Early Life and Education
Reed was born in 1942 in Hico, Louisiana and named after his father. He grew up on a farm in nearby Bernice. His parents worked to ensure Reed got an education in the segregated South. Reed showed athletic ability at an early age and played basketball at West Side High School in Lillie.
He attended Grambling State University, a historically black college. Reed amassed 2,280 career points, averaging 26.6 points and 21.3 rebounds during his senior year. He led the college to one NAIA title and three Southwestern Athletic Conference Championships. Reed also became a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity.
Read more about this topic: Willis Reed
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“O troubled forms, O early love unfortunate and hard,
Time has estranged you into a jewel cold and pure;”
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
“Either life entails courage, or it ceases to be life.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“How to attain sufficient clarity of thought to meet the terrifying issues now facing us, before it is too late, is ... important. Of one thing I feel reasonably sure: we can’t stop to discuss whether the table has or hasn’t legs when the house is burning down over our heads. Nor do the classics per se seem to furnish the kind of education which fits people to cope with a fast-changing civilization.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)