At 6 feet 2 inches and 220 pounds, 13-year-old Andy Reid needed a professional football player’s jersey just to compete with other kids his age.
December 13, 1971. Halftime at the Los Angeles Coliseum during Monday Night Football. The Rams were playing the Redskins in front of a national television audience. Six boys in Rams uniforms lined up for the California state finals of the Punt, Pass and Kick competition. ABC’s cameras caught something absurd: one kid looked twice the size of everyone else on the field.
Organizers scrambled when Reid showed up that night. None of the youth jerseys fit him. They went into the Rams locker room and grabbed number 32 from Les Josephson, the team’s starting running back. Josephson stood 6’1″ and weighed 207 pounds as a professional athlete. Reid wore his jersey at 13 years old.
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How a Junior High Kid Ended Up on Monday Night Football
The NFL and Ford Motor Company launched Punt, Pass and Kick in 1961. Kids between 8 and 13 competed in local events sponsored by Ford dealerships across the country. The format was simple: one punt, one pass, one kick. Judges measured distance and accuracy, subtracting points when balls went wide of the target.
Winners advanced from local competitions to regional rounds, then state finals. The California state championship took place during halftime of that Rams-Redskins game at the Coliseum, broadcast on ABC with Frank Gifford, Howard Cosell, and Don Meredith in the booth.
Reid grew up in Los Feliz, just south of Griffith Park in Los Angeles. His father Walter worked as a scenic artist for film and television productions. Young Andy spent hours at nearby Marshall High School, where he served as water boy for the football team. One day, future Hall of Fame cornerback Mike Haynes asked him why he wasn’t suited up for practice. Reid told him the truth: he was 12 years old.
Ken Gerard, Reid’s physical education teacher at Thomas Starr King Junior High, remembered Reid’s size well. At 13, Reid stood about 6’2″ and weighed 220 pounds. Gerard stayed after school to help Reid practice for the competition, spending hours on the grass field adjacent to the school.
The Competition That Made Him Famous
Reid competed in Punt, Pass and Kick three or four years running with his friend Ted Pallas. Most kids focused on throwing. Reid worked on his kicking. He used the straight-on, toe-poke style common in that era, hitting the ball with his big right foot. His range reached 40 yards by high school, when he won three games on last-minute field goals.
The kicking gave him an advantage. He won his local region in 1971, then advanced through Southern California rounds until he reached the state finals at the Coliseum. By that stage, 12 boys remained, two from each age group between 8 and 13. One winner would emerge from each age group.
Competitors completed the kicking and punting portions before the Monday Night Football game started. The passing portion happened at halftime in front of the national television audience. Reid warmed up on the field by playing catch with Sonny Jurgensen, the Redskins’ starting quarterback. Both had red hair. One player called out to Jurgensen, asking if that was his little brother. Reid dwarfed the Hall of Famer, who was listed at 5’11” and 202 pounds.
When Reid’s turn came to throw, ABC displayed his name on television screens across America. Someone had misspelled it: “Andrew Ried, Los Angeles, Calif.”
His friends watched from different spots around the city. Bobby Volkel attended the game with other friends. Ted Pallas and Tony Stewart couldn’t watch on television because of local blackout rules, so they viewed the broadcast from an ABC studio on Prospect Avenue. They went wild seeing their friend on the national stage, competing in Josephson’s oversized jersey against kids who barely reached his waist.
What the Record Shows
Whether Reid won remains unclear. Sports Illustrated searched Los Angeles newspapers from December 1971 and found nothing about the competition results. Reid doesn’t remember the outcome himself. The only proof the event happened at all is that brief video clip, which surfaces every few years when producers need footage of the Chiefs head coach as a kid.
The Redskins won the actual game 38-24. Washington quarterback Bill Kilmer completed 14 of 19 passes for 246 yards and three touchdowns. The victory clinched a playoff berth for the Redskins under first-year coach George Allen, who was facing his former team that night. The game mattered in 1971. The halftime competition mattered more in retrospect.
Reid played offensive tackle at Glendale Junior College in California, then transferred to Brigham Young University. At BYU, he was listed at 6’3″ and 233 pounds. He had grown only slightly from that 13-year-old competing on Monday Night Football.
From Coliseum to Coaching Glory
Years later, when Reid coached the Philadelphia Eagles, Pallas and Stewart visited for a game. Reid invited them to his house afterward. He showed them his den, filled with memorabilia from decades in coaching. Stewart noticed a paper certificate among the trophies: Thomas Starr King Junior High, Athlete of the Year.
The NFL ended Punt, Pass and Kick in May 2017 after 56 years. The league moved resources toward flag football programs and other youth initiatives. The 2017 national finals at the Pro Bowl in Orlando marked the last official event.
Reid won his first Super Bowl as a head coach in February 2020 with the Kansas City Chiefs. He won again in 2023. The grainy footage from December 1971 still gets shared on social media whenever the Chiefs make a playoff run. It shows a 13-year-old in an adult jersey, standing head and shoulders above other kids, throwing a football downfield at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
That night captured something genuine about Andy Reid: always bigger than expected, always prepared, always advancing to the next round. The punt pass and kick competition put him on national television for the first time. Five decades later, he’s still there.
