Without even realizing it, Chamblee High football coach Bob Swank took his first step toward bringing on an all-time NFL great to his coaching staff in the spring of 2022.
It was after a parent-athlete meeting to lay out the summer schedule, team rules and the like. An eighth grader approached Swank and asked if he could still join the team. Swank replied that of course he could and asked his name.
“And he said his name was Edward Reed,” Swank told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I was like, ‘That’s a great name for a football player.’”
Then, realizing that an eighth grader might not recognize the name of an NFL legend whose career had ended nine years previous, Swank asked if he knew who Ed Reed was.
“He’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s my dad,’ and I looked at his mom and she shook her head yes,” Swank said. “And so, I didn’t know if he was going to know what I was talking about, but they caught me completely off-guard because I wasn’t expecting that at all.”
And three years from that improbable introduction, Pro Football Hall of Fame safety Ed Reed joined Swank’s staff as his offensive coordinator, an appointment announced Monday. Reed passed on college coaching opportunities to be a full-fledged Chamblee Bulldog.
“I couldn’t pass up a chance to be around my son his senior year,” Reed, 46, said Wednesday in a virtual news conference. “There’s never a return. You’ll never get that back.”
This is not the case of a big-time former athlete pushing his way onto his kid’s team and conniving in order to get him more playing time.
“I wouldn’t think that at all,” Swank said. “I think it’s going to be a great experience for Ed and Edward to be able to spend the year together, but I doubt that’s ever crossed his mind.”
Swank can say that with confidence because Reed actually had been an unofficial member of the Bulldogs coaching staff two seasons ago. When Ed Reed III was a sophomore, Swank asked the Baltimore Ravens legend to give his team a motivational talk.
“And he’s like, ‘Well, shoot, I’m not doing anything. I’ll just come out to practice,’” Swank said. “And it turned out he spent almost that whole year with us at practice.”
And he didn’t give his time only to Edward (a wide receiver) or his position group.
“He was just a coach at-large and would come out and coach whatever he saw needed fixing,” Swank said.
As it turned out, he’s an excellent high school coach, according to his new boss. Swank gave him a label that any coach ought to relish — a teacher. Swank, 57, has coached since 1991 and has never been around anyone who has known the game better than his new offensive coordinator. But Reed has the equally important skill of being able to convey that knowledge to high schoolers.
“Some people that know football or were really high-level players can’t communicate the way he does,” Swank said.
Reed, who lives in the McDonough area and is one of the many former professional athletes to make metro Atlanta their home, was not able to be with the team last year. But when Swank had an opening for an offensive coordinator, Reed was interested. The intermediary was a board member of the Chamblee High School Touchdown Club you may have heard of — former Douglass High, Tennessee and Baltimore Ravens star running back Jamal Lewis, a former Ravens teammate of Reed’s whose son Jazz also is on the team.
Reed and Swank talked through the commitment to figure out how they could make it work, and decided to make it happen.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for our kids to be around someone who’s not only a football guru, but just a very, very high-character person that’s going to affect them,” Swank said.
As for why Reed is the Chamblee offensive coordinator and not with the defense, Swank said that that’s the side he wants to coach because he had spent his entire career analyzing offense and loved the chess match of it.
Said Reed, “If you look at my career, you probably would say Ed was an offensive player on defense just playing mad.”
Reed already is at work watching game video and has developed a playbook. That already has generated a win. When Reed informed his son of his plans, Edward wanted to know what kind of offense he was going to implement, leading to a conversation and connection they would never have had otherwise.
“That in itself right there is success for me as a father,” Reed said.
If you’re wondering, Reed plans a run-first scheme with West Coast offense elements. Also, Swank described Edward as really smart, really nice and a good high school player who will have a chance to play in college if he chooses to.
This is a very good thing for all involved — for Ed Reed to coach his son in his final high school season, for Edward Reed to be coached by his father and for Bulldogs players and coaches to learn from a former player who in 2010 was rated one of the top 100 NFL players of all-time.
And not only that, but one who seems to understand his mission as a high school coach. Reed also has a foundation whose objectives include equipping young people with life skills.
“I want them to go to college,” Reed said. “I want them to have some skills when they leave the football field.”
This probably is the result of watching one too many Disney movies, but I’d like to hope that there’s a student at Chamblee who will join the team to be around a famous ex-athlete whose life will be changed. Maybe not dramatically — I watch Disney movies, I don’t make them — but for the better.
Said Swank, “It’s going to be the experience of a lifetime, really.”
Spring practice isn’t too far away.
-Staff writer Doug Roberson contributed to this column.
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