You're looking at Pfizer looks like Earl Campbell when he was in high school 5
for the people that they're from Irving they'll always know Reggie's name. As a matter of fact
you don't even have to say Finch you can just say Reggie and they know who you're talking about.
And the pitch is not surprisingly to Reggie Finch and immediately Reggie Finch able to go to work
and pick up a quick MacArthur first down. Reggie Finch first team all-American all-area running
back from Irving MacArthur high school ruled North Texas football and local sports broadcasts in his
days from 1985 to 1988. One of the best tailbacks maybe the best in the state this year number
eight Reggie Finch. Well Finch was over for a thousand yards and looked at him down in the
field there before the ball game he's they list him at six foot 205 looks like maybe one of those
thighs might be 205. As an athlete he looked like a senior in high school. Reggie's running back
coach David Cuckendall known as coach K is now the athletic director for Frisco ISD and says
Reggie was the kind of player you coach once in a career. Even back when he was in junior high
people used to always talk about Reggie and how good he was when he finally got there to high
school it was he was all everybody said he was. He's one of the top ones a lot of people are
going to be looking at him he has his eyes set on UCLA and places like that but he'll wind up probably
all state. Reggie imagined a grand life for himself. That I would one first win the Heisman
and then have some luxurious professional football career and end up in the Hall of Fame
break all kind of rushing records and that was my dream. Do you think as a coach hey this guy could
play football professionally? I thought he could do just about anything we wanted him to do and
whether it be college or pro it was in his future for sure. And colleges started taking note early
young Reggie was heavily recruited. Going on those recruit trips were really fun getting to visit
colleges. You know he made the commitment at some point to go to Oklahoma and that was splashed all
over the news media and it was a whole new experience because going from high school
when I'm fixing to go into college I still wasn't really you know grasping the greatness
of how how big it was but again you know I would know I heard about the Heisman trophy and that's
what I wanted. But Reggie wouldn't win the Heisman he wouldn't break any records he wouldn't even
graduate from OU. He ended up drug addicted jobless and alone. Then I became homeless
eating out of dumpsters sleeping in porter parties. Long time fans supporters and coaches
say they never would have predicted what became of Reggie Finch. It's hard to believe
it really is when you look back and see that he had had life by the tail you know at one time.
Incredible middle school football career incredible high school football career
what what happened. Coach K believes it's simple Reggie never learned how to fail
or to take personal responsibility. We treated him with kid clubs back when
his high school and probably looking back in hindsight he should have we should have let
him fail more we should let him be ineligible for a semester. He says nobody did Reggie's
high school work for him but with the best of intentions coaches and teachers gave a lot of
reminders to help keep him on task and on the team. I had a skewed view of the world I thought that
because I started believing the hype behind Reggie Finch that when I got to college
I was so self-centered. That coupled with the constant praise through his younger years did
not produce the tough demeanor needed in the cutthroat world of college athletics at one of
the most prestigious teams in the country. Going from high school to college was a whole two different
worlds when I was at MacArthur I guess you hear the story about the big fish and a little pond
I didn't realize how competitive it was. He went up there and he just was not
caught a lot like he had been in high school and then all of a sudden some things kind of started
going south in the grades. After getting in some trouble he was cut from the Sooners football
team. He got on at Navarro Junior College then played for North Texas. Still he was drinking and
isolating himself to numb the pain of his NFL dreams slipping away then a final blow.
During a drill my leg slipped out in a certain angle Oklahoma drill and my hip broke so my
identity was wrapped in that. Reggie did graduate from North Texas in 1993 but he says he lost his
heart. But I can remember leaving it out on a 30-yard line on the north end of a fouts field
one day just I was done you know because everything that I was thought I was told that
was supposed to happen it didn't happen and I couldn't understand why was this happening to me
and so I had just basically I was a shell I was a ship with no captain I left my captain
on the football field. He agrees with coach K he simply never learned how to struggle and
this struggle was too much for him to handle. I needed you to tell me how good I was so I felt
secure about myself and any kind of constructive criticism I'd never had that. With the hope of
an NFL career gone Reggie despite being married and a father got heavily into cocaine. After that I
just kind of faded into the winds. Four years after graduation he was arrested for possession and
delivery of meth and cocaine. I was the most arrogant unknowing young man filled with all
kinds of these false beliefs about how life really worked. Upon his release he got involved
in escort services but eventually his drug addiction took over so he couldn't even do that.
Estranged from his family Reggie had burned all of his bridges. Reggie was yearning for tough love
someone to force him to do the right thing on his own. I just knew that there was something
going on with me with my thinking. My mom and dad didn't raise me to be where I was at they didn't
raise me to be no drug dealer. I was truly truly homeless. I was lost. My physical appearance
had gotten so bad. I mean I had this big beard and I mean I just uh was just so thin.
He long lost touch with coach K who would hear stories from friends about what became of high
school and college football superstar Reggie Finch. He talked about his fingernails being
sharpened to a point so that way that just anybody started messing with him he could scratch him and
claw him. You would think that no not that we're talking about somebody else right and he said no
this is the this is real life this is the real deal. It was Reggie's father-in-law who had been
helping to support him who finally forced him for the first time in his life to live out the
consequences of his decisions on his own. I was staying in storage units and I wouldn't come out
and he would bring me some food and I'd barely open the door and he'd slide it under
and I'd slide out some clothes to wash but one day he said Reggie I gotta let you go.
That was Reggie's rock bottom. I had to walk in the shoes of people I used to look down on
because I was this big football player all right. If you were homeless I looked down on you.
If you were gay you know you're beneath me. If you weren't this great athlete to my level
all women you know they were just property or just had no feelings. Lost alone hurting and empty
and with no family or friends to speak of Reggie found Souls Harbor a men's treatment center in
far southeast Dallas. They got so bad that it's like what happened to my life why god is this
happening to me. He was greeted by executive director Brent Burmaster. First time I saw him I said
I bet he played football and little did I know that he played for mile and mile to road you. You
know he was ragged like everybody else that comes in here you know he was unkept just look like a
homeless guy. And when I got to Souls Harbor here's the thing I wasn't coming here thinking I would
ever get off of drugs and alcohol. I just knew that there was something going on with me with my
thinking. My mom and dad didn't raise me to be where I was at. They didn't raise me to be drug
dealer. The teachers at Irving and all the other schools they didn't teach me to become a drug dealer.
The day he stepped in this facility six years ago he started working the 12-step recovery program.
His spirit was down but you could see that he was grasping. He wanted to learn. He wanted a better
life. And he did get off drugs but Reggie also got his mind right. I know I know life is a privilege.
Everything is a privilege. It's not entitled to me. He learned to see recovery as a personal
choice just as he came to realize drugs had been a personal choice. He started to soar once again
this time as a worker at Souls Harbor in their thrift store program. I put him as my store managers.
I put him in dispatch which is like a control center. I put him as a truck driver and you know
within a year or so he was my operations manager. Within two and a half years Reggie was Soul Harbor's
second in command an assistant director a perfect fit. He would understand what the residents were
going through. Reggie says he's just a late bloomer in learning the lessons of self-responsibility
and accountability. He's now remarried and reconnected with his children. My dream was
to play pro football. At six years sober he now speaks to local student athletes with the ministry
group Rock Bottom Outreach about what he wishes he would have known at their age. I once had these
pads on and I guarantee you none of y'all even when I'm telling a story will say and that ain't
me. That ain't gonna happen to me. And it came full circle. Reggie Finch, former football star,
former addict, inspiring football players at his alma mater Irving MacArthur High School. Because
sometimes we got to be built up from the bottom up and if y'all do that together and work and play
for the next person not yourself you'll win state championship. Let's not be identified as just Reggie
the football player because those labels will only narrow your point of view in life. Reggie's lesson
there is so much more to life than football.
One day this will end we won't play sports all our lives. He says he tries to reach the people
he once was the prima donnas. Learned that we're team players. It's not all about me
and people that are involved in my life coaches they're they're they're placing an investment
they're giving you their time and their effort be able to recognize that because when we get
married we have wives that put their times and effort children to put their times and effort
into us and that it ain't all about me and because I don't get what I want if the coach
don't play me or if my wife don't do it I don't just quit. Reggie has become a man not defined
by compliments not by accolades not by athletics but by his ability to give back. I had to be
humble and I walked in the shoes of many other people and did things behind drugs
that many other people are used to look down and it's taught me how to love.
