Celeb Shot: Bob Reed
The former Minnesota Viking weighs in on the state of the NFL before Super Bowl LVI...and remembers the late, great Marylou Whitney.
Before I’d even taken off my coat, Bob Reed was talking to me about the proper way to tackle. “We were taught to never tackle above the waist,” said the Saratogian and former Minnesota Viking, whom I’d met only briefly before our happy hour get-together at Morrissey’s. These days, he continued, football players are more concerned with getting themselves onto highlight reels, forgoing the tackling basics they were taught for more sensational above-the-waist take-downs. And that, Bob said, is when traumatic brain injuries come into play.
Now, this wasn’t completely out of the blue—Bob had just come from an interview with NewsChannel 13 about CTE, a type of brain trauma common among football players that entered mainstream consciousness after 2015 Will Smith movie Concussion. (You can catch Bob’s Channel 13 interview Sunday at 11am.) But I wanted to back up a bit—back before CTE was discovered in 2002, and even before the football career of Mike Webster, whose brain alerted scientists to CTE in the first place. Back all the way to the ’60s, when Bob made his NFL debut. So we grabbed our drinks—my ginger-garnished cocktail and his crystal-clear class of H20—found a quiet spot in the Adelphi lobby, and dove in.
—Natalie
Tell me a little about where you’re from and how you ended up here in Saratoga.
I was educated out in the San Francisco Bay area, went to University of the Pacific. From college, I went directly into the pros at Minnesota. From Minnesota, I went to play football in Canada—it came to about 10 years of professional football between the NFL and Canada. When I finished with the Toronto Argonauts, I came to New York City and lived in the Village for a number of years. A paper manufacturer offered me a position to be in charge of all the collegiate bookstores from Poughkeepsie, over to Maine, over to Buffalo, but I couldn’t live in the city any longer.
So you landed in Saratoga. Tell me about the local Caring for Kids program you launched and who was involved.
The retired NFL player credo was and still is “Caring for Kids.” I brought the program up here, because I couldn’t continue going down to New York. We would have a major charity golf tournament and the recipients were charities dealing with children. You’re supposed to have eight or nine professional athletes to run a Caring for Kids program. We didn’t have that many people here in the Capital District, so I got the NFL to let me have what they call associate board members. Marylou Whitney sat on my board. I had her, Paul Newman, Roy McDonald and Charlie Wood, who owned Great Escape. I asked those people to sit on the board and let me tell you, we got it done. We raised quite a bit of money.
What else were you doing at the time?
Tommy Dillon offered me a position over at Siro’s. He said, “Bob, I’d like you to be the face of Siro’s.” So I was associated with Siro’s for a number of years up until they they sold it and the new owners changed the attitude. They made it like it was the Horseshoe—people would come in there in tank tops. You couldn’t do that when I was there. When I was there, if you didn’t come in with $2,500 for dinner, then you weren’t there. It was the Super Bowl of horse racing.
Well isn’t that a nice segue? Who’s your pick for Sunday’s big game?
I think the Rams, looking at their roster man for man. I think that they should win this—they’re playing at home, it’s their field and they have a couple of athletes on that side of the fence, who, if they do their job, the Bengals don’t have the players to stop them. But it’s football. And we in America, we’re underdog folks. We’re second chance people. We always have been that. So you’ll find a lot of people pulling for Cincinnati, just because it’s a first for the young man who’s the quarterback and the second time Cincinnati’s ever been in this position.
How would you say the game has changed since you were playing in the ’60s?
Now the game is what you call vertical, which means they’re throwing the ball a lot. Back in the day you had to run. You didn’t have field goal kickers sitting by themselves—the field goal kicker had to play. You got to the 20-yard line and if you didn’t make the touchdown, then you felt that you didn’t do the full job. You talk about Tom Brady being the greatest quarterback ever, but if you throw 50 footballs in the game, you’ve got to make some touchdowns. When you ran the ball, imposing your will and pushing and shoving, at the end of the day, you started wearing down your opponent. It took all 11 of you to make it happen. Today, you might have just two or three people that are involved in a game.
What do you think of the NFL’s controversial overtime rule that allowed Kansas City to win against the Bills in overtime of the playoffs without the Bills ever getting possession of the ball?
I like the rule. The coin toss should not make you vulnerable just because you don’t have the ball. That’s the time for your defense—who’s being paid to do what they’ve been doing—to step up.
Now that sports betting is legal in New York, do you bet on NFL games?
No. I’ll wager in terms of you and I bet $5, but not because Vegas says you’ve got 3 points to your advantage.
Back to CTE. What do you think of the NFL’s response to the overwhelming evidence of traumatic brain injury among football players?
First they were in denial. And then when some of the players who had CTE donated their brain to science and showed that there is a problem, then the NFL decided to put money behind it to study that. It was so prevalent that it was going to affect the bottom line of the NFL, because the Pop Warner program, which is the seed of the NFL—those kids’ parents said “Noooo…you’re going to play soccer.” When the NFL became threatened, they looked at it differently and put rules in place. They call it protecting the player, but really it’s protecting the game and it’s protecting themselves and their bottom line.
Any thoughts on this year’s much–talked about hip hop halftime show?
Back in the day, the halftime shows would be a college band that was playing. The half time is not like it used to be, in particular when Florida A&M and those Black colleges would perform. They could hold the attention. Now, it’s a production, but the only ones who get any kind of impact are the people that are watching it on television. The 65-70,000 people that are sitting in the stands? They’re trying to get to the bathroom, they’re trying to get another hot dog, another beer before the guys come out. They don’t want to see all that sh** on the field, whatsoever. Half of them are mad because the score ain’t right. The other half are going home early.
The Super Bowl is Sunday and you are a retired NFL player, but this is Saratoga, and I just have to circle back to Marylou before we wrap up. Any memories of her that stick out in your mind?
Here’s a story. When I brought the NFL alumni golf tournament here, we had it at McGregor. Marylou’s job was to throw the football out like you throw a baseball out to start a game. This particular year, we had quarterback Earl Morral from the Miami Dolphins there. And Marylou wanted to take a snap. "That’s what you guys call it, right?” she says. “I want to take a snap.” I said, “OK, Earl, pretend to be the center.” So he got down into a three-point stance and I said, “You gotta put your hands like this.” So Earl had the ball and he got ready to give it to Marylou and she goosed him! In other words, her hand went up like this and Earl fell on his face and said “What the hell?!” And she said “I always wondered what would happen if the quarterback ever goosed the center!” She had that kind of sense of humor, and she was always there when we were doing fundraisers. Grand lady. I’m glad she was my friend.
ICYMI: This week in Saratoga Living After Hours
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Then, on Tuesday, paid SLAH subscribers were let in on the truth behind the rumor that Saratoga Spring Water was switching from its iconic blue bottles to clear ones. Want in on what’s really going on? (And the answer to Monday’s Game Time puzzle?) Click here.