Booker T.'s students have gotten the message.
"He's really nice to be doing what he's doing for Booker T.," eighth-grader Tyra Hooper said. "Because most people, they really don't care. But it shows that he cares."
Said Deasya Holley, another eighth-grader: "He knows what some of us have to go through in life, and he wants to be a big difference in everybody's life at Booker T. Washington."
A kid who needed focus
Reed was not a model student in Shrewsbury. Sports, not school, dominated his early years. Ben Parquet is a student advocate for the St. Charles Parish, La., school system who met Reed at the behest of his wife, Dee, a teacher at Cameron Middle School. Dee told Ben of a charismatic young boy who could use his help.
"He wasn't a bad kid; he was mischievous," Parquet said. "He wasn't real focused on school work. I saw him as a youngster with great potential."
Reed was drifting toward an uncertain future when Parquet made a tactical decision. He asked the assistant superintendent of the school district to include Reed in a group of middle school students being promoted to high school. Reed was too old to continue playing sports in middle school, but was too young - by a week - to make the cutoff for high school. Parquet reasoned that Reed would have strayed if he stayed at Cameron, but going to Destrehan High would give him incentive to get on track.
In a move that continues to have positive repercussions, the school district granted Parquet's request. Reed went to high school, where he starred in football, basketball and track, and earned a scholarship to the University of Miami.
"If I hadn't gone to high school when Ben helped me get to high school, I wouldn't be here right now," he said before a recent Ravens practice.
Where would he be?
"No telling. Probably be back home coaching or something like that."
Reed stills views Parquet, 69 and semi-retired, as a mentor. Parquet thinks of Reed as family.
"I feel as close to him as if he was my own son," Parquet said. "He has a special place in my heart, not because he's successful, but because of what he does for the kids in the [Booker T. Washington] community. He makes me feel it was worth it."
Parquet wasn't the only one who saw something special in Reed. Jeanne Hall, a secretary at Destrehan High, and her husband, Walter, took Reed into their St. Rose home during his sophomore and junior years. The second-oldest of five brothers in Shrewsbury, Reed got his bearings in suburban St. Rose, and his parents recognized the benefit of getting away from home.
