sources close to the matter said it was "about $110,000 a year."

The authority's former executive director, Eric Brown, was forced by the board to resign in May because of a number of differences of opinion about managing the properties, which are home to about 3,000 people.

Johnson said he is under pressure from a number of influential people to hire a local person to head the office, but he said he is holding out for someone with national experience, since the director must work closely with federal Housing and Urban Development officials.

"People are clamoring to get their person in there," Johnson said.

The housing authority has been declared a "troubled" authority, meaning the federal government may step in and oversee operations if they don't improve.

ekelly@capitalgazette.com