Paul Reed is back in his hometown, not as a college basketball assistant coach as he did in recent years with the women’s basketball programs at Washington and California, but in a position of helping young students once again.
Reed, 52, is an in-school suspension intervention specialist at Mansfeld Junior High, his first year not coaching at the high school or college level since 2005, when he began his tenure as a girls basketball head coach at Tucson High.
“It’s challenging but I believe the kids need some support, someone to believe in them,” Reed said of his new position. “I enjoy that. They’re at an age that you can really provide some structure and be motivational for them.”
Reed’s eagerness to help youngsters develop in basketball forced him to create the “March Break Momentum” basketball camp Monday through Wednesday at the Roy Drachman Boys & Girls Club.
The camp, that takes place with students out of school on spring break this week, starts at 1 p.m. with high school boys getting trained, followed by girls from 2:45 to 4 p.m.
Middle-school boys will then be the focus of the camp from 4:15 to 5:45.
The registration fee is $75, covering all three days.
“I got back (to Tucson) in July, and I watched a lot of fall-league games between the boys and the girls, and I just felt like, man, the fundamentals of the game is gone,” said Reed, who was an assistant coach with the St. Mary’s women’s basketball team last season.
“I just want to help the guys and the girls. I feel like I don’t know more than anybody else, but I just have passion for the game. I just want to improve basketball in Tucson. … I think I have a little bit of experience just to give back, and I think that’s what we’re here for — to give back.”
Reed, a 1990 Amphi High School graduate, served as the girls’ varsity basketball coach at Tucson High from 2005-11 and at Cienega from 2012-14 before leaving to Long Beach State to begin his experience as a college assistant.
He led the Badgers to four state tournaments and three regional titles. He coached Cienega to a pair of appearances in the state tournament. He helped the Bobcats reach the Division II state finals for the first time in program history.
He finished with a 129-63 overall record at Cienega and Tucson.
Reed also spent three years as a head coach for the Tucson Heat Basketball Club and was the director and founder of the Lady Badger Basketball Camp. In the offseason, he specialized in player development of high school athletes in the Tucson area. He also worked individually with members of the Arizona basketball team when Niya Butts was the coach.
“If I can train or coach up one or two kids, that’s one or two kids more than I had before,” said Reed, who is trying to establish his name once again with a new generation of young players.
Reed was hired by Long Beach State in 2014 by head coach Jody Wynn, who took Reed with her to Seattle when she became Washington’s coach in 2017.
In 2021, he moved to California to coach under Charmin Smith and worked with the post players and assisted with defense while also leading recruiting efforts.
He left to St. Mary’s in 2023 and coached there for a season before returning to Tucson to be closer to his mother Karen.
He was raised in Tucson by his mom, who still occupies the house where he grew up. She was a cashier for more than 40 years at a Safeway on the westside of town.
“She’s my heart,” Reed said in a 2021 interview when he returned to Tucson with Washington. “She’s the one who taught me work ethic. She taught me how to build relationships and sustain great relations with people.”
Reed was as a standout football player for Vern Friedli at Amphi and also was one of the Panthers’ top basketball players.
The exposure to working with Arizona’s players coupled with his friendship with Tucson High star Rashida Jeffery were contributing factors to him coaching at the college level.
After her career with the Badgers from 1988 to 1992, Jeffery went on to play at USC, where Wynn and her husband Derek were assistant coaches.
“Jody and Rashida are best friends, so after my first year at Tucson High, Rashida was able to connect me with Jody and her husband at USC and I got to work their elite camp that summer,” Reed said. “It was a great experience. It was an opportunity for me to see top players in the West Coast.
“It was also an opportunity for me to see what a college environment was like. Just being able to work with those kids who were at a high-level camp — there were a lot of great athletes there — was a great experience for me as a coach starting out.”
Reed has built relationships with many involved with basketball development locally, including Pima coach Todd Holthaus, Tucson High boys coach Eric Langford, Sahuaro girls coach Steve Botkin and former Mountain View boys coach Corey Duck.
He said he may try to coach again at the high school level in Southern Arizona, but for now, he wants to work individually with young athletes to teach them skills and mentor them.
“I just love being in the gym,” he said. “Just to go watch basketball from the spectator’s standpoint has been great. Just to go in there and just watch basketball and kind of critique it and see, like, ‘Okay, these are what people are doing really well. Here’s what I think, to take people’s games to a different level.’
“I can add a little stuff to the bag.”
FOLLOW @JAVIERJMORALES ON TWITTER!
ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.
Recommended for you
