Hallie Simkins’ passion for sailing led her to become youth instructor

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Moments before each game, Hallie Simkins imagines that she is on a sailboat.

Simkins and her Syracuse women’s lacrosse teammates go through mental fitness work with the team’s sports psychologist, Mark Glicini, before each game. Glicini instructs the team to visualize a calm setting in their head.

“I kind of go to that place on the boat and just remember how happy and calm everything is,” Simkins said.

This past summer, Simkins sailed on the Long Island Sound five days a week for seven weeks. She was previously a sailing instructor for eight years, teaching children at Long Island’s Centerport Yacht Club. When she’s not leading the Orange’s defense, Simkins spends her time on the Long Island Sound, where her family has been immersed for nearly 40 years.

Centerport, which is “a stone’s throw away” from the Simkins’s house, has been a part of the family since Simkins’ grandparents became members in the early 1980s. Simkins’s former SU teammate Tessa Queri said sailing is a “huge part” of the family’s life.

Hallie Simkins has started as a defender in all 25 of Syracuse’s games over the last two seasons. When she’s not leading the Orange’s defense, Simkins spends her time on the Long Island Sound, where her family has been immersed for nearly 40 years. Calysta Lee | Contributing Photographer

Simkins’ parents, Brian and Allison, sail in regattas across the United States and compete in Florida three times a year, Brian said. With her older siblings Robert and Ella sailing, Simkins said she “followed suit,” learning to sail at Centerport at 7 years old.

Simkins then started competing in regattas. Around Simkins’s freshman year of high school, she became a sailing instructor at Centerport working within the Junior Sailing Association of the Long Island Sound.

After working at Centerport for a couple years, she became the program’s head sailing instructor in 2023, leading a group of children ages 6 through 17.

“To be on the water every single day over the summer is like anybody’s dream,” Simkins said. “So just kind of following in (my siblings) footsteps brought me to wanting to be an instructor and teach these young kids such an important skill.”

Last summer, Simkins taught the program’s youngest students. Each morning, she arrived at the yacht club around 9 a.m. and made the lesson plan for the day. The children would arrive an hour later, and Simkins took them out on the Northport Bay for morning and afternoon sailing.

As an instructor, Simkins helped children who had never been on a boat before become independent sailors. Brian was impressed with how she managed nearly 120 children in the program.

“(She) was really good at generating fun activities for the kids on and off the water and helping them grow and mature,” Brian said. “She got to be really good at managing the whole thing.”

Children in the program get chances to compete in regattas on the Long Island Sound to test their skills. Allison volunteers to help all of the Junior Sailing Associations schedule the races and, last summer, one of Simkins’s groups finished in first place among nearly 50 participants at the regatta Centerport hosted.

“This summer I was very lucky. I had a very good class,” Simkins said. “One of my kids finished first place in the yacht club’s home regatta, which was amazing. It’s just so gratifying and I couldn’t be more proud of them.”

After wrapping up at the yacht club at 5 p.m. each day, Simkins would train for lacrosse. She had to balance her time and responsibilities as a Division I athlete with being an instructor.

“(Training) is challenging, especially after a hot summer day,” Simkins said. “Sometimes the last thing you want to do is go on a run or go to the field, but I’ve always had a pretty structured life and been able to make time to do those important things that I need to do for lacrosse.”

Ella was crucial to Simkins staying on a lacrosse training regimen, Simkins said. Simkins and Ella played two years together at Syracuse and when Ella would go for a run, Simkins joined her.

Even through offseason work, Simkins still found time to race in sailing competitions with her friends every Wednesday during the summer. Simkins said sailing helped her become a better lacrosse player.

“Sailing has a lot to do with your outside environment and being really calm and present in the moment and recognizing the things that are coming at you,” Simkins said. “So to translate that onto the lacrosse field, it’s never anything but that one play. You have to see the bigger picture, you have to see the rest of the field.”

Simkins feels calm when she is out on the water. And though Simkins will not continue to be a sailing instructor, she said she will remain close to the sport and continue to compete.

“(Sailing) is something that is a life skill that I’m so grateful to be able to teach to my kids when I have them someday,” Simkins said. “It’s just such a unique thing that not a lot of people get to say that they know how to do.”