Reid back for 2021 season
Coach took 8-week leave of absence in condensed 2020 season
Whenever UConn coach Ray Reid finally steps away from college soccer, it won’t be the result of a pressing need to explore hobbies or passions that have been on hold. His retirement won’t signal a mad dash toward later-in-life goals.
“I don’t really fish,” Reid said Wednesday at Morrone Stadium, where the Huskies open the season Aug. 27 against Bryant. “I don’t read a lot. I don’t swim. This is what I do. It’s what I like doing. I like being around kids, I like being around coaches and I like competing. My wife would like me to retire, but that’s not going to happen. To be truthful, I’ve just got to be very cognizant of my parents’ health.”
So much of what Reid, 61, has accomplished and celebrated over 40-plus years has come under the watchful eyes of his mother, Joan, a fiery woman of Dutch and German descent, and his father, Ray, a stressfree Scottish immigrant who as a teen eagled the 18th hole at the Old Course at St. Andrews.
They raised him in Brentwood, N.Y., on Long Island. They were in attendance for his games as a player at Southern Connecticut, for his six years as an assistant coach at his alma mater in New Haven, for his eight years there as head coach. They have often been in Storrs, too, throughout his 24 seasons at UConn.
Joan, 84, and Ray, 85, have seen their son win national championships — four Division II titles at Southern, one in Division I at UConn. They have joined him for preseason camps, where Joan points out which players are working hard and which aren’t, and for MLS drafts to celebrate the selection of UConn players.
They have been present. Every season. Until they couldn’t be.
So Reid went to them for an eight-week stretch beginning in late February, which meant leaving his team and professional home since 1997 as the Huskies held together a condensed season that was moved and squeezed into a COVID logistical nightmare.
Reid’s parents were visiting his Niantic home in early February. Around 4 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 8, hours after watching Super
Bowl LV, his father fell walking from the bedroom to the bathroom and broke five ribs. He was hospitalized in Connecticut for the rest of the week before returning to Long Island.
Reid’s mother had gone through a scary incident in June 2020, suffering a dizzy spell while driving. She pulled over, vomited and spent four days in the hospital. Reid said she suffered either a stroke or a series of mini-strokes. Joan hasn’t quite been herself since.
So help was needed with Reid’s father’s recovery, complicated by his dementia and hearing loss. The family paid an aide $3,000 a week for several weeks; Reid’s mother, a prideful woman, preferred family. Reid stayed at their Great Neck, N.Y., home until late April, returning to UConn after the Huskies had finished 1-6-1 under associate head coach Mike Miller.
“I couldn’t stay any longer,” he said. “I love my parents, but they have a very small place. And my father’s always cold. He’s sitting there with a sweatshirt on, and it’s almost like an oven . ... I got my good qualities and my bad qualities from (my mother). Man, she’s tough. My father is very laid back, very easy going. My father is a lot like Neal Eskin. My mom is a lot like Lew Perkins.”
Eskin is UConn’s executive associate athletic director. He is the athletic department’s affable “Hey buddy!” shaker of hands at events — and supervisor for six sports.
Perkins was UConn’s athletic director in 19902003. He was the department’s intense, domineering leader in an era of growth he pushed for.
Had spring featured normal workouts instead of games that were pushed out of the fall due to COVID, Reid said he might not have taken official leave. He would have done a lot of back-and-forth and disappeared for stretches. Given that the Huskies were actually in the midst of a season, though, he felt it was important to be all in or all out.
Reid didn’t meddle with Miller’s business, deeming it unfair to offer his opinion from 100 miles away as the Huskies struggled on the field and, like most programs, to keep their operation running.
“Anybody moved to the spring, they were doing us a favor, letting us play,” Reid said. “It was better than nothing for the players, but I would not say it was any type of experience. … So many moving parts. Who tested positive? Who got a false positive? Oh, my God.”
UConn was down to 15 players at one point, no way to prepare. Still, it counted as UConn’s second consecutive losing season (5-12-1 in 2019). None of Reid’s previous 30 teams had finished with a losing record.
The Huskies won the national championship in 2000 and appeared in the NCAA Tournament 16 years in a row, a streak that ended in 2014. UConn floundered a bit as a member of the American Athletic Conference. The Huskies, now back in the Big East, have missed the NCAAs four of the past five years, losing to Indiana in the second round in 2018.
“Everybody understands the expectations here,” said senior midfielder Felix Metzler, of Germany. “When we talk about my career, I don’t think it’s met the standard. Secondround NCAA, that was good for the team — but not for the program. And everything that has happened since, clearly, is not an improvement.”
Said Ahdan Tait, a senior midfielder from Bridgeport: “Brand new stadium, new talented guys and an edge coming off last season. Now we get to enjoy this amazing facility, this amazing time . ... Last year was a learning experience. We’re ready to apply our lessons.”
Said Reid: “We’ll get it back. We’ll get it back this year.”
Reid said players have had “nothing close to a UConn environment” since the close of the 2018 season. Construction of Morrone was under way in 2019, forcing UConn to practice inside and to play home games in Hartford. Also that year, the Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) virus — “That mosquito thing,” Reid said, “that, when it gets dark, they could kill you” — pushed many games to afternoons. Last year’s schedule was moved and, in the spring, Reid had to temporarily choose real family over soccer family.
Joan was a stay-at-home mom during Reid’s childhood and later spent 25 years working in insurance. Reid’s father arrived in America, via boat, to live on Long Island with an uncle in the 1950s. He worked in New York City as a printer and started a soccer club in Great Neck. He met Joan after she attended one of his games.
Both will be at Morrone Aug. 27. Joan, Type A, will likely sit in the stands. Ray, Type B, will likely watch from Reid’s office overlooking the field.
“I’ll be very blessed, hopefully, to make a good run this year,” Reid said. “And they can be part of it.”
As always.