A story of light for Sooners' Reed<br/><span class='hl2'>OU linebacker has dreams of playing in the NFL and being a good father</span>

NORMAN — Monrina Reed walked into St. Thomas More Catholic Church a few months back. She needed help with her rent.

She and her husband have two small children. Monrina had been sick, unable to work, and even then who would take care of the kids? Her husband's check brings in $616 a month. Their rent and electric bill averaged $630 a month.

You do the math.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul was willing to help. The volunteer organization is the world's most distinguished friend of the poor, helping the needy since 1833.

But a de Paul member first checked with the OU athletic department and was asked to refrain from helping. Aiding Monrina Reed with her rent was a possible violation of NCAA rules.

Monrina's husband is Mike Reed, a Sooner linebacker.

This is the shadowy underside of big-time college football. The sport of multimillion-dollar coaching contracts and multimillion-dollar bowl payouts and multimillion-dollar television deals, is built upon the backs of people like Mike Reed, who borrows soap from neighbors to take a shower and speed-trains 23-month-old daughter Makhya on the potty because he can't afford the Pampers and who slept on the floor of their west Norman apartment until his parents came from Florida in September and scrounged enough money to buy some second-hand furniture.

But Mike Reed's life is not a story of darkness. It is a story of light.

Mike Reed is in Oklahoma chasing two dreams. The football, you know about it. He wants to play on Sundays. Wants to be an NFL linebacker.

The other dream is less glamorous but richer in spirit. Mike Reed wants to be a father to his children and a husband to his wife.

In a sport filled with players, including Mike Reed himself not so long ago, who have children living hundreds of miles away, Reed has decided he will be absent no more.

So with a ready smile and a cheery heart, he lives in virtual poverty with Monrina and Makhya and 3-year-old Mike Jr.

"It's hard for me to live without 'em,” Reed said. "I need to see they're OK. I don't need to hear it over the phone.

"If we're going to struggle, we're going to struggle together.”

Mike Reed makes us ask: Who's the real all-American?

• • •

Eddie and Willie Mae Reed raised their grandson. He calls them his parents. They raised him to be God-fearing. Raised him to be a family man.

Mike Reed hasn't always listened. While in a California junior college, Reed was arrested for possession of stolen property and spent 30 days in jail. Monrina was back in Florida with Mike Jr.

But good raising usually takes. It took to Mike Reed.

Reed transferred to a different school, stayed out of trouble and became one of the nation's top recruits. He signed with OU because of defensive coordinator Brent Venables and the Sooner linebacking tradition.

And last spring, after spending a semester alone at OU, Reed heeded the words of Willie Mae.

"I raised him that you've got your children and you love the mom,” Willie Mae Reed said.

"They were talking about shacking up. Marriage is honorable. You be married, and God will bless you.”

So in May, Mike and Monrina married, and he brought his family to Oklahoma.

Venables wasn't thrilled when he found out. Venables knew what such a load could mean, but what kind of system encourages a man to be apart from his family?

"He's a terrific person,” Venables said. "The way he has handled himself, you have so much respect for him.

"The biggest issue for him, he's been overwhelmed. A lot on his mind. Slowed his transition here. He came with a lot on his plate.”

You'd be overwhelmed, too, if your wife was pregnant and had an appendectomy and there was no money to feed your kids.

Reed was supposed to be the next Torrance Marshall, the next Lance Mitchell.

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