HUNTINGTON — Ron Reed said he wasn’t going to order the turkey dinner at Bob Evans this time.
“I’ll have to go home and watch a football game,” Reed joked, saying the meal reminded him of what he does on Thanksgiving.
Football isn’t Reed’s game, although the longtime high school and college basketball has coached it, as well as baseball.
“We had a perfect season,” Reed said of his one year at the helm of football squad at Anderson County (Kentucky) High School. “We went 0-10.”
Reed’s sharp’s sense of humor is intact at 76. Now retired, he has turned in his playbook for another publication. Reed is writing his memoirs.
“It’s more for my grandchildren than anyone,” Reed said. “When I’m gone, I want them to know who I was.”
Reed’s coaching resume is impressive. Head coach at Ohio University Southern and Kentucky Christian University, he also served as an assistant at the University of Mississippi and Milligan College. Reed also was head boys coach at several high schools, including Anderson County, Raceland, Russell, Minford, Chesapeake, Lawrence County and Rose Hill Christian.
Ole Miss was college basketball’s highest level.
“Ohio University Southern was the lowest level of college basketball,” Reed said.
His love for the game and methods of coaching didn’t change no matter the level. A graduate of Morehead State University, “the Harvard of the South,” Reed calls it, with a grin, Reed offers accounts of his many stops in the new book, yet to be titled.
Reed enjoyed winning seasons and losing ventures, with the goal of developing young men the primary focus. His Christian faith was evident, even when he ran his players during his famed “pukers” during conditioning.
At Ohio University-Southern, where Reed was hired in 2000, Reed recruited local players hard. Most of the team was made up of players from the Tri-State Area. He realized he wasn’t going to out-recruit bigger programs with larger budgets for star players and he often found overlooked youngsters with untapped talent. One of those was Russell High School guard Derek Withrow.
“Derek didn’t play a whole lot at Russell,” Reed said. “I don’t know why.”
Withrow played quite a bit for the Blazers, however, earning a starting position and going on to become the program’s all-time leading scorer.
Reed also operated a youth sports summer camp at OU-Southern, which dropped all sports, where hundreds of youngsters attended.
Reed and his wife Joan have been married for 52 years and still live in Greenup County, Kentucky.
