From Boise State to Germany to Uber Eats — and back again. Reid finds home as a coach.
James Reid was living with his grandmother in Seattle, driving for Uber Eats and delivering packages for Amazon when he knew he’d reached a crossroads in his life.
Looking in his rearview mirror at the packages that filled his backseat, he picked up the phone and called a friend.
This, he says, was rock bottom.
Reid’s professional basketball career in Germany recently had unraveled because of concussion complications just as he was about to crest the peak. As with any love, basketball had both rewarded and robbed him, but he couldn’t give it up.
“I just felt like the more time went by, basketball kept bringing me back in,” Reid said. “It’s what I’d always loved from the day I was born. I mean, I went to my first game at two weeks old.”
During that phone call, Reid realized the end of his playing career wasn’t an end at all. It was the push he needed to begin his life’s work.
Reid is now in his first season as a graduate assistant for the Boise State men’s basketball team, learning the ins and outs from Leon Rice, the very same coach who helped push his playing career to the next level.
“It’s been incredible,” Reid said. “When you think of this whole story, when you think of the last three years and what it’s been for me emotionally as you just go through the roller coasters of life in your own walk, and to end up kind of where it all took off from, with a lot of the same faces, and most importantly, the same feeling because of what Leon’s created here. I mean, it’s special.”
Becoming a Bronco
Boise State recruited Reid when he was playing for his father, Craig Reid, at Mountain View High in Bend, Oregon.
Reid was offered a walk-on spot, but not a scholarship, so he chose to play two seasons at College of Southern Idaho. The Broncos again offered Reid a walk-on role after his sophomore season, but a scholarship to play for Arkansas-Little Rock was too good to pass up.
When the UALR staff was let go at the end of Reid’s junior year, the Broncos came calling one last time.
“The deal was you pay for your sit-out year and then you’ll be on scholarship the year you play,” Reid said. “But you still had to earn it. But it was important enough to me to pay to be here, because I really believed in guys like Coach Rice and Boise State basketball.”
Reid played one season at Boise State in 2016-17, averaging 10 points and 2.4 rebounds per game as the Broncos finished 20-11 and advanced to the second round of the NIT. He shot 82.9 percent from the free-throw line, ranking No. 10 in Boise State single-season history at the time, and also led the Mountain West with 88.7 percent free-throw shooting in conference play.
Current Broncos Marcus Dickinson, Justinian Jessup, Alex Hobbs, Derrick Alston and Robin Jorch played with Reid.
“He was really smart. He was a really good leader,” Jessup said. “He just had a good sense of what to say at the right times.”
Rice recognized Reid’s potential as a coach from the beginning.
“I always say that when you get a coach’s kid, they’re like 10 years ahead of other guys because they’ve been around it all their life,” Rice said. “... I saw that in James. He’s just got such a good feel and such a good love of the game. He’s a natural-born coach, really. He’s a good leader, cares about kids and wants to make them better. So not only is he a good coach, but he’s a great fit for what we want to do.”
Closing one door
While his father had been a basketball coach for 40 years, Reid wasn’t ready to give up his playing career when he graduated from Boise State.
At 15 years old, Reid had written down three goals — win a state championship, play Division I and go pro.
He got second at state in high school, but the other two goals ended up with a check mark.
Reid signed with a German-based professional team called Phoenix Hagen. As Hagen’s starting point guard, Reid ranked among the top five in the league in scoring and assists. His team was sitting in fourth place out of 16 teams when his agent called to let him know several teams in the division above Hagen were interested in signing him.
And that’s when things fell apart.
“I basically ran into concussion problems,” Reid said. “I’d had a history of them growing up. I had a big head and a skinny body and I was willing to take charges. It didn’t go well for my concussion log.”
It was a back screen, not a direct hit to the head, that triggered the worst concussion symptoms of Reid’s career. He didn’t want to believe it, but he knew his playing days were over.
“Your brain isn’t healthy enough to be going through physical contact like that on a day-to-day basis,” Reid remembers a doctor telling him. “And the unfortunate part is, your brain doesn’t know if it’s basketball or not. It’s not the time to start snowboarding or wakeboarding. To this day, I think I’ve played basketball three times since I left two years ago. ... There was no decision in my mind to be made. If it was my knee, maybe. I’m kind of crazy like that, but this is your brain.”
Living in limbo
Side effects from the concussion left Reid depressed. He was angry and bitter. Basketball had betrayed him.
“I was so sick of the game at that point. I couldn’t do it,” Reid said. “I remember the first time I tried to go back to a gym just to watch a game. I just heard the balls bouncing and I walked right back out.”
Needing a change of scenery, he sold his house in Boise, packed up and moved in with his grandmother in Seattle.
To make ends meet while he tried to figure out where his life was headed, Reid tried to get a job driving for Uber. His license had expired while he was in Germany, so he wasn’t allowed to drive humans, just food. Then he picked up a second job with Amazon.
Desperately dissatisfied, he made a phone call that would change his life.
“I called my old team (Phoenix Hagen) and pitched them a position that I had kind of just come up with,” Reid said. “... They don’t have a budget. They don’t have scouting services or scouts, so I pitched a volunteer scout role for them. And my thinking was I want to stay around the game and see if a scout-type role is something I might like.”
Phoenix Hagen accepted the pitch on the spot, but Reid still needed a full-time job to pay his bills. He spent two months getting his real estate license only to realize “this is not me at all.”
He liked scouting, but missed the connection and camaraderie of a team. There was no denying it anymore, he was destined to be a coach.
Another door opens
When the 2018-19 college basketball season was nearing an end, Reid began reaching out to the many connections he’d made over his career to see if anyone would take him on.
“There were a few coaches, I won’t mention names, that quit taking my calls and texts,” Reid said. “I was just bugging them. I went to the Final Four this year just because that’s where all the job stuff happens, and I was swinging and missing on every front.”
While visiting his girlfriend in Arkansas, Reid received a call from Boise State assistant coach Mike Burns, who wanted him to speak with a recruit about the MBA program at Boise State. During the call, Reid joked with Burns that he was going to stop by Arkansas coach Eric Musselman’s house and ask for a job. Burns said since Rice knew Musselman well from their years as Mountain West rivals, Rice could call and put in a good word for him.
“I’m like, ‘Oh gosh, now I’ve got to call Leon and tell him I was messing with Burns,’ ” Reid said.
“I had to first clarify, ‘Hey, I’m not going to work for Musselman. I’m still mad at that guy. He beat us.’ “
Then he told Rice he’d love to be a volunteer coach for the Broncos.
“He was already my college coach. He was already a guy I look up to as a person. He’s a mentor, and that’s how he operates,” Reid said. “For him to even listen to me. I threw it out there like this could go one of two ways, but he listened. He bought in. … The loyalty he showed and the commitment he gave me was just like, I’ll run through a wall for that guy.”
Rice did not have any openings on his staff, but he worked with compliance to find a role for Reid anyway. Part of that deal meant he’d need to become a student again. Reid is now enrolled at Boise State working toward a master’s of athletic leadership. His official title with the Broncos is graduate assistant.
“He’s on his way. He’s gonna be a college coach, and he’s going to get opportunities,” Rice said. “I hope we can keep him as long as we can, because he’s a value to this program. It’s great to have former players come back. They can kind of teach the guys, ‘This is the way we do it.’ It’s passed down.
“I always talk about the value of being able to stay at a place for a while, we’re reaping one of the benefits of that to get former players who are coming back now and helping and giving to the program. And the way James is giving to this program is invaluable.”
Right where he belongs
Just like a full-time, paid assistant coach, Reid attends every Boise State practice, workout and game.
He’ll stay late with a player who wants to put up a few extra shots, and he often talks one-on-one with players during practice when they need a little help.
His former teammates say Reid has made a seamless transition from teammate to coach.
“He’s always there for you if you need someone to talk to. He always has good words to make you feel good about yourself and just has an open ear for you,” said Jorch, who was Reid’s roommate at Boise State. “Our relationship definitely has changed from player to player to more like coach-player now, but working out with him it’s almost like having a best friend coach you on the court. I love it.”
Reid knows he’s found his calling, too.
“I’m reminded every day by this staff and these players why this is more than the right thing. This is the best I’ve felt about my day to day in a long time,” Reid said. “We’ve got coaches you’re excited to learn from and work with. We’ve got players who are hungry to get better and easy to work for.”
UNC Wilmington at Boise State (3-2)
When: 7 p.m. Friday
Where: ExtraMile Arena, Boise (12,480)
Online stream: Mountain West Network
Radio: KBOI 670 AM (Bob Behler and Abe Jackson)
Series: This is the first meeting
Tickets: Tickets can be purchased at BroncoSports.com/tickets or at the door. Prices start at $10 for general admission.
