At college, Reid was a captain on both the Nittany Lions undefeated 1968 and 1969 teams that went 22-0. In his senior year (1969), the tackle spearheaded Penn State on defense with 89 tackles and was a unanimous All-America choice and All-East selection. He won the Outland Trophy as the best College football interior lineman in 1969, and also was awarded the 1969 Maxwell Award and finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy balloting. Reid also wrestled at Penn State and in 1967 he won the Eastern heavyweight wrestling title.[2] In addition to athletics, Reid played Chicago gangster Big Julie in Penn State's production of the musical Guys and Dolls.[3]
Reid was the first-round selection (#7 pick overall) of the Cincinnati Bengals in the 1970 NFL Draft.[4] In the team's third season, it won the AFC Central Division and made the playoffs. In 1971, Reid established himself as one of the NFL's best pass rushers by recording 12 sacks, a figure he repeated in 1972. In 1971 Reid was a consensus All-AFC selection and the following year he was consensus All-Pro as well as being voted consensus All-AFC again.
In 1974, due primarily to injuries, he recorded only seven sacks, bringing his career total to 49. In his final season, Reid was again an All-AFC selection by Pro Football Weekly. Although sacks were an unofficial statistic, the Bengals kept track of them and Reid retired as the leading sacker in the team's short history.
He made two trips to the Pro Bowl (1972 and 1973) before his retirement following the 1974 season due to knee and hand injuries and his desire to focus on a music career. In 1996, he received the NFL Alumni Career Achievement Award for his success in his post-NFL career.
When he abandoned his football career, he formed a band and began playing at a Holiday Inn location across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, then abandoned the idea of performing in bands and began playing solo at the Blind Lemon, and in the process, beginning to write his own songs. Living in Mount Lookout, he drove Eastern Avenue daily, and slowly "Eastern Avenue River Railway Blues" grew out of that. After a gig in Atlanta, Reid and some other musicians attended Southeastern Music Hall about 3:30a.m. A cassette tape of that session somehow found its way to Jerry Jeff Walker, who, in 1978, became the first artist to record a Reid song, that being "Eastern Avenue River Railway Blues".[6]
In 1980, Reid moved to Nashville, and quickly became known as an in-demand songwriter for Ronnie Milsap. Larry Gatlin also helped Reid spearhead his songwriting career.
In 1990, Reid signed to Columbia Records as a recording artist. His debut album Turning for Home produced a No. 1 country hit in its lead-off single "Walk on Faith", although the album's other singles were not as successful. His second album, 1992's Twilight Town, produced two singles which both missed the Top 40.
A third album, New Direction Home, was released two decades later in 2012 by the small Off Row Records label[7] and is available on iTunes and Spotify as well as in an mp3 download from Reid's website.[8]
In 2019, he again returned to the musical theater stage with The Last Day, a commissioned production co-written with NYU Tisch School of Performing Arts Assistant Dean, Sarah Schlesinger, for Reid's alma mater, Penn State.[3]
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References
1 2 3 "Mike Reid". Nashville Songwriters Foundation. Archived from the original on 16 February 2015. Retrieved 17 August 2013.
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