The Life and Times of Lucas Reed

During his sophomore season, not only was he voted the most valuable player on offense for the Lobos, but he was also voted the most valuable player on the team period. Never mind, that he was also a two-time All-American who had been showing up on more and more NFL wanted posters across the frontier.

From the outside, it looked like your not-so-typical American success story. On the inside though --in his belly, where raw guts had never betrayed him, Lucas felt none of the hoopla, nor heard any of the applause. His team had mostly been an abstract failure, and it was only within the team concept where one could find the only true measurement of the man that they called Reed.

As his junior season began in Albuquerque, that divide only seemed to grow wider still, until it was almost as big as the Grand Canyon back home. I mean, nobody had ever said it was going to be easy (and it never had been), but those football gods sure are a fickle bunch.

After hearing about Katie being at the Wyoming game, I just had to ask her what it was like to see her brother excel at the sport he had fought so hard not to be excluded from.

"It was awesome!" exclaims Katie. When he caught that crazy touchdown pass that ended up on ESPN's Plays of the Week I was just so excited. He told me later on that now I needed to come to every game, because I was his lucky charm. We were screaming and running out on to the field. My mom even jumped the wall with all the rest of the crazy college kids and we found him standing there with like, the biggest smile ever on his face."

What did you think when you heard that he was being considered by many publications as one of the Top Ten tight ends in the entire country?

"It really blew my mind," says Katie. "He had never really been considered for anything like that before when he was younger. He was just another X on the board to those guys."

You dad insisted that I ask you this question, and as I am unable to say no to Bob "Mad Dog" Reed, here goes: When did Lucas start to think he was 'cool?'

Laughing at the question, Katie responds, "I'm not so sure that he thinks he is cool now, even with all of the accolades. He has always considered himself to be the underdog and he has always liked being considered the underdog. He simply loves proving people wrong and catching them all by surprise."

Clearly, Lucas had won over the faithful, but he had always had them in the huddle with him anyway. So, what about his toughest critic and the player whom he admired the most?

"I was really happy for him," Houston Texans linebacker Brooks Reed answers unabashedly. "Things had started out kind of tough for him, getting acclimated to New Mexico and making new friends and all. He was so far away from home, where as I was able to go to school in Tucson with my family nearby. Overcoming all of that --doing it on his own pretty much, might have been his greatest accomplishment of all so far. But it only gets harder from here. Now it will be expected."

Coming into his Junior season, there was a lot of optimism for both Lucas and the team. Coach Locks had signed a new contract that essentially put his neck out on the line. That he had not needed to do so --but still did, was indicative to most Lobo fans that he was supremely confident in the team he had representing the university in 2011.

"Yeah, there was a lot of optimism," states Lucas. There was even more optimism after the first game."

Really? I am kind of surprised by that answer. I thought at the time, it really took the wind out of our sails.

"You have to remember that in the previous year, we really didn't have that close of a game that was so hardly fought until the bitter end. Losing by a little is a whole lot better than losing by a lot in those types of games. We had really wanted to win that one, but we were still confident afterwards."

Now that your Junior season is over and all of the fallout over the coaching change is beginning to settle down a bit, are you able to look back at all of the earlier confidence the team seemed to have and come to grips with what exactly went wrong?

"Honestly, it wasn't really just one aspect of our team --it was a little bit of everything. A season like that comes from every direction that you can think of.

The media, along with internal and external forces of all types really affected our mentality when we were in the locker room or out on the field. How much belief that we have in each other...how much trust, for most of the year it just felt like it wasn't really there.

Now don't get me wrong. We gave it our all every time, but it's not just effort that wins games. It is the belief in each other. One person can fight alone for a long time, but he will eventually lose. It was like somebody once said. You either fight and die as an individual or fight and win together as a team, or something like that. I don't remember the exact quote, but the whole mentality of being together, fighting as a team and backing each other up...it was there, but it wasn't completely there."

Were there maybe divisions between various factions? Separate cliques?

"Not necessarily," replies Lucas. "I am trying to think of a good metaphor here. We just didn't have the right cement to keep us together. It was cracked, I guess. It wasn't like we were separated, but here and there were little fissures and that was enough to hurt us."

As a player, that must be really hard knowing that something is lacking that could make the team truly cohesive --yet not being able to do anything about it.

"You just never know --it's really hit or miss sometimes. Coach Locks always used to try little things to try and spark our momentum. He was always trying to motivate us somehow, either with visual aids or speeches. He was a very good speaker at getting people motivated."

One of the things that almost everyone I have spoken to in the last three years has commented upon, is the lack of our strength training. Was it a big mistake for Locksley to focus more on speed and agility and let coach Paulsen go early on?

"The physical part I do agree with," says Lucas, "but that's not the biggest part. It's the mental part. There is a proven correlation between weightlifting and getting mentally tough and we didn't have that --not at all. It was like, get into the weight room and get done as fast as you can. It really wasn't like trying to get stronger. I remember working with coach P and Aaron Day as well --the most recent coach we had, and we were very successful learning to lift under him. Just very energetic stuff during the off-season. It was the hardest lifting I had ever done."

So what about the new strength and conditioning coach, Ben Hilgart (formerly at Arizona State). Any initial thoughts on him?

"I have yet to talk to him or really meet him, but I have seen him and he looks like a big guy --he has lifted before. Strength is the foundation on a team, and you can't build anything without a foundation."

What would you say is the most important thing in building a team on that strong foundation? I am not necessarily talking about winning the Rose Bowl, but maybe competing for a conference championship and being competitive in every game that you play. Is it all about chemistry and the mental aspect that we discussed?

Considering the question carefully , Lucas responds, "You know how they are always saying, 'don't trust anyone but yourself?' Well, just imagine that you had --if it was possible --which it is not, twelve copies of yourself and they all thought alike and had the same values. You would have a pretty damn good team. You would know exactly what they felt like and what they were going through. You would also know things like the amount of energy and drive that they had at any given point. The type of cohesion and trust that you have towards yourself as an individual, you also need to have towards others on the team. I think that is the key. If you can trust others as well as you trust yourself, then you will have a true team."

"New Mexico is not a stranger to welcoming new coaches," states Lucas' brother Brooks Reed. "Lucas has certainly been through this before, but it is really hard for a player once you get used to a system and the way things are run. Then all of a sudden, everything changes. Of course, it could be for the good. I think in their situation --winning 3 games in three years, well, something had to change. I believe it is probably the best thing for the team."

There is a flip-side to playing for an undermanned team. Lucas could stand to really pad his statistics and stand out that much more to NFL scouts. I know that this is not the way that he wants it to be, but I have seen that kind of thing happen many times before. As a player who dreamed of the NFL when you were a child and who now finds himself as a rookie starting linebacker for the Houston Texans, how do you feel about Lucas' chances to join you someday at that elite level?

Shrugging his shoulders, Brooks says, "Just because you have one good season, does not mean you are going to be in the NFL. You have to consistently show that you can play well against the competition. That includes the immeasureables. It is almost like a herd of cattle coming in each season. The combine is really just a big stockyard. Being a good football player and being a good tester [at the combine] are two totally different things. Unfortunately at New Mexico --recruiting wise, they are mostly getting your lower tier players and there is very little light shown down upon them. That makes it even harder for a player --no matter what the stats say, to get noticed. Bigger schools like Texas, A&M, TCU --and to the west of them, Arizona, ASU and Colorado, they are grabbing all of those great recruits from Texas and elsewhere. New Mexico is mostly just going for whatever is left. That means he needs to stand out even more and be totally consistent. A pretty hard thing to do when you change coaches and schemes every year or so."

My, how those words would come back to haunt him. If it seems to most Lobo fans like the last few seasons have been awful, consider the plight of Lucas Reed. Never having played a down for the coach who initially recruited him to New Mexico, he has since had three different coaches. The one he knew and trusted the most --Mike Locksley, ended his New Mexico career with a dismal 2-26 record, while interim head coach George Barlow closed out the disastrous 2011 campaign at 1 and 7. All of the blood, sweat and tears wrung from the past three seasons had amounted to exactly 3 wins in 36 attempts for Lucas Reed and his teammates. If that ain't hell, then it is at least on the wrong side of purgatory.

On the same night as an embarrassing loss to FCS team Sam Houston State, Mike Locksley was relieved of his duties at New Mexico. After the tremendous stress and strain he had been under for the past 2 and 1/2 years, 'relieved' is probably exactly how he felt. Was that loss the final straw for your former coach and friend, or was it just the overall weight of things finally catching up to him?

Struggling with what is obviously a very difficult question for him, Lucas replies, "I can't really get my thoughts together too well on that, but I would guess that it ultimately would have been just a combination of things, starting with the success part. While his success wasn't great here at New Mexico, he was a great person to everybody --at least to us players. He was a very player-driven coach and I think that you can see that with all of the players that have left since he was fired. We felt that he treated us right as players. He always tried to take care of us and had our best interests in mind. Regarding the mental aspect of it though, he tried so hard to bring some sort of cohesion and trust to the team. You have heard about that theft that we had in our locker room, right? I mean, how bad is it to have such a misuse of trust within our own building! And to deal with that, it is almost like dealing with a bad economy. I mean, it is practically impossible. Honestly, it has to be handled on the inside by the players."

"There was so much negativity already in the locker room, from the external forces kind of beaming in their own bad vibes, to people just moping around and thinking about blah-blah-blah. It is so hard to just stay positive and people will do things that they normally wouldn't do because of the attitude and the stink or stigma hanging around the locker room. Things just don't matter as much as they should. Now, these are guys that you are going to spend five years with and they should be like a family, but some of them don't realize that. People just don't trust each other as well as they should under those types of circumstances. Coach Locksley tried so hard to be that glue...to bring us all together, but it was inevitable that it was all going to end like it did."

Listening to you say that, it sounds like you place the blame for the teams misfortunes squarely on the players.

"I don't like to place the blame on anybody," counters Lucas. "I don't actually blame the players or the coaches for this. The blame falls on the situation that we built for ourselves. The way it started was the way it was going to ultimately end, unfortunately."

"We just didn't use the right gasoline. We messed up the car or we messed up the train...whatever analogy that you want to use."

That is very honest of you to say. Was coach Locks too nice maybe? I have had other people tell me this.

"I think that people who like to jump on and off the bandwagon say that, but he was very kind to me. Some people say that being a nice coach or being a players friend is not what you want, but it is hard for me to agree with that as a player who was really treated well by him. That is like saying that I don't want to be treated well, when actually, I do want to be treated well by my coaches. I want respect and I want dignity. I want some sort of credibility when I walk around those halls. As far as favoritism though, I don't think that was really the case. Though it would be kind of unrealistic for me to say that I wouldn't want that, because as a player, I really did want that. Anyone that strives for success, doesn't want to be just anyone to their coaches --they want to be better than that. I think that's a natural drive for anyone in athletics."

"To be able to reach that point in the program --to be able to think, well, here I am. I have done pretty well and the coaches don't hate me, so now I can reach for the sky, which is pretty much unreachable. That all comes about because your coach believes in you, and mine did."

Personally, I felt like it was a big mistake to fire coach Locks early on in the season. If their minds were already made up, then fine --there were certainly enough reasons to let him go by then. But I still feel that they should have waited until the end of the season. I think the team would have been better off, and that the players would have had a lighter load to carry in 2011.

"I think so too," sighs Lucas, "but it would have happened either way. So many bad things have happened that it was just the culmination of those bad things. Not beating an FCS school while his son's friend was getting arrested in his car --which they tried to blame on him, which was ridiculous. He can't be held responsible for that, you know? I really didn't like how they stuck the blame on him for that. Here is a guy trying to prove himself as a coach and as a person and this kind of thing happens which he has no control over. It was almost like someone was out to get him. And that made me feel bad, because all I could see was him just trying to find some kind of life for this program."

I really felt that his son [Meiko Locksley] let him down bigtime that night. I realize that he is a former teammate of yours, but the guy really let his dad down in a big way right there.

" I am pretty sure that Meiko wasn't expecting him to be arrested or whatever happened. I really don't know the whole situation. Didn't he get a DWI?"

Yeah, he almost mowed down some people on the crosswalk going to the game. And it didn't help that one of the passengers became belligerent and threw coach Locksley's name out to the police, as if that was going to make any difference.

"That is not good," shrugs Lucas. "That is one thing that you don't do as a person living at college or anywhere, is to let people borrow your car. That kind of thing just might happen and it will ultimately be your responsibility."

I felt that interim coach Barlow did a great job in an almost impossible and difficult situation. What was your opinion?

"It was really sad for me because all of the coaches knew that they would have to leave," replies Lucas with a heavy heart. "I was really down to earth with my position coach --coach Blackshear. He and I talked about things that I am pretty sure none of the other coaches and players ever talked about. We laughed a lot, but it was kind of a love-hate relationship. It was really sarcastic when we were off the field, but on the field it was more of a hate relationship with all of the motivation. I really started to like him though and enjoy that environment towards the end of the season. I was just trying to grab whatever positives I could at the time, but I never realized that the kind of relationship I had with him was something that I have never had with a coach before. I was able to talk to him like he was my brother. We would joke around with each other. I would joke that he wouldn't find another job and he would joke that I hadn't been able to produce this season. Now, he never wished nothing but the best for me, but that was just how we communicated.

He helped me...a lot, in almost every way that you can think of. He had this little mini-fridge that he kept in his office. It was for me I think, as I was always saying stuff like, 'Can you put this in there for me?' The relationship was really good, even if the season didn't go over very well."

"Now, coach Barlow, he had probably the hardest job of them all. It is so hard to blame a coach that walks into that kind of situation, though. He broke it down for us by simply telling us what the real deal was. Right from the start, he told us that we were going to try to win --to try and win games. And we did. This may sound crazy, but I don't know if I prefer just getting one win or multiple wins. You just don't treasure a win, like you do when you have had so much negativity and so much bad stuff going on during a losing streak. When that one good thing happens, it just feels so good after all of the disappointments. I will certainly remember those victories forever."

So, do you think that coach Barlow might be head coaching material down the road somewhere?

"I think so. The way he handled this situation certainly showed a lot of potential."

"My dad is really the unsung hero here, you know?' relates big brother Brooks. "He helped him all of the way through school, and I am sure that you know all about that. Lucas would not be in the same position if it weren't for my dad. He just has this massive amount of paperwork and receipts that he compiled along the way."

He sent all of that to me.

"All of it? That's crazy, but I guess he must really trust you."

Well, it is certainly an amazing story, and I consider your pops a real friend. If Lobo fans really knew the whole Lucas Reed story, they would certainly admire him even more. I know that I do. Of course, that goes for the rest of his family as well. Much respect.

"Thanks, but I can't even begin to fathom where it all started with my dad," says an emotional Brooks. "I mean, just the recruiting alone. He made this highlight tape and sent it out to every school in the nation. I mean, there are high school coaches who would not even do that for their favorite player, but my dad certainly did."

I have to confess something to you here. Your dad warned me about you. He said, "Brooks is not a real talkative chap. He will probably just give you one sentence answers." Well did I call the wrong person here or what? You have been an amazing interview.

Laughing, Brooks exclaims, "Well, I guess that you just asked the right questions!"

You are probably not going to like me anymore after I tell you this. It has been rather awkward interviewing a Houston Texans player since I am a lifelong Dallas Cowboy fan. (Much to my relief --or should I really be insulted, Brooks bursts out into laughter). But I have become a total fan of your family --in whatever they do. Blame ol' dad for that as well. I am really looking forward to Katie graduating from college so that she can concentrate on her career.

"Yeah, it's all his fault," laughs Brooks. "Seriously though, I haven't really told anyone else this before, but if I am fortunate enough to sign another contact in the NFL, I really want to pay her way through school. I really haven't told anyone about that, but it has just been something on my mind. She didn't have the outlet that we had through sports and she is having to work her way through school. She didn't have an athletic scholarship like we did. And as a result, she is not going to a division one school. She is going to Pima, which is a really small school."

That is so cool. After talking with her and learning about her, I think that she just may be the boldest and bravest of all of the Reeds...and that is really saying something. Going out to California all on her own. How crazy is that?

"She is extremely independent," lovingly laughs Brooks. All of her friends --I don't know if they tell her, but they tell me that she is the most mature person that they know."

Has she given you any tips on that hair? I mean, come on. That type of trademark is hot in the NFL right now. You could probably score a fortune in endorsements. It has worked out pretty well so far for Troy Polamalu.

Laughing, and probably thinking to himself, 'I don't get these kind of stupid questions from ESPN,' Brooks replies, I've seen that stuff...sure. But you need to have the type of success that brings in those types of offers. You can't just be out there with the long hair. It will actually work against you, in fact, if you don't play well. They will think that you are just acting like Tarzan or Jane or something out there, and write that you should just cut all of that damn hair off."

When Bob Davie was first announced as the new head coach of the New Mexico Lobos, the reaction could not have been more diverse. Ten years removed from his profession, the old schoolers proclaimed his Notre Dame and Texas A&M pedigree as something potentially special. The young'uns simply bragged about his role as one of the ESPN talking heads --while secretly wondering if he had forgotten how to coach in the meantime. The rest of the fans --in fact, probably the vast majority of them, were simply browsing the aisles and looking hopefully for an answer to their prayers which had never manifested themselves in the form of of a burning bush named Mike Leach. That those types of answers are not always clear and distinct and may also tend to move in mysterious ways, was not completely lost on the Lobo faithful.

You have a new coach coming in who is a former tight end. That has to get you somewhat excited.

"Well I don't know," says a cautious Lucas Reed. "They did a lot of blocking back in those days. Right now, it is the golden age for tight ends. Look at Gronkowski for the Patriots. He used to play with my brother at Arizona. He has broken a lot of records this year."

You still haven't told me of your initial impressions of Bob Davie. Perhaps, that question makes you a little nervous?

"No, not at all," laughs Lucas. "He can talk. He has the gift of speech. He can really put the fear into you, when he is talking. The first time he talked to me I was really scared (laughs). It was like, Holy Shit --I have to really get going here. He really is the best motivator there is. It wasn't nothing threatening or anything like that, but I certainly felt motivated. I've heard a thousand speeches, but nothing ever felt like that before. It was very powerful and really made me want to get out there and go."

At this point in the story, I had just received an e-mail from Bob Reed with a real picture of great-grandpa Reed (or is it great-great grandpa Reed?). Apparently, he took umbrage at that rather stately looking gent in the photo above. Anyway, here is a real photo of the Reed family, circa 1918 or 1919.

"The two little boys (although it is hard to tell if they are boys) later played football at St. Johns," explains Bob Reed. "Brooks kind of looks like 'George' --the older boy standing on the left. Brooks' Grandmother, Doris, is the taller girl, 4th from the left. You can kind of see a little resemblance when you see the photo of Brooks with his hair down. Brooks' Grandmother went on a trip to Italy with her dad when she was 18 and her Dad died on board the ship. She later went to NYC and studied piano and opera and worked as a model, in the Ziegfreid Follies and as a waitress at the Russian Tea Room."

She was a very beautiful lady. I can certainly see where Katie got her good looks from. Turning back to Lucas, I ask if he remembers anything specific from his conversations with the new coach.

"I don't want to try and paraphrase exactly what he said," Lucas replies, "but he did talk about last year and the climate inside the locker room. He also indicated that we had a pretty good chance to do much better than 1-11 this season. Just from our short conversation, I had a lot more belief in the team than I had before."

Is the majority of the team buying into it like you are, or had some already made up their minds?

"You can already tell some differences, for sure. A few of the players I thought were going to leave are sticking around now and putting their faith into this coach."

Kind of a crazy question, but when I first heard that they had hired him, I remember thinking that this was so ten years ago. Sure, he has that Notre Dame pedigree, but what about now?

"Ten years does not really change that much in football philosophy," states Lucas. "Especially when during the last ten years, he has been following all of the teams in the country much more closely than he could have been as a coach. I have this philosophy. You can still win now with 1990-era guys the same as you could with 2000 guys or even 2010 guys. It will always be about how much effort you put in and how much you trust each other. Those things never change."

That your junior year this season was a disappointment ---both individually and as a team, kind of goes without saying. You caught 22 passes, but that was way below what you wanted. Things really started out well for you here with the All-America honors, but last season seemed to take all of that positive momentum away. Is the upcoming Senior season a make-or-break type of year for you? It kind of reminds me of your high school senior season where you had to prove yourself all over again.

"My number one goal as it has always been, is to get into the NFL," says Lucas. "I really need to gain weight, though, and get myself back on their radar again. I am not going to set some sort of yardage or pass receptions goal, as I really don't want to limit myself to that. I just want to get going and see what I can do."

As you say, the key will be packing on the weight. The tools are already there. If you were packing around 250-plus pounds, there is no way that they would miss you.

"It probably sounds weird now," explains a reflective Lucas, that I wasn't able to meet my weight and strength goals after four years. I gained strength and weight after my freshman year with coach Paulsen, but like you said, the strength and conditioning program has kind of been lacking the past few seasons. I think that if I am able to just start lifting correctly, then I will end up with the size that I need. We were a mess during the last season. In the middle of the season a couple of guys hurt themselves and when stuff like that happens, you lose faith in the weight lifting program. Near the end of the season, I weighed myself and I only weighed 217 lbs. That is only one pound more than what I weighed when I came here for my official visit. Now, I have certainly gotten stronger, and my body fat is like around 3.5 percent. But realistically, I probably need to get up to around ten or fifteen percent and still keep my speed in order to meet those goals.

But I don't mind the challenge. I like proving that kind of stuff to myself and everyone else, and overcoming it. I will have to, if I am ever going to reach the next level."

I loved your comments on trust. I don't think that I have ever heard an athlete put it any better.

"The hardest thing for a coach to figure out sometimes, is how to get teammates to like each other and to build that trust between them. It is all about the bonding process that you go through during the offseason."

So, does coach Davie seem like he has a good shot at doing just that?

"I really think that he does. He certainly has inspired me. But a team is all about family and hard work, and I think that he knows that. It is just like when you see your brother or your sister in a fight with someone else. Even if there are guns, knives or whatever involved, you are just going to jump in there blindly and sacrifice yourself for that person."

CLICK TO CONTINUE READING PAGE TWO