As for Reed, he has never held a head coaching job on any level. Although he has served in an advisory role at his alma mater, the University of Miami, he has also never coached college football. While no one can dispute Reed’s reported due diligence before taking the job at the Daytona Beach, Fla., school, when one listens to
his complaints about
the dysfunction among the administration, the board of trustees, the athletic facilities, the lack of resources and even the school’s location, one can’t help but wonder:
Where the hell did he think he was going to work?
Had he done his research, Reed would have known that his place of employment has been dogged by mismanagement, infighting and outright corruption long before he joined B-CU. Interim President Lawrence M. Drake is the fifth person to lead the 119-year-old institution in the last 10 years, and B-CU has only recently retreated from the precipice of losing its accreditation. A
2019 financial audit revealed that the university had suffered “recurring, significant operational losses, [was] operating under a probationary accreditation status, and its borrowing arrangements are subject to acceleration by the creditors due to a technical default, all of which “raise substantial doubt about [Bethune-Cookman’s] ability to continue as a going concern.” In my previous conversations with the officials from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), they cited the dysfunctional board of trustees as a major cause of the school’s problems. This is the same board that Reed assumed would rubber-stamp his employment contract.
But Ed Reed didn’t want to work at a functional, well-run university, because a functional, well-run university would never hire Ed Reed. This does not excuse the way Bethune-Cookman handled Reed’s hiring. But it is interesting to note that Reed is holding his potential employer to a standard of professionalism that he himself does not uphold.