Simon Williams

Born in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, Simon was quickly introduced to Philadelphia sports fandom. Tracing his fan lineage back to his grandfather - a former college baseball player and, later, college basketball referee - being around sports was commonplace. Nights in front of the television became the ideal way to end a day, as local favorites and family alma maters were always there to root for. Pairing that with early morning sessions of reading the sports section of The Philadelphia Inquirer and​ Philadelphia Daily News with his parents at the breakfast table, conversation became littered with sports; batting averages were slang and rival teams were curse words.

Creative expression was the thesis for his time at St. Joseph's Preparatory School in Philadelphia, as he worked for three student media organizations and two performing arts groups. Starting in freshman year, Simon joined WSJP, the student broadcasting club, where he quickly took up broadcasting roles for football and basketball. By the end of his four years at St. Joe's Prep, Simon had been on play-by-play, color analysis, pregame/halftime/postgame reports and stats for baseball, basketball, football, soccer and lacrosse broadcasts. He was voted club president for his junior and senior years. In addition, he penned a weekly student athlete feature column for ​The Hawkeye student newspaper as well as national and local news stories for the publication. Positions as editor of both the yearbook and Chronicle Literary Magazine were points of pride. Time spent on stage with the Prep's Cape and Sword Drama Society honed teamwork and diligent preparation skills. Additionally, working as a member of the Mission and Ministry Student Leadership Team during his sophomore through senior years to run retreats, community-wide liturgies and service projects became a paramount piece to his high school experience.

Simon Williams currently attends Arizona State University, where he is a Sports Journalism major at ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications. During his first semester in Phoenix, he got heavily involved with Blaze Radio, the student-run radio broadcasting organization. With Blaze, Simon hosted Bottom of the Sixth, a weekly sports show, as well as called play-by-play for women's basketball, men's hockey, softball and baseball games. A particular highlight was being on the pregame/halftime/postgame crew for ASU's upset of 16th ranked Michigan State in football: one of his two stints as a crew member for football calls that season. Additionally, he has covered ASU softball on "Cronkite Sports Live," the Walter Cronkite Sports Network's weekly studio show.

As a sophomore, while continuing on-air work with WCSN, he began an internship at ASU’s Athletics Department in the Strategic Communications branch. With Sun Devil Athletics, he has created graphics, GIFs and highlight videos, as well as shot still photography for the university’s online platforms. Simon also began working with The Cut Network as a host for their weekly “Sports Cut" studio show. On a production side, Simon joined the Pac-12 Network as a production assistant for select football and women’s basketball games as well as men’s wrestling matches, including ASU's upset of No. 1 Penn State.

Simon spent the summer of 2020 in Rochester, Minnesota broadcasting play-by-play for the Rochester Honkers baseball team of the Northwoods League. Prior to that, he served as a counselor for Play-by-Play Sports Broadcasting Camps' completely-virtual summer camp, leading standup reporting and podcasting breakout groups. Returning to Phoenix for his junior year, Simon continued his work with Sun Devil Athletics and the Sun Devil Club, while adding a digital media internship with the Arizona Interscholastic Association and their AZPreps365 web platform. Extracurricularly, he was on the call for ASU football's season-opener against USC as well as hosting the first two editions of the Pitchfork Football and Pitchfork Basketball studio shows for Cronkite Sports.

In the spring, Simon joined Arizona PBS's news division, Cronkite News. Working as a sports reporter in their Phoenix bureau, he was tasked with producing "Cronkite News 2 Go," the daily audio news brief, and "Cronkite Sports in Focus," a sports interest story-based news show. In the fall, he reported on local and national news, politics and sports from the Washington, D.C. bureau. Cronkite News is the largest outlet in the country that covers a single state. While in the nation's capital, Simon primarily covered the Arizona congressional delegation, with a focus on the House of Representatives. Living and working in D.C. was some of the most enriching experiences of Simon's career to date.

​Prior to graduation from ASU, Simon joined WZDX FOX54, TEGNA's affiliate station in Huntsville, Alabama, where he is a television reporter covering state news and sports. At FOX54, he covers regional sports and news, including the Huntsville market's two Division I colleges - Alabama A&M and North Alabama - the premier D-II program, Alabama-Huntsville, and the state's major athletics programs, Alabama and Auburn. The Rocket City Trash Pandas Minor League Baseball team (Double-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels), Huntsville City Football Club (MLS NEXTPRO affiliate of Nashville SC) and the Huntsville Havoc of the Southern Professional Hockey League account for the three professional teams in Huntsville, and Simon shoots regular game previews, interviews with athletes and coaches. Simon plays a major role in FOX54's two major specialty programs: "Sports XTRA," a weekly sports review show, and "First Down Friday Night," the high school football highlights show during the fall. Despite being primarily sports-oriented, "hard news" hasn't evaded Simon's responsibilities. Simon has leveraged his knowledge of politics to take leading roles in FOX54's election coverage and localizing national government stories.

More than anything, Simon is most proud of being Lucas' older brother, Rachel and Chris' son, and Hank's grandson. The support and sacrifices his family has made will never be lost on him.

In my most recent position as a sports and news reporter and anchor at WZDX FOX54 News, I provide live coverage in-studio and in the field for broadcast television as well as multimedia content production for both television and digital verticals. I am the lead news reporter for politics, civics, government and social justice stories; and am also the lead sports reporter for feature/personality pieces. I turn live and look-live content fir daily newscasts. I serve as the weekend a news anchor and regular weekday fill-in anchor. I anchors FOX54's weekly, half-hour “Sports XTRA” show, recapping local and national sports stories. In the sports department, I coordinates station strategy for major coverage of sporting events like the MLB All-Star Game, NCAA men’s Final Four, SEC Football Championship, NCAA baseball & softball tournaments, NASCAR races and more. I handles all aspects of high school football Game of the Week live shots and packages for weekly “First Down Friday Night” high school football show. “First Down Friday Night” is a banner program for the station and, after my ideation, went from a half-hour to full hour show for first time in 2024. I use a Sony NXCAM to shoot, Adobe Premiere to edit, ENPS to ingest content daily and TVU live units when reporting live in the field.

I attended the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. I majored in Sports Journalism and minored in Religious Studies. I graduated as a Dean's List student.