Reed Harris’ mother had ‘hoop dreams’ for him; now he’s the Big 12’s leading receiver

(Photo: Jack Simon/WCSN)

Stephanie Keil would often wake up on her family’s farmhouse in the plains of Montana to a familiar sound.

Her son, Reed Harris, would wake up early in the morning as a kid, pop the screen out of his bedroom window and use his .22-caliber hunting rifle to shoot gophers.

Harris, now a fourth-year wide receiver at Arizona State, admits that there wasn’t much for a kid to do growing up in rural Montana. From a young age, he chose to occupy his time with activities — often sports-related, such as punting a football over the big farmhouse. 

It never ceases to amaze Keil how those activities have led to her son being lauded as a prospect in next spring’s NFL draft.

The young, gopher-hunting child grew into a 6-foot-5 athletic specimen. It’s not often someone of his build and ability hails from the Treasure State. No matter the season, he was the one to watch, whether it was on the football field in the fall, on the basketball court in the winter as snow fell outside or on the track in the spring.

With the power of hindsight, football may have always looked like the obvious choice for him, but Keil thought her son would be a basketball player. 

“I wanted a hooper,” Keil said.

She thought Harris would have a lot more options playing basketball and staying in Montana. 

To her, a free college education was the pinnacle of where football could take Harris. She’s only just realized how far the game could truly take her son.

In his first year as a Sun Devil, Harris leads the Big 12 in receiving yards and ranks fifth nationally.

Seeing her son as a conference-leading receiver is “beyond my wildest dreams,” Keil said.

Harris is still using his basketball skills on the gridiron, however.

ASU head coach Kenny Dillingham has talked about how much of a team player his top pass catcher is.

Harris recently joined ASU’s field goal block team, using all of his 6-foot-5 frame to leap high and block kicks, showcasing the team-player mentality head coach Kenny Dillingham has described Harris as having. 

Other stars of Harris’ caliber might scoff at a role on special teams — typically reserved for backups — but when Dillingham approached Harris with the idea, he embraced it.

“He’s just out there jumping, hoping there’s a low kick,” Dillingham said. “Sometimes, especially on longer kicks… we just want to make a kicker uncomfortable by saying, ‘this guy who can get to 10 feet… may tip it.’”

Dillingham may have only recently discovered Harris’ hops, but basketball rims across Montana have known about his ability to reach 10 feet for years. 

Harris entered his freshman year at Great Falls High School a scrawny, 6-foot-4 14-year-old, unsure of where his natural athletic abilities could take him, Keil remembers.

​Always taller than his classmates, Harris started playing basketball as a second-grader, playing on a team of all fourth-graders. 

When he finally started playing against competition his own age, it felt like Harris was a man amongst boys.

“He’s just a gifted athlete,” Harris’ high school basketball coach Eric Chaon said. “His athleticism, especially by the time he got to his sophomore year, was pretty elite relative to the rest of the state of Montana. I mean, he could run the length of the floor in four or five strides. A really good rebounder, physical player. If you asked Reed, he’d probably tell you that he was a really gifted guard. But if you ask the coaches, they’d tell you he was a good post player.”

As a sophomore, Harris helped lead the Great Falls Bison to their first Montana Class AA Basketball State Championship appearance since 2005. In a game that came down to the final seconds, the Bison fell to the Skyview Falcons 62-60.

That year, Harris averaged 11.2 points — a handful of which were achieved by throwing down in-game dunks, a rare feat in Montana high school basketball — 7.1 rebounds and a team-leading 1.1 blocks per game.

“When he showed back up for his sophomore season, he was throwing down pretty hard and skying for rebounds,” Chaon recounts. “He’s a good jumper.”

(Photo: Courtesy of Stephanie Keil)

Keil says she will “never forget” her son’s first in-game dunk. 

“I still had hoop dreams at that point for him,” she said.

That vision quickly withered once she saw him on the football field.

There was always an idea in the back of Keil’s mind that her son may be cut out for the gridiron. Harris’ father, Andre, was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the ninth round of the 1985 NFL draft. The defensive back had brief stints in the NFL, United States Football League and Canadian Football League.

With his father’s NFL pedigree and his mother’s genetics — Keil’s father stands 6-foot-9 — Harris inherited the ideal physical traits for football stardom.

Harris’ football career began in Conrad, Montana, a small ranch town 60 miles south of the Canadian border. Keil’s side of the family has lived in the town of around 2,300 people for generations.

Harris joined the Conrad Cowboys’ 9U team, where, like many of the most athletic players on youth football teams, he took his place at quarterback.

(Photo: Courtesy of Stephanie Keil)

Harris continued playing for the Cowboys and living in Conrad until high school, when his family decided to move to what they considered “the big city”: Great Falls. With a population of roughly 60,000, Great Falls dwarfs Conrad, though the city retains its blue-collar roots and is known for its natural beauty and pioneer-era scenery.

Harris started his high school career under center until coaches asked him to switch positions to play wide receiver and linebacker, two positions he had never played before. 

Naturally, he embraced the switch and excelled.

In his senior year for the Bison, Harris racked up over 500 receiving yards and five touchdowns, over 1,500 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns, along with 83 tackles and nine sacks.

“He never came off the field,” Coda Tchida, Harris’ high school football coach, said.

By the end of his senior year, Harris was rated as the No.1 recruit in the state of Montana for the class of 2023, according to 247 Sports.

When it came time to decide where to take his football career next, Harris found himself with no shortage of options. 

College coaches poured into Great Falls at rates no one in the town had ever seen before.

The only player Tchida has ever seen garner a similar amount of recruiting attention to Harris before or since is the wideout’s younger brother, Steele, who is currently the No. 1 player in Montana. Steele, a senior at GFHS, is committed to play wide receiver at Wisconsin.

“I’ve been here 10 years. The only Division 1 schools that have been here are for those two kids. Nobody else in any other sport. It’s Steele and Reed,” Tchida said.

Oregon, Minnesota, Iowa State, San Diego State, Utah State and numerous other FBS teams tried to land Harris. But they all wanted him to play quarterback. Oregon State even tried to recruit him to play linebacker. Only one school recruited Harris at the position he was looking to play at the next level: Boston College.

Despite only having one year of playing wideout under his belt, Harris fell in love with the position and saw a future for himself catching passes. He committed to BC, opting to leave his small, blue-collar town on the prairie for a new adventure out east.

“I grew up in the middle of nowhere, so I wanted to come see a different side of life,” Harris said.

Harris spent three years at BC, racking up over 1,100 receiving yards and nine touchdowns. But after a junior season that saw his Eagles finish 2-10, Harris was ready to move on. 

That’s when Kenny Dillingham gave him a call.

He committed to ASU ahead of his senior season, teaming up with Colorado transfer Omarion Miller to propel the Sun Devils to have the third-best transfer portal class in the Big 12 — the highest in the Dillingham era.

So far in Tempe, Harris has nearly equaled his three-year total from Boston College. He sits at 800 receiving yards and eight touchdowns through seven games. 

While Harris gashes Big 12 defenses on Saturdays, his family, friends and coaches watch from Montana, in awe of the player he’s become.

“I love the kid,” Tchida said. “You don’t get to coach players like that very often here in Montana.”

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