Everybody knows Andy Reid was in the Punt, Pass and Kick competition on Monday Night Football as a kid.
Everybody knows Big Red is the seventh coach to lead two different teams to the Super Bowl.
Everybody knows Reid has coached the most games in NFL history without a championship.
But there’s a lot about Big Red you probably never knew.
Such as …
Going door to door: In 1986, Andy Reid, Brad Childress and Tom Melvin were all assistant coaches under Larry Kentera at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. NAU wasn’t a high-powered football program back then, and one of the responsibilities of the assistant coaches was to go door-to-door in the community trying to raise money. The coaches went out in pairs, and one year, Reid and Childress were assigned some of the tiny Native American villages located north of Flagstaff and just south of the Grand Canyon. Reid and Childress found themselves knocking on the doors of tiny Indian Pueblos asking for donations from people who had no idea what football was. Thirteen years later, Reid, Childress and Melvin were all coaching with the Eagles.
95 percent chance: After he was fired by the Eagles following the 2012 season, Reid was quickly linked with the Arizona Cardinals' head coaching job. The Cards had just fired Ken Whisenhunt after one year, and Reid was such a strong candidate for the Cards job that Adam Schefter, who is NEVER wrong, tweeted that a source told him there was a 95 percent chance Reid would wind up coaching the Cards. Reid had interviews scheduled with the Chiefs and Cards, but he never made it to Phoenix. The Chiefs interviewed him at Philadelphia Airport and hired him on the spot, before he could catch his flight to Arizona.
“Get your peanuts here:” As a kid growing up in Los Angeles, Reid worked as a peanut vendor at Dodger Stadium.
Secret visits: During the summer of 2009, when beloved defensive coordinator Jim Johnson was battling cancer, Reid quietly and with nobody knowing left training camp nearly every night after practice, film study and meetings and drove from Lehigh to Philadelphia to visit Jim in the hospital.
NFL
Serving at love: Reid met his wife of 38 years, Tammy, in a Fundamentals of Tennis class when they were students at Brigham Young in 1980.
A chance meeting: Reid coached at San Francisco State from 1983 through 1985, and at the same time world-renowned activist Angela Davis taught ethnic studies at the same university. As it turned out, Reid’s office and Davis’s office were not only in the same building but along the same hallway, and the two often had long conversations at the water fountain. About what? We can only imagine.
“Touchdown Nelly!”: Reid’s youth basketball coach was Pete Arbogast, who is now the offiical radio play-by-play voice of USC basketball and football. Yup, the guy who called all those Nelson Agholor TD catches was Andy Reid’s youth basketball coach.
Together since 1983: When Reid first arrived at San Francisco State as offensive line coach in 1983, one of his players was Tom Melvin. Reid was 25 and Melvin was 23. Today, 37 years later, the two are still together. They first worked together in 1984 and 1985 at San Francisco State then for one year at Northern Arizona. From 1991 through 1998, Melvin was offensive coordinator and offensive line coach at Occidental College in Los Angeles and Reid was on Mike Holmgren's Packers staff. When Reid was hired by the Eagles in 1999, he brought in Melvin as a quality control coach and then promoted him to tight ends in 2002. He’s served as Reid’s tight ends coach all seven years in K.C. as well. So the two have spent 29 of the last 37 years together.
Grease is the word: Reid attended Marshall High in Los Angeles, the same school that produced Leonardo DiCaprio, Lance Ito, Heidi Fless and Julia “Catwoman” Newmar and where the interior scenes for the movie Grease were filmed.
They signed who???: Reid was named head coach of the Eagles on Jan. 11, 1999. The first three players the Eagles signed after that were Charles Johnson, Torrance Small and Doug Pederson.
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