A Kansas City sports radio host came under fire on Monday for making a comment about the supposed lack of discipline of the Kansas City Chiefs under head coach Andy Reid- and then appeared to reference the drug-related death of Reid’s son in 2012.
Per Deadspin , Kevin Kietzman, who hosts a show on Sportsradio 810 WHB, was talking about the possible return of running back Tyreek Hill to the Chiefs this summer. Hill, per The Inquisitr , has been investigated for child abuse, but has not been charged with a crime; that followed the release by the Chiefs last year of running back Kareem Hunt, who was caught on video punching a woman at a Cleveland hotel.
On the radio segment, Kietzman stated that “Andy Reid does not have a great record of fixing players. He doesn’t. Discipline is not his thing. It did not work out real well for him in his family life, and that has to be added to this.”
Per Philadelphia Magazine , two of Reid’s sons, Garrett and Britt, were both arrested in separate incidents on the same day in January of 2007, at a time when Reid was the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. Reid and his wife, Tammy, later revealed that both sons had been battling addiction issues for some time. Five years later, in 2012, Garrett Reid, who by that time had been hired by the Eagles, was found dead during the Eagles’ training camp, with the cause of death a heroin overdose, per ESPN.com.
Following the comments, Kietzman has been assailed for bringing Reid’s tragic family history into a discussion about football. It was noted that drug addiction is a far more multifaceted and intractable problem than what parental discipline can easily solve.
“This take is totally out of line and wildly disrespectful to both the Reid family and every family who has lost someone to drugs,” Twitter user Josh Naso said.
“ Kevin Kietzman is not good at empathy,” Chicago radio host Danny Parkins tweeted .
“Or critical thinking. Or being a decent human being. He’s shown us this time and again but because he owns the radio station he’s untouchable. He’s a stain on a great city.”
Kansas City radio host Kevin Kietzman compares death of Andy Reid’s son to Tyreek Hill case, saying Reid “is not good at fixing people.” https://t.co/gTviVMjGdZ pic.twitter.com/8lcTCp8iVQ
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 25, 2019
In addition, the Eagles rarely had high-profile player arrests during Reid’s 14-year tenure coaching the team, and far from Reid not having a good record of “fixing players,” he was the coach of the Eagles when quarterback Michael Vick returned to the NFL after a prison stint and made a successful comeback.
Kietzman issued a clarifying statement to Awful Announcing, stating that he was referring not to Garrett Reid’s death, but rather to the legal troubles faced by the two sons, which “ceased being a personal, private matter” when Reid hired the sons to work for the Eagles.
However, the arrests of the two Reid sons took place years before either of them worked for their father with the Eagles, and Britt Reid has been on the Chiefs’ coaching staff for the last seven years and is currently Linebackers/Outside Linebackers Coach, per the team’s website. There have no reports of Britt Reid getting in any trouble during his time in Kansas City.