The Kansas City Chiefs have one of the best coaches in the league, if not the best in Andy Reid. Now he is making yet another Super Bowl appearance with the Chiefs, his third in four years, just after reaching his fifth straight AFC Championship game.
People love playing for Reid, and they should. This is a guy who will get you to a winning level. He doesn’t lose often. But there is one other thing he does that makes people love playing for him. You ask any guy on the team and they will likely tell you the same thing.
“I love him because of the man he is first, not the coach, the man he is,” Frank Clark said on Thursday. “A lot of guys know him as a coach, and they only see the coach side of him. I actually been fortunate enough to see the other side of him where I had a lot of conversations with him from that standpoint. Just helping me become a better father, helping me understand life a little bit more, and some of my tougher situations I to endure over the last two years and just sticking by me.
“Understanding that guys do have some bad times, guys do up sometimes but sometimes you got to have those guys there. You know it’s the guys there for the guys that mess up you know are just important. For me, having Coach Reid there was big because my father passed a few years ago – I lost my father in a house fire a few years ago – so you know the father figures are of lack at times.”
Reid has revitalized careers as a head coach, and there are so many examples of it throughout the league.
I mean one example is on the team right now in Jerick McKinnon, who has injuries that almost forced him into the role as a practice squad player.
But as Clark said, that’s all of the things he has done as a coach. There is so much more. Clark isn’t the only guy that Reid has served as a father figure for. That is what separates him from being just another great head coach.
