About

Reed is an 18 year veteran of sport performance training and youth sport coaching. He is an expert in youth coaching techniques, mental skills development, and sport performance enhancement training. He is a former NCAA Division I athlete and uses his own experiences to assist his players in unlocking their own “excellence ciphers”.

Player:

• 30 years of sport playing experience at all levels of the game.

• 1992-1995 played Collegiate Soccer and was Member of the 1992 NCAA Division I Semi-Final participant Davidson College Wildcats

• One of a handful of training partners with World Cup MVP and International Soccer Star Michelle Akers during the summers between 1990 and 1993

• Former Olympic Development player, member of multiple Nationally Ranked Youth Soccer teams, and two Nationally ranked adult teams.

• I won my share of games and my share of awards, but I can guarantee you that I struggled as a soccer player. I never lived up to the talent potential I possessed, and actually, soccer was my worst sport! More than anything, when I realized my shortcomings I passed on a potential tryout with an Major League Soccer Team to attend graduate school…in the hopes of discovering where I struggled and how I could help others get past my barrier.

Coach:

• Masters Degree in Sport Behavior and Performance (1999 Miami University), with several published works regarding sport performance and youth sports.  Specialties in mental skill development, skill acquisition, and raw power development.

• 1997-1998 Graduate Assistant Coach with Miami University Men’s and Women’s NCAA Division I Varsity Soccer Programs.

• 2001 Founded XLnow Foundation, a youth sport nonprofit serving disadvantaged and underprivileged children.

• 2000 Interim Vice President of Camps and Clinics Operations for a professional sport management company, Play Like the Pros.

• Licensed coach at age of 15 (one of the youngest coaches in Ohio at the time).

• 18 years coaching experience including 2 Collegiate club teams, 2 collegiate varsity teams, semi-professional teams, adult teams, and Olympic Development teams.

• 18 years of working soccer camps and clinics including part owner in a camps and clinics operation that provided about 12 yearly camps and Vice President of Camps and Clinics for a sports company.

• Have worked with over 20,000 athletes in 18 years logging more than 12,000 coaching hours…skill acquisition comes from deep practice, long hours, and wide experience.  If you want to be the best, you better work with someone who has seen the best, trained the best, and spent countless hours in deep practice as a coach and a player.

• Have produced myriad Olympic Development players, handfuls of collegiate players, an international Olympic Team member, and a couple of professional players over the years.

Awards:

• 2003 Cincinnati Creative Class Top 75 Young Leaders Award winner for business and community work

• 2003 Nonprofit Leader Young Philanthropy Innovator

• 2003 Social Enterprise Alliance Leadership Award

• 2004 Cincinnati Business Courier Forty Under 40 Top Young Executives Award

• Multiple All-Conference Player and Academic Awards and 1993 NCAA Academic All-America Candidacy

“So what?  Do you do anything fun?”:

• Have swam with manatee in the clear waters of Crystal River, FL

• Led a midnight ski trip that dropped several thousand vertical feet through the mountains of Utah on the brightest moon in 123 years
• Spent part of a summer training alongside the crystal blue waters of the Interlaken Lake district of Switzerland
• Was actually in a thunderstorm at above 10,000 feet in the mountains of Utah. The storm was literally all around us.
• Was the assigned security guard for the referees locker room in the Netherlands vs. Saudi Arabia game of the 1994 World Cup
• Met Dick Advocaat, Frank de Boer, Frank Rijkaard, and Dennis Bergkamp at that World Cup Game…I was also given a cool keychain by the personal security detail of the Prince of Saudi Arabia (it was the consolation gift for missing out on meeting him. The Netherlands scored in the waning moments of the game, canceling his congratulatory visit to the Saudi locker room!)
• I caught a guitar pick from Jimmy Buffet during one of his great summer concerts at Riverbend in Cincinnati, OH
• I caddied for Larry Ziglar of the Sr. PGA during a round with Johnny Bench, Picabo Street, and Mike Schmidt (the charity event the day before the SR. Tour Event in Park City, UT)
• I have played golf with Mike Vanderjagt, and Sterling Sharp, played golf with Sachio Semmoto (the Japanese equivalent to Bill Gates), played pick up basketball with the majority of the 2002 US Ski and Snowboard Team, played pick up football with a group of the Olympic Aerial skiers (those guys are athletes), spent an afternoon skiing with Tim Daly, and shot pool with the cast of Pensacola Wings of Gold.
• Made dinner for the CEO of a major telecom when he found me raiding the kitchen at our Athletic Club (I was making dinner for myself anyway), fixed a ski broken by Ian Ziering, fitted boots for Lindsay Price and Ahmet Zappa (he is as wild in person as he is on TV), waxd Sandy Weil’s skis as I got an earful from him – “why is a guy with a Master’s Degree waxing skis in Utah?” -, and somehow got into an “intense debate” with Jeremy Nobis (the one time king of free skiing) over a video game in a Park City, Utah restaurant (in my defense, I did not know who he was until later that night).
• At that same Athletic Club where I made dinner for a CEO, my locker was next door to a guy who climbed Everest and ran The Ironman Ford Championships in Hawaii…talk about being close to greatness!
• At the Governor’s Ball for Super Bowl XXIV, Walter Payton took mercy on me and personally toured me around, introducing me to Harry Carson, Warren Moon, Bill Walsh, and Joe Montana (I also met Ton Loc, Spike Lee, and Dr. J at that game!)
• I have had to teach and actually provide grades for a Hobie Baker candidate (hockey rules!), an NBA small forward, three NFL draftees,and two MLB signees. I also taught golf to a member of a 1998 NCAA Sweet Sixteen Basketball Team (I called him Mr. Clutch because he never missed a putt, but he missed two key free throws in the Sweet 16 game…ooops!)

Yep, I know how to have fun, and I have seen a lot in my short life…some I am proud of, some let’s just forget about for now.  I use all that has happened in my life to fuel how I teach and how I interact with my athletes.

Sports Evolution is as tricky and scientific a process as evolution itself…we can look at just the science, or just the application, but in the end every factor in our environment plays a role in how we develop.  Including the experience, science, and application the guy training you brings to the table.

You want to evolve your game?  Guys like me know exactly how to do that – just look at the evolution I have been through.

If you think you are good enough to take your game to the next level without 18 years experience helping you…good luck.  You opponent may be training with me or someone like me.