Touchdown!
Former TSU football coach appointed as Ag Marketing Director By JOAN KITE Former TSU Head Football Coach Rod Reed has been appointed as Director of Marketing and Communications for the College of Agriculture. Reed will help Dean Chandra Reddy create a college advisory board of stakeholders to provide input and guidance on college programs and expand partnerships with government, corporate, and alumni stakeholders. Reed brings to the agricultural playing field his extensive ties with local and national contacts gathered from his years as head football coach with TSU. “Coach Reed’s experience in recruiting and mentoring top notch football players will be very useful for us in recruiting and nurturing relationships with top agricultural businesses of the country as partners and advisors to the bustling college’s academic, research, and outreach programs,” said Dr. Chandra Reddy, dean of the College of Agriculture.
30 AgLINK | Summer / Fall 2021
“I am excited to have him promote our students, faculty, and programs!” Reed has been learning about the College meeting faculty and staff and touring the labs. “I think it is really interesting what I have seen so far,” said Reed. “It’s really amazing just to see the labs. I watched them putting trackers in a pygmy rattle snake.” Wildlife professor Bill Sutton and his research students track the endangered pygmy rattle snake in Middle Tennessee to find out more about its behaviors and habitats. Reed, a native Texan, said he is ready for the new challenge at the College of Agriculture. As a young footballer, Reed’s father, who also played football at TSU, stressed the value of earning a degree. Reed had majored in Mass Communications in 1989.
