Hot dogs, sumo wrestling and sex ed: Former coach, player recall Andy Reid’s early coaching days at San Francisco State

Long before he was winning Super Bowls and building a resume as one of the best NFL coaches of all time, Andy Reid called San Francisco home for few years in the early 1980s.

After graduating from BYU, Reid started his now Hall-of-Fame coaching career at Division II San Francisco State as the offensive line coach from 1983 to 1985. That staff included Dirk Koetter, who also went on to become an NFL head coach, and Tom Melvin, who’s coached tight ends for Reid at several stops, including currently with the Kansas City Chiefs.

It also included a young Leon Feliciano.

Now known for his longevity and success at Tomales High School for nearly two decades, Feliciano, like Reid, was just beginning his coaching career as Reid’s counterpart coaching the Gators’ defensive line. While they only shared a sideline for a few years, Feliciano could tell from the very beginning that Reid was bound for bigger and better things.

“He was special,” Feliciano recalled recently. “You could see that, even back then.”

As Reid prepares his Kansas City Chiefs for Super Bowl LVIII against the San Francisco 49ers this Sunday in Las Vegas — looking for his third ring in his fifth appearance on the biggest stage in professional sports — Feliciano and Petaluma’s Ed Critchett, a former SF State defensive lineman who grew to be good friends with Reid, looked back at how far he’s come since the early days of his career — selling hot dogs to help fund the program, running a summer camp for underprivileged kids and coaching intramural basketball teams to championships.

Feliciano played at SF State before joining the staff on a part-time basis in 1984. As a member of the 1981 team, he played under Mike Holmgren, another future NFL coach who also helped mentor Reid as a player and grad assistant at BYU before helping him land his first coaching job at SF State.

Feliciano remembers Reid being mature beyond his age. Only in his mid-20s, Reid, a devout Mormon, had already started a family and was focused on kick-starting his coaching career.

“He just seemed ahead of the game, just very professional,” Feliciano recalled. “He had a really good demeanor about him, not a yeller, not a screamer and no profanity, which is pretty rare for a line coach. Very patient. But the offensive line was his passion — that’s where he played at BYU — and he was very good at it, and he was a good recruiter, too.

“Even though we weren’t very good, I’d say the strength of our team was the offensive line.”

The Gators went a paltry 6-22-2 during Reid’s stint, something Feliciano still jokes about, especially considering the caliber of their coaching staff at the time.

“That’s pretty unique, that at a Division II school, you have three future NFL head coaches and one guy is going to be a Hall of Famer,” he said. “People go, ‘Wow you guys must have been a pretty good team,’ and I go, ‘Nah, we really weren’t.’”

SF State’s program eventually folded in 1995 due to budget issues and the passage of Title IX, and Reid was long gone by then. It wasn’t unusual for coaches to use it as a steppingstone job, like Holmgren did. And while Feliciano knew that Reid would go on to greater success, he wasn’t thinking as lofty as multiple Super Bowl wins.

“The head coaching thing, that kind of blows me away a bit because I knew he’d be a great position coach — played offensive line and coached the offensive line — but I guess he really developed his style and what kind of offense he wanted to run,” he said. “I didn’t know he had that kind of creativity. But you could tell he was fun, though. Kansas City does a lot of goofy stuff and I think that’s an extension of his personality.”

Critchett, a 1982 Petaluma High School grad, played for Feliciano on the Gators’ defensive line but grew to be a close friend of Reid’s at SF State.

“Reid and I were pretty tight back then,” recalled Critchett, who still lives in Petaluma. “We were buddies because my best friend growing up in Petaluma, Dave Wright, who was on the Petaluma High team in the class of 1981, played for BYU for Reid. So, when Reid showed up, we immediately had that connection.”

Critchett remembers the program being in financial disarray — and the steps that Reid took to keep things afloat. The story is famous now of how Reid and members of the coaching staff and team sold hot dogs on campus every week to help raise money for the struggling program. Critchett might have snuck a few as well, along with Reid.

“I ate more than most, let’s put it that way,” he said, laughing. “Yes, we all had to do it. (Head coach Vic) Rowen, coach Reid. We were in the center of campus and there were thousands of people walking around all the time.”

And Reid’s “goofy” nature that Feliciano referenced? Critchett remembers that, too.

“Every day after practice, coach Reid, myself and one of my close friends and teammates would have a contest to see who could throw the ball the farthest,” he said. “We did it for a couple years. He was just a lot of fun.”

On occasion, Reid would also organize sumo wrestling competitions between the linemen after practices. They’d set up tackling pads as a makeshift ring, strip down to just their shorts and go at it.

“He just had a lot of creative methods not just for team building but just to have some fun after practices,” Critchett said.

There was also the time that Reid led Critchett and his intramural basketball team to an unexpected championship.

Critchett, who considered himself as much of a basketball player at the time, said football players weren’t allowed to play hoops during the season, but he and a teammate did their best to keep their participation quiet.

“Midway through the season, coach Reid busted us,” Critchett said. “He said, ‘I’m not going to say nothing, but I’m going to be your coach.’ He sat on the bench while we played for a dozen games for the rest of the year. We ended up winning the championship over the redshirt SF State basketball team. We beat them, and Reid was our coach.”

After he finished playing at SF State, Critchett stayed in the city to finish school at the University of San Francisco and remained friends with Reid until he left to become the offensive line coach at Northern Arizona University in 1986.

For a few summers before Reid left, he ran a summer camp for underprivileged kids in the city. Critchett was one of Reid’s main assistants and spent hours with Reid and other players playing games with kids and teaching them about life.

“We did your basic softball, basketball, volleyball, soccer, whatever, and then we had to draw straws every morning for what we called ‘enrichment,’” Critchett said. “And that was teaching kids about birth control and that kind of stuff. No one wanted that one. But Andy really knew how to deal with that.”

Critchett has seen Reid a few times since their SF State days, but his allegiances have been tested in the last few years as Reid and the Chiefs have ascended as the next great NFL dynasty, and present one of the biggest obstacles for the 49ers as they try to get back to the mountaintop for the first time since 1995.

It’s all love and respect for Reid, and Critchett wishes him well this Sunday, but he’ll be pulling for his hometown 49ers.

“I root for the 49ers because I grew up as a kid rooting for them, had season tickets,” Critchett said. “But we all got together, the SF Gators, for the last 49ers-Chiefs Super Bowl and it was a tough choice — everyone’s heart was there for coach Reid and coach Melvin — but we were all rooting for the 49ers.”

You can reach Staff Writer Gus Morris at 707-304-9372 or gus.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @JustGusPD.