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CWPA Hall of Fame Member Ed Reed Featured in Tuscalossa News
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Collegiate Water Polo Association Hall of Fame coach and current Officiating Technical Committee member Ed Reed knows a thing or too about championships in water polo and swimming. He added to his list of accomplishments in August as he won two medals at the United States Masters Swimming Long Course Meters Nationals.
A three-time national champion as Reed, 65, became the 2009 national champion in the 65-69 age group in the 400 individual medley at the U.S. Masters Swimming Championships in Indianapolis, Ind, with a time of 6:38.23. He previously captured the 200-yard breaststroke short-course masters crownn and a master long-course 200-meter IM championship he won in 1972 at the age of 29.
A standout swimming coach at Tufts University, Brown and the University of Alabama, his achievement was recently featured in the August 25 edition of the Tuscaloosa News. Click here for the complete story.
A 2003 inductee to the CWPA Hall of
Fame, Reed began his coaching tenure at Brown University in 1971
when he was named head coach of the men’s varsity swim team
and club water polo team. In 1974, the men’s water polo team
achieved varsity status as he built the program into an East Coast
powerhouse.
Reed never experienced a losing season at Brown, compiling a
career record of 420-159-5 in 20 years at the helm. In fact, during
a nearly five-year span in the 1980’s his Brown squad did not
lose a game against an Eastern collegiate opponent. He led the
Bears to 17-consecutive New England Championships and four Eastern
Championships, including three straight from 1983-85, and a record
ten Eastern Championship final appearances. Under Reed, the team
made eleven NCAA tournament appearances, finishing sixth in 1983,
1984 and 1985.
Under Reed, Brown accomplished a pair of Eastern collegiate water
polo firsts. The 1984 squad finished the season with a #6 ranking
in the American Water Polo Coaches’ Association poll, the
best ever for a school from the east. The Bears’ 1986 home
victory over 4th-ranked Pepperdine constituted the first time an
East Coast school defeated a top five nationally ranked team.
Seventeen student-athletes earned All-America honors while playing
for Reed at Brown. He received Eastern Water Polo League Coach of
the Year honors in 1987 and 1989. He was inducted into the Rhode
Island Aquatic Hall of Fame in 1986, the Brown University Athletic
Hall of Fame in 1996 and the United States Water Polo Hall of Fame
in 1999.
He also contributed to the sport on the national level, serving on
the coaching staff of the United States Men’s National Water
Polo Team from 1993-96. He worked with the 1995 U.S. squad that won
the gold medal at the Pan American Games in Argentina and was an
assistant coach for the seventh-place U.S. team at the 1996 Olympic
games in Atlanta. He was also elected President of the American
Water Polo Coaches Association and served on several committees for
United States Water Polo.
Reed was a two-time All-America as a swimmer at Springfield
College, winning the 1965 New England Intercollegiate Championship
in the 200 meter individual medley. He started his coaching career
at Tufts University in 1966.
He retired in the spring of 2008 as the Aquatic Center Manager for
the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala., but continues to
give back to the sport of water polo as a referee evaluator as part
of the CWPA Technical Committee.
He and his wife Andy reside in Tuscaloosa and have two children,
Scott and Kerrie. Scott is the head coach of the George Washington
University men’s and women’s water polo teams, carrying
on the family water polo tradition.
