Reed Stringer’s coaching career stood upon the edge of a knife, teetering on disaster.
After serving less than a year under Jackie Sherrill, the 13-year head coach abruptly announced his retirement six games into the 2003 season.
Fear and disappointment crept into the 24-year-old graduate assistant’s mind when he heard the news. He questioned his future as a football coach, especially at Mississippi State.
He knew that Sherrill would be leaving at the season’s end, but he was afraid he might be, too.
“It was a pretty scary situation,” Stringer said. “You still thought about football and football was the most important thing, but in the back of your mind you knew there was about to be a lot of changes.”
Stringer reflected on his first year at State, the year the Mississippi State football program hit rock bottom by losing their first four games before winning their only two of the season in a dreadful 2-10 finale to the Jackie Sherrill era.
“It was difficult for everybody that was involved, coaches, players, fans everybody that was involved with the university because a lot of things happened,” Stringer said. “To start off the season like we did and at the same time wondering if you’d have a job the next semester.”
Changes indeed came to the Mississippi State football program; changes that were greatly needed.
Sylvester Croom was hired on Dec 3, 2003. Croom, who came to State after serving 17 years in the NFL, retained wide receivers coach Guy Holliday and linebackers coach Jim Tompkins, who is now Coordinator of Player Relations.
Everyone else, with the exception of the four graduate assistants, was fired from their post.
Before leaving for Christmas break, only a week or two after Croom’s hiring, the graduate assistants met with their new head coach to discuss their jobs.
“Coach Croom called all the (four) GA’s in before we left for Christmas right after he was hired,” Stringer recalled. “He brought us in, and said we are going to have a chance to come back, but it was a training period. He wasn’t promising us anything.”
From that moment on, Reed Stringer knew he had to get to know his new boss. He had to connect with him. He had to find a way to bond with Croom, but how?
With such a busy schedule, traveling from Green Bay to Starkville several times a week, there was no time to spend with State’s new head coach.
Stringer thought of only one way to do this: become Croom’s personal chauffeur.
“After they announced coach Croom was hired, what I did was every time coach Croom flew into Columbus GTR [Airport], I went and picked him up,” Stringer said. “Or every time he needed to catch a flight at 5:30 or 6 in the morning, I took him out there. We had a chance to talk about football and talk about different things. I think that really helped.”
After spring practice concluded that year, two of the four graduate assistants left Mississippi State to take positions elsewhere, while Reed Stringer and defensive GA Paul Gonnella remained with the Bulldogs.
It was a rough first year for the new coaching staff. Losing to Maine and Vanderbilt was not what the new regime expected, but then again beating Florida wasn’t either.
Only a couple of months after Sylvester Croom’s first Egg Bowl, running backs coach Stan Drayton left Mississippi State to join newly-hired Florida head coach Urban Meyer.
Drayton’s absence caused a chain reaction in the coaching carousel, and the beneficiary was Reid Stringer.
The young GA, who less than a year ago was afraid for his job security, was now a position coach in the greatest conference in college football.
“I had an idea that I might be able to get the job,” Stringer recalled. “When coach Drayton left, my mind started thinking that, and I didn’t want to get too excited, but I knew how great of an opportunity it would be.” Finally one morning, Stringer’s phone rang. It was Croom. He wanted to speak with him in his office at once.
Stringer’s eyes widened at this point in the interview, and his heart pounded just recalling his meeting with Croom, the meeting that changed his life.
“When he finally called me in that morning, I was really excited because this was when he was going to say ‘I want you to have the job’ or ‘I don’t think you’re quite ready,’ which is good because I just wanted him to tell me something,” Stringer said. “And he just straight up asked me ‘do you think you can coach tight ends.’ I had a big smile on my face and told him ‘yes sir I think I can.'” As if he would say anything else. A misty-eyed Stringer then continued.
“That was about three or four weeks before it came out. He asked me to keep it quiet until recruiting was done. It was kind of hard not telling some people,” Stringer said. “Of course, everybody [in the football office] knew, and it started getting out. It was one of those things where you wanted to run out of the office and tell everybody you see. It was a really, really good time for me.”
Sylvester Croom says it wasn’t at all a difficult decision to promote the hard-working Stringer.
“I like the way he worked,” Croom said. “It wasn’t a big decision. I know he’s going to work at it and get better.”
On Feb. 7th, Reed Stringer officially became the tight ends coach of the Mississippi State football team. Freddie Kitchens, the former tight ends coach, replaced Drayton as running backs coach.
Stringer recently finished his first spring practice as the coach of the tight ends, which is probably the deepest and most talented position on the MSU offense.
“He’s doing a good job, but he’s still got a lot to learn,” Croom said. “But he’s a heck of a lot further a long than I was at his age.”
Sophomore tight end Eric Butler experienced a change of authority this year with Stringer’s promotion, but he says he didn’t mind. He said Stringer is doing a great job at teaching the tight ends, just as Kitchens did before him.
“He knew the system from last year,” Butler said. “He’s followed right on in behind [Kitchens], doing a good job of teaching us.”
Defensive backs coach Shane Beamer can relate to Stringer. Beamer, only a year older than Stringer, came to Mississippi State from a graduate assistant post at Georgia Tech.
“I got my first full-time job in the SEC coming straight from being a GA,” Beamer said. “Obviously that’s the same situation with him. I can relate to him in a lot of ways. He’s done a great job.”
Stringer, a former offensive lineman and four-year letterman at Delta State, helped DSU capture their first Division II national championship in 2000.
He was instrumental in leading Delta State to the 1998 and 2000 Gulf South Conference championship.
He graduated from the Cleveland, Miss., based institution in 2001 with a degree in business management.
Stringer also completed his master’s degree work in business administration from DSU in 2003, and will earn a second master’s degree in science and technology from Mississippi State University this spring.
A foundation was built in Sylvester Croom’s first season, a foundation that Stringer hopes will one day hold a strong and winning football program.
Now, with his promotion, Reed Stringer will be right in the thick of things when that foundation holds the house that Sylvester Croom is working so hard to build.