An Eagle eye for talent lands former NCCU QB, coach a job as a draft guru

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Jordan Reid has always been a sports junkie.

"I was called Mr. ESPN growing up just because whenever a transaction came in, I would be right on it," Reid remembered.

Reid didn't just love the games, he could play. The High Point native wound up becoming a two-year starter at quarterback for North Carolina Central earlier this decade. From there he transitioned into coaching, taking a graduate assistant job under new head man Jerry Mack. Coaching opened his eyes to elements of the game he'd never previously considered.

"You start to see things from a different lens, as a coach, and you learn more about the game just because you're around coaches that have been around the game," Reid said. "Jerry Mack was a guy that was around the game for 10-plus years and just sharing that wealth with me, think that helped me a ton."

Mack told ABC11 that Reid made an early impression.

"He was a guy that was going to stay in the office, he was going to put in the work," Mack said. "And that's one of the things that jumped out at me."

Reid impressed enough to earn a full-time spot on Mack's staff the next season.

"Jordan always did a great job of evaluating his (recruiting) area and writing them up. Then, when we got on campus, one, two, three years later you can see that everything he thought (the players) would be, they would become," Mack said.

That analytical eye would come in very handy as Reid and the rest of the NC Central staff found themselves out of a job in 2018. From that difficulty came an opportunity. Jordan, a father of twin girls was looking for some geographic and financial stability.

"I wanted to figure out a way to combine sports journalism but also stay within the game and I got lucky with this company, The Draft Network. They actually reached out to me."

Reid now spends 10 months a year observing, aggregating and ultimately rating hundreds of college prospects. Much of that process is done online, but he makes efforts to see as many players in person as possible at key events.

"There's only so much you can watch on what's called the all-22 coaches' film, or even YouTube, but just seeing a player in person, you can get a feel for how they are," Reid said. "The body type, and how they're built, to some of the things, the qualities that they exemplify."

Here's the cool thing: Reid, a former member of the National Allstate Good Works Team while at Central, compiles all that work into a draft guide that he sells for $10 a pop. Not for profit though - all the proceeds go to Rise Against Hunger in Raleigh. This year he donated $6,000.

"I wanted to figure out a way to really combine the profession that I'm in now and still how I can impact the community with community service," Reid said.

He's certainly done that. Reid's now got over 40,000 Twitter followers, so his profile as an analyst is only going to get bigger.