Nickname: K. Reed
Favorite Movie: The Color Purple
Favorite TV Shows:The Boondocks and Martin
Favorite Artist: The Fugees
Q: You are new to the Quad Cities. Where are you from? Why did you move here?
A: I was born in Louisville, KY but I was raised in Southern Indiana(Jeffersonville) and most recently lived in New Albany, IN. The proximity of Southern Indiana and Louisville, Ky is like going from Davenport, IA over to Moline or Rock Island, IL. I moved up here at the end of the summer of '07. My wife got a promotion and the opportunity was in Moline, IL. I put aside everything I know and love to help her advance her career
Q: How did you get involved in the softball community so quick in this area?
A: I love the game and where there's a will, there's a way. I saw softball lights one night when I was going to go get some gas for a trip back home. I ended up at the Dugout Complex. I watched a few minutes and then met a lil young dude and picked his brain about opportunities for a chance to get a team to play some BASA type of ball. That lil cat was our own Cedric Judson.
Q: How did the Top Dawgs enter into your plans?
A: Ced shot me a text and told me to go to practice on a Sunday. The practice was for a team called STR8 Ballers. They played in the Sunday Fall league. They treated me real swell. From playing with them, I was invited to fill in on my man Ron's team on Tuesdays(JD BY Ryder) I played like the last 3 games of the season before the tournament. We played Sneaky Pete's to an extra inning game that ended with a walkoff for SP and they won like 36-35 or something like that. That is when I met E. West. I shot a rocket past him while he was playing first base. He saw my 502 Boyz shirt and recognized the name from the circuit. He brought Steven down the next week to meet me and the rest is history.
Q: You've been playing for a minute. When was your first BASA World and what teams have you been on in Kentucky and Iowa?
A: My first BASA World Series was in 1995(Chattanooga, TN). I since have played Worlds in Mobile, AL, St. Louis, MO, Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus, OH and Birmingham, AL. I played for New Jacks, 502 Boyz, Team Elite, Jabalis/Elite in KY. Since I been up here in Iowa, I just played fall ball with STR8 Ballers and a few games with JD ByRyder on tuesdays.
Q: Any Championships?
A: Nope, still chasing the pot of gold. We have come close a few times. I represent though. I'm just a solid player. Hitting is my main asset.I don't have a list of individual awards.
Q: If you are not playing softball, what are you doing?
A: Playing with my children or doing family type things. As you can see from my pictures, my family is very important to me. "WE ALL WE GOT". I take my son almost everywhere I go.
Q: Some of the pictures were a little weird. What was that all about?
A: Since it is Black History Month, let me school ya. The one of me in a wooden box was from the Underground Railroad Museum in Cincinati, OH. Henry Box Brownenlisted the help of an abolitionist doctor and mails himself in a wooden crate "to a place where there are no slaves!" He travels by horse-drawn cart, steamboat and train before his box is delivered to the Philadelphia address of the doctor's friends on March 30, 1849. As you can see from the picture, I wouldn't have made it. I got in a similar size box and didn't quite fit. The one with the shackles in the form of a statue is also from that same museum. It was powerful for my children to see these things because we have made so much progress. It is unimaginable what their forfathers went through even in less than 50 years ago. I'm a serious man sometimes. I'm like Huey Freeman from the Boondocks.
Q: Any Hobbies?
A: I like skill games. It is reflected in my hobbies. I was an avid horseshoe player back home. I also played cornhole(you guys call it bean bag toss). Since I have been up here, I picked up the sport Disc Golf. It's like golf but you play it with a disc or frisbee. I like it because I can play it alone and think. The courses offer some diverse terrain.
Q: Any shout outs
A: First I want to shout out to all my family and friends back home in Kentuckiana and my old team 502 Boyz. The team broke up but we are 502 4- life baby. I also want to shout out to the guys that went their separate ways(Bluegrass Ballers and Main Event), No Limit, Supreme 17, Jabalis 5-0, OGs(these guys are like my dads and uncles. They are a 50 and over team). I would like to send a special shout out to the Str8 Ballers. You guys gave me my first shot up here and made a new guy in town feel like one of the guys.
Finally to the Top Dawgs. Get on board or get out of the way. We about to ball and have a ball at the same time. It's going to be exciting. EFF what you heard, this is real and it is going to happen!
