Jeremy Reed has known he has wanted to coach football since he was 8 years old.
“Personally, I think we all have a purpose in life,” Reed said. “And I truly believe God put me on Earth to be a coach, give others hope and blessed with me a mind to be a leader to do that, … to do it in a way that glorifies him but also to teach life lessons to young men.”
Reed was recently hired as the new head football coach at Lake Hamilton High School in Pearcy.
“I have always been a student of the game, and I loved the mental part of the game just as much as the physical part,” Reed said. “I was always the guy in the back, the football nerd if you will, who was studying blocking schemes, plays and everything else from the coaching standpoint.
“I’ve always known what I’ve wanted to do.”
Before coming to Lake Hamilton, Reed coached at Altus High School in Oklahoma, where he turned around a program that hadn’t had a winning season in six years.
“In my two years, we went 21-4, but prior to that, they had finished 3-7 three years in a row,” Reed said.
Brad Odom, who hired Reed out of college, said he thinks he will do just fine at Lake Hamilton.
“Last week, I went down there and visited him, and I watched him go through a team camp,” said Odom, who was the head coach at Sand Springs when he hired Reed. “Any first-year staff, you are going to have some bumps in the road and a couple rough patches, just like anybody would.
“I think he will do great.”
Odom said the kids seemed to have bought in and have embraced the scheme.
“I think they will have a great year,” Odom said.
Reed’s first day at Lake Hamilton was March 28. He replaced former head coach Jerry Clay, who finished his career with a 269-127-2 record over 34 seasons and is the sixth winningest coach in state history.
Clay was 212-115-1 at Lake Hamilton and led the Wolves to state championships in 1992 and 2008. The Wolves won 10 conference championships and made the postseason in all 26 seasons of Clay’s tenure.
“I am not him, and he is not me,” Reed said of trying to fill Clay’s shoes. “I have a lot of respect for Coach Clay and what he has done. I am a real old-school-type person at heart, so I really believe in traditions and really relish in the history of places, and one of the things that attracted me here was that.
“As far as any further nervous energy or ‘How am I going to replace this guy?’ I’ll be honest; I haven’t thought about that one time.”
In addition to Lake Hamilton, Clay also coached at Fountain Lake and Hot Springs Central Junior High School. He was the head coach at Fountain Lake from 1981-1988, leading the Cobras to a 57-12-1 record and four conference championships, and was 35-5 in four seasons at Hot Springs Central Junior High.
“He is a good guy, a genuine guy,” Odom said. “What you see is what you get. There is no front; he is as he seems.”
Reed was a quarterback at Marietta High School in Oklahoma before attending MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, Kansas, for a year and Southeastern Oklahoma State University for a year. He was a quarterback for both schools but didn’t play much after breaking an ankle during the offseason before attending college.
Reed said the injury allowed him to focus more on the coaching aspect of the sport.
“He is a football addict,” said Odom, who coached against Reed when he was a senior at Marietta. “He lives it. He breathes it.”
Reed coached two years as an offensive coordinator at Sand Springs with Odom before being hired at Coalgate (Oklahoma) High School as a head coach.
“I didn’t want him to go. I wanted him to work with us, but I also didn’t want to hold him back,” Odom said.
After a year at Coalgate, Reed was hired to be an offensive coordinator at Ardmore High School in Oklahoma.
“He was out of high school football for a while before taking a job at Dickson, Oklahoma, and he did a great job there,” Odom said.
This will be Reed’s first job at a school in Arkansas.
“Football is football,” Reed said. “With technology the way it is today, there are plenty of opportunities to watch film and get a feel for people.
“I don’t think not knowing particular schools will be that big of a disadvantage.”
Reed said he has a few guys on his staff who have played these teams for a very long time, so he doesn’t foresee that being an issue. Reed, 35, said he plans on implementing the flexbone triple-option offense at Lake Hamilton, something he learned from Kenny Wheaton, who is an offensive consultant at Harding University in Searcy.
“I am a 37-year coaching veteran,” Wheaton said. “I’ve seen a lot of coaches, and he is one of the special guys.
“He goes beyond X’s and O’s but also knows how to deal with people, and he has a passion for it.”
Wheaton has been running the flexbone offense for over 36 years, and during this time, he has served as a head coach in Texas and Arkansas high school football. He has known Reed for about four years.
“He is one of those special guys that don’t come along except every so often,” Wheaton said. “He has the whole package, and he is a good coach.
“I think he will be a great fit for Lake Hamilton.”
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.