Furm's Take: Recommending A Very Good Reed
By Cory Furman
Assistant Athletics Director, Messiah College
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Posted June 9, 2008
Senior Amy Reed's journey to the 2008 NCAA heptathlon national championship was far tougher than most could imagine.

Grantham, PA — The smell of fish had become unbearable.

It was mid-winter 2007 and then-freshman Amanda Naeher could not figure out why her dorm room, her clothes, herself had begun to smell of rotting trout.

“It was awful,” Naeher said. “I don’t know what it would compare to. I’ve smelled bad smells before, but this was off the charts.”

Of course, there was a logical explanation. Naeher was the victim of a retaliatory prank, as a 13-inch rainbow trout was filleted, then inserted via a slit into her dorm-room mattress.

It stayed there for over 10 days, turning Naeher’s on-campus residence into a recurring visit to Funkytown.

“I don’t know how I lived in that room for that amount of time with a fish three inches under my pillow,” Naeher said, laughing. “I remember people walking on my floor and stopping dead in their tracks saying, ‘There is something seriously wrong on this floor.’”

A member of the Messiah College women’s basketball team, Naeher would soon learn of the mastermind behind the entire ordeal.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2008 NCAA Division III Heptathlon National Champion, Ms. Amy Reed!

(Insert cymbal claps.)

“Myself and a teammate had played a prank on Amy earlier that fall, and I guess I thought it was over,” Naeher said. “Well, it most certainly wasn’t.”

That would be an accurate assessment. A notorious practical jokester, Reed had pulled off a prank worthy of legendary status within the Falcons’ women’s basketball program.

“Has she told you the fish story?” Messiah head women’s basketball coach Mike Miller asked me when I approached him about this column. “Have her tell you the fish story.”

Well, I heard the fish story. From several different accounts. But the more I learned about Amy Reed, the more that story made perfect sense.

A Personality To Pull Things Off

Reed blames her dad for the fish.

“I get it from him,” she said during a cross-country drive to her Wenatchee, Washington home last week. “He loves practical jokes, and I enjoy pranks. I enjoy scaring people. But it’s done in fun. I would never cross the line with that type of thing.”

Naeher would agree. A year and a half later, the fish-er and the fish-ee are best of friends. Of course, Reed understands that every good prank ends with some type of restitution. After letting Naeher in on the joke, Reed went dorm-to-dorm collecting spare change to pay for a new mattress.

“I think she called it the Mandy prank fund,” Naeher said. “She collected a lot of money. Enough that I didn’t have to pay a cent for a new mattress. But that’s just who she is. She has the personality and attitude that makes you love her more after something like that. Looking back on it, I think that kind of kick-started our friendship. I mean, you never want to have a fish in your mattress, but as a freshman I almost felt special that she felt she could play around with us like that. She’s just one of the most positive, upbeat people I’ve ever met in my life.”

And with that comment, perhaps the underlying reason for Reed’s incredible athletic achievements during her four years at Messiah College is unearthed. Just two weeks ago, Reed set an NCAA Division III Championships record with 5,111 points in the heptathlon, leading to just the third individual national championship in the school’s storied history. She also earned All-American honors in the javelin throw at last month’s NCAA Championships, bringing her All-American trophy collection to five. She was named the USTFCCCA National Women’s Field Athlete of the Year just days before the championship meet, capping a career that included three Mid-Atlantic Conference and NCAA Mideast Regional Field Athlete of the Year awards as well.

Of course, Reed served a key role on the Falcons’ women’s basketball team over the last four years, helping the club to an appearance in this year’s NCAA Division III National Championship game and a composite record of — ahem — 107 wins and just 13 losses.

“She is one of the most amazing athletes I’ve ever been around,” said Messiah athletic trainer Wendy Cheesman. “And when I say athlete, I mean that in every sense of the word. To do what she’s done takes incredible work ethic, time management and perseverance. She is incredible.”

And to think, it would have been easy for Reed to give it all up years ago.

The Uphill Climb…Twice

Amy Reed played exactly three seconds of basketball as a senior at nearby Gettysburg High School.

It was November 28, 2003, and Reed was making a triumphant return to the hardwood after missing the latter half of her junior season following an ACL tear in her left knee. She had missed her junior-year track season entirely, rehabbing the knee after tearing the ligament January 4th.

She was now back on the court, ready for the season-opener against Waynesboro High School. The ball was tipped, and it came in Reed’s direction. She planted firmly to try and save it from going out of bounds, and an all too familiar feeling came over her.

This time, it was her right knee.

“I knew it as soon as it happened,” Reed said. “I planted to save the ball, and I felt it. When you tear an ACL, you never forget how it feels. It was the exact same sensation.”

I was told the groans from the crowd in the gym that night were sickening to hear. But come on. No one plays just three seconds of their first game back from an ACL tear and tears their other ACL.

But it happened to Amy Reed.

“At first I didn’t believe it was happening,” Reed said, reminiscing. “I think I was shocked more than anything. The first time, I just didn’t know what was going on. The second time, I was angry. You’ve got to be kidding me. But at least the second time, I knew what to expect. I knew I could do it again.”

Cheesman said that’s easier said than done.

“With ACL tears, ignorance is bliss,” Cheesman said. “People don’t understand what it takes to come back from one, let alone two. The rehab — especially back then — is long and tedious. For Amy to know exactly what was in store, I think it would have been easy to just be lazy and not work as hard.”

Incredibly, she worked harder.

Refusing to miss yet another track season, Reed rehabbed to the point where doctors reluctantly allowed her to participate in only the javelin throw as a senior — all while wearing two enormous, hinged knee braces.

On her final throw in the district championships, Reed qualified for the Pennsylvania Class 4A High School State Championships.

She would finish in eighth place.

“People don’t understand how hard it is to run wearing two Don Joy knee braces while trying to keep the hinges from knocking,” said Nate Reed, Amy’s dad. “She looked like a duck.”

Complications came later in both knees, as Reed had arthroscopic surgery in April of 2003 on one and in October of 2004 on the other.

“That was about the time I thought she was going to become an orthopedic surgeon,” her dad remembered.

But the injuries were not going to define Amy Reed, or her athletic career.

A Lifelong Balance

To hear Reed discuss her ACL tears and subsequent surgeries, you would think she was talking about someone else.

“It was just so long ago,” she says. “I honestly never think about my knees anymore. They’ve really been great. I am thankful that I tore them both in high school, though.”

Exactly.

What?

“I mean, it was obviously going to happen to me sooner or later,” she continues. “I think it was actually a blessing to have them both go out in such a short time. It would have been awful to have to go through something like that in college.”

There is to be no pity party for Amy Reed now. Nor is there to be any discussion that her injuries somehow served as a vehicle for her choice of Messiah College. An athlete with NCAA Division I track and field looks as a sophomore in high school, Reed said she wanted to participate in both basketball and track while in college.

She also wanted a Christian atmosphere.

“It was Messiah from the beginning,” she said. “I visited some (NCAA Division I schools), but it didn’t feel quite right. I knew in the back of my mind I’d be at Messiah.”

From the basketball side, anyway, Miller now appears as if he had a crystal ball stashed away somewhere in the winter of 2003-2004.

“We don’t recruit just people, but families,” Miller said. “We knew Amy was good enough to play for us long before her senior year in high school, but we also really liked her family. The proximity from here to Gettysburg helped us develop a really good relationship during her four years of high school. It never dawned on us that she would come here off of two knee surgeries and still be fearless, though. She’s the ultimate competitor. And that’s a big reason we’ve been as successful as we have.”

Reed’s four years of basketball-track soup culminated just weeks ago with her heptathlon championship, her final experience as a college athlete. But — much like her thoughts on her knees — there is no feeling sorry that it’s all over now.

Reed was the keynote speaker at the Central Pennsylvania High School Hall of Fame Inductee Dinner in mid-May. Her message to over 100 high school athletes in attendance was insightful, mature and incredibly balanced.

“I basically talked about how for a lot of athletes, you grow up playing sports your whole life and it consumes the majority of your time,” she said. “It’s your top priority. But there comes a point in life — whether it’s graduation or an injury — that it can’t define you. My identity isn’t in track and basketball, it’s my faith in Jesus Christ.”

And so, it all adds up. The fish prank that brought two people closer together. The ACL tears that don’t matter now. The numerous athletic awards, achievements and successes that you will not hear Amy Reed talking about anytime soon.

It’s the perfect balance. In all areas of life.

“I’ve always thought that of Amy Reed,” said Dale Fogelsanger, Messiah track and field head coach. “She is so balanced in everything she does. She’s driven, but is very humble. She’s focused, but she’s very poised. She’s always set high goals for herself and has gracefully handled the pressure that came with trying to attain those goals.”

Miller echoed those thoughts.

“Amy always competed so hard, but at the end of the day, she just wants to enjoy life,” he said. “And more than that, she wants those around her to enjoy life.”

Reed graduated from Messiah last month with a 3.81 grade point average. She was named the school’s Female Athlete of the Year. She’s already accepted a position with Sawyer Products, a company focused on water filtration and other outdoor protection products. Amy will work in part with hikers and campers in the wilderness of the northwest.

Should she come across a trout-filled stream out there, she will probably smile.

The best part, though, is everyone that truly knows Amy Reed is already smiling right along with her.


Cory Furman is the assistant athletics director for public relations and marketing at Messiah College. His monthly column, “Furm’s Take” does not necessarily represent the views of Messiah College or the Messiah College department of athletics. Have a comment? Click here to send him an email.