There may have been some surprise when Lehigh chose to replace the departing Billy Taylor with Brett Reed, who has no head coaching experience on his resume. But Mountain Hawk fans should not worry that their team is being led by a neophyte.

“I’ve essentially been preparing for this opportunity my entire life,” Reed said at Patriot League Media Day on Thursday. The son of a long-time high school and junior college coach, Reed called the job “the fulfillment of a lifelong goal.”

From a very young age, Reed knew he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps. “I saw the type of impact that he could have in the lives of student-athletes,” Reed said. “I knew that basketball was so much more than X’s and O’s. It was the impact on the life-lessons that student-athletes have that make them better in life. Ultimately, that was something that I thought could be such a powerful vehicle and mechanism to be a positive influence. I really think basketball is my calling.”

There were times in his life when Reed considered straying from that calling. After his playing days ended at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla., he earned a masters and Ph.D. from Wayne State University, before arriving at Bethlehem in 2002 as an assistant and later an associate head coach under Billy Taylor. When Taylor left during the off-season to take the head coaching job at Ball State, the Mountain Hawks athletic department felt comfortable enough with Reed to promote him to the top job. Reed received offers from Taylor to follow him to Ball State as an assistant before choosing to forge his own path at Lehigh.

“It was an exciting time, but it was also nerve-wracking because there was so much still to be done,” Reed said of the days and weeks after his promotion. “There was a lot to consider. I wanted to lay my personal stamp and my philosophy on the program.”

During this time, Reed drew on his years of preparation and planning to become a head coach. “Fortunately, I had a lot of time to make sure that I knew what I wanted to do if that opportunity presented itself,” he said.

Reed’s years under Taylor at Lehigh helped make the transition to head coach smooth. “We’ve remained consistent with many of the program’s standards that we’ve been able to have success with,” Reed said. He added that his familiarity with the roster of players, and their familiarity with him, means this is not a normal new-head-coach situation.

“It gives our players a great deal of confidence because they’ve had an opportunity to see me in action,” he said. “The role might be different, but my philosophy, my communication with the players, even my vision for the program was consistent with what we had in the past.”

Lehigh senior forward Bryan White agreed that Reed’s transition has been smooth. “Coach Reed recruited me, which made [the coaching change] so much easier,” White said. “I felt really comfortable with him coming in. I was ready to play. I knew what to expect from him, and he knows what to expect from myself and from the rest of the team.”

What Reed does expect from White and his teammates is to step up and take on added responsibility this year, with the graduations of three Lehigh starters from last season, including high-scoring team leader Jose Olivero.

“For many of our players, it’s an adjustment in their role,” Reed said, “to step up and be able to play a little bit stronger and greater role. There are bumps that we’ve hit in the road, but we’re learning and they’re picking things up.”

White said he relishes the chance to become a team leader. “I love the position that Coach Reed has put me in,” he said. “I have a lot of things to tell the younger players, having been here for three years. I talked to Coach Reed and he said it’s not necessarily what I say, but how I play, what I do, and they’re going to follow me in that sense. There are so many ways I can be a leader.”

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