When Jim Reid entered college coaching, he made a promise to his wife: Football would not be a "transient" profession. He spent the first 19 years of his collegiate career at the University of Massachusetts, where he planned to "live and die."
Eighteen years and seven different coaching jobs later, it may be time for Reid to deliver on that promise.
After spending two years as the outside linebackers coach for the Miami Dolphins, Reid bid the Florida sunshine goodbye and joined the Virginia coaching staff. New Virginia head coach Mike London named Reid defensive coordinator and associate head coach Jan. 7.
"Coach Reid brings passion and energy to the program and is an excellent people person guy," London stated in a University press release. "He is a former head coach and is a well respected person throughout the state of Virginia. I feel confident our defensive players will come to love and respect him."
The two coaches are quite familiar with each other. Fifteen years ago, it was Reid, then-head coach at Richmond, who brought London onto his staff as the recruiting coordinator and outside linebackers coach. And though London is known for taking Richmond to its highest peak - winning the Football Championship Subdivision national championship in 2008 - Reid had his own share of success during his nine-year tenure. A two-time Atlantic 10 Conference Coach of the Year, Reid left Richmond after the 2003 season as the third-winningest coach in program history with 48 victories and captured the Spiders' first-ever 10-win season in 2000.
Now subordinate to the man he once hired, Reid may be unsure as to what his position as associate head coach entails, but he said he is confident about working with London to fulfill his vision.
"Any coach I've ever hired has never worked for me - he's worked with me," Reid said. "I believe coach London has the vision, he has the plan, he has the detail, and now we'll all work with him to make sure that plan gets implemented."
Reid's ties to the University extend beyond his relationship with London. As an assistant coach at Syracuse for two years during the early 1980s, head coach Dick MacPherson instructed Reid to observe "the finest coach in America" during Spring Break. Reid assumed he would travel to Oklahoma, Nebraska, Michigan or Ohio State to pick the brains of college football behemoths. To his surprise, Reid was sent to Navy, the then-home of future Virginia coach George Welsh.
Reid said MacPherson gave him several specific instructions: "'I want you to watch coach Welsh. I want you to watch his organization. I want you to watch the detail with which he runs the program, the energy which the players play with. I want you to listen to him and I want you to observe that. You'll become a much better coach.'"
When Welsh moved on to Virginia in 1982, he welcomed competition from Reid's Spiders. Welsh's successor, Al Groh, allowed Reid to work his camps and watch film.
"I was able to get a flavor of the University, up close and a little bit personal," Reid said. "So you have a little bit more of a feeling for the University than just playing them and leaving or driving through, and you get a chance to meet some folks. It's a terrific opportunity."
But with this opportunity comes many challenges - first and foremost, converting a Virginia defense that operated in the 3-4 scheme under Groh to a 4-3, which London has said he will implement.
Reid has employed both schemes throughout his career. Though he used a 4-3 at Richmond, he worked most recently with the 3-4 while coaching for the Dolphins. He has not yet been able to look at tape of his new defense - which ranked sixth in the ACC in total defense in 2009 - but he did offer his general defensive philosophy regarding the front seven.
"The idea of defense and defensive line play is that you gotta be tough," he said. "You gotta be able to use your hands and you gotta be able to get up the field - whether you're trying to defeat a block in two-gap in 3-4 or whether you're trying to one-gap and get up the field and defeat blocks on the edge. They're interchangeable, and certainly from a technique standpoint, a 3-4 defensive lineman can be a shade 4-3 defensive lineman."
Reid has added different defensive wrinkles to each team he has helped coach during the last 36 years - Massachusetts, Richmond, Boston College, Syracuse, Bucknell, VMI and finally the Dolphins. And at 59 years of age, he would like to think he has hit his final road stop at Virginia.
After this last coaching move, Reid received a reminder from his wife: "'You remember that promise you made to me several years ago?'"
With a chuckle, Reid said he gave her his word - one last time.
"I had to make that promise again, so as long as we can do a good job here - no, no, I know we'll do a good job - as long as I do a good job here for the University of Virginia and coach London and I'm able to stay here and win some championships - I remember George Welsh telling me when he redid the facility here, 'We did it right, we can win a national championship,'" Reid said. "So, that's the goal"
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