Andy Reid, winner of three Super Bowls with the Kansas City Chiefs, is very hungry. Of victories and titles, but also of cheeseburgers (his favorite food), Häagen-Dazs ice cream (they have to be that brand, and if they don’t have them at the team’s concentrations, get a chicken) and Krispy Kreme donuts . Once, says an assistant of his, he braked hard on the highway because he saw a red light. Not at a traffic light, but in an establishment of that chain of buns. It meant, he explained, that they were fresh out of the oven and if you bought a dozen, they’d give you one for free.
Donuts, needless to say, fell by the wayside. Along with ice cream, family, football and religion (he is Mormon) have helped Reid overcome the drama of the 2012 death of his first-born son from an accidental drug overdose, and the prison stay of another. his children (in total he has had five) for leaving a five-year-old girl in a coma after running over her while driving under the influence of alcohol.
The Chiefs coach imposes discipline and has a manic obsession with details (he gets irritated if the players lean against the wall or wear any black clothing, that of the Raiders, a team he detests). But he is not authoritarian, but rather is seen as a father figure (Patrick Mahomes has said that he is like an uncle to him). He encourages expressing oneself and being oneself, and in that sense we must interpret the push that Travis Kelce gave him in the first part of the Super Bowl, irritated because he was not participating much in the game. He didn’t even flinch. After a while, number 87 grabbed him from behind and hugged him, and shortly afterward they celebrated together the 25-22 overtime victory over the 49ers.
Andy Reid only sleeps three hours a night, and gets up at five in the morning. No matter how early the players arrive at the stadium to prepare for Sunday’s game, he is always already there, with a box of donuts and a coffee on the desk in his office (his weight is a secret, and the journalists who interview him are warned not to ask about it, the same as about family tragedies). He has been married since he was a student at Brigham Young University in Utah, the Mormon state par excellence, and his wife asked him to convert to that religion (his father-in-law baptized him).
He was a college player, but had not managed a team at any level when the Philadelphia Eagles interviewed him to take over. He impressed management with a fat notebook full of ideas for strategies and plays that he had accumulated over the years, and the job was his. The owner, to celebrate, invited him to a steak restaurant. He was offered three types of steak to choose from. He said one of each.
Over the next fourteen years, he led the Eagles to the playoffs nine times and the conference finals five times, but failed to win the Super Bowl. A terrible campaign after the death of his son – although he organized the funeral so as not to disturb the preparation for the next game – led to him being fired, “so that he could rest for a while and dedicate himself to the family.” He didn’t follow the advice, and within four days he signed with the Chiefs. With Kansas City he has played in four of the last five finals, and won three.
Andy Reid grew up in Los Angeles (his father worked in movies), and now has his second home in Southern California. But he doesn’t like the beach. While his wife, his children, and twelve grandchildren play in the sand, he puts on a Hawaiian shirt, gets in his car, and drives around looking for the red light at his favorite donut chain.
