By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Bubba Sims, who has committed to play college baseball for UNC Greensboro beginning in 2027, said he won’t play his senior season of football or basketball during the upcoming school year at Southeast Alamance.
Sims was last year’s Defensive Player of the Year for football in the Mid-Carolina Conference as a linebacker/defensive back.
In basketball, Sims is the leading scorer in Southeast’s two-year history even after missing more than a month of the past season with an injury.
He said these weren’t hard decisions.
“Not really,” he said. “There’s like more reasons behind it. I don’t want to go into detail on it.”
Sims has said in the past that baseball is his priority. In June, he said his plans are to play only baseball as a senior at Southeast.
He said some of the reasons behind bypassing the football season are related to avoiding injuries.
“It sucks not to have him, but one guy doesn’t make a team,” senior linebacker Treygan Lucas said. “He has his eyes set on other things.”
Sims said he received a baseball scholarship offer from UNCG during his junior baseball season. He also said he had been in recruiting conversations with coaches from other Division I teams.
Sims said he’ll play fall baseball on the travel team circuit.
“He’s doing a ton of baseball stuff, which I get,” Southeast football coach Tony Aguilar said.
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Sims said he played football since elementary school, but his middle school (River Mill) didn’t have a team. He played again as a freshman at Southeast Guilford before transferring to Southeast Alamance when that school opened at the end of the summer of 2023.
“Definitely took a hit on the safeties, but we’re building,” Southeast tight end/defensive end Drew Easter said of Sims’ absence. “We have people now to build depth at least. People stepping up from JV.”
Southeast boys’ basketball coach Bo Williamson said because of Sims’ summer baseball commitments that he had been involved on a minimal basis with offseason basketball activities in the past. So this hasn’t been an unusual summer in that regard.
It will be different without Sims in a few months. He had called the player “a game-changer.”
“I guess we’ll see,” Williamson said, then pointing out the guard’s absence from the lineup because of last winter’s ankle injury. “I know what it looks like (without him).”
Bunker gone, too
Southeast’s football team also is without two-way standout Daniel Bunker, who transferred to West Forsyth.
Bunker, a junior, was a two-year starter for the Stallions. He led the 2023 team in rushing as a freshman, and then played a prominent role in the defensive backfield last season.
Bunker also was a member of the track and field team. He didn’t participate in spring football practices at Southeast.
