Life after football is different for every player. For two-time NFL Pro Bowler Mike Reid, his second act included more than a dozen country hits, a Grammy Award, and induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Pulling off one of the most unique career transitions in sports and entertainment history, Reid played ball for the Nittany Lions of Penn State University in the late ’60s, captaining his team to back-to-back undefeated seasons in ’68 and ’69. Taken in the first round of the 1970 draft, he continued his pursuit of the sport with the Cincinnati Bengals for five seasons as an absolute force on the defensive line, leading the young expansion franchise to its first two playoff appearances in 1970 and ’73.
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View this post on InstagramAt 27, however, Reid announced his retirement from the gridiron, shocking the world but freeing him to pursue his first passion: music.
According to AllMusic, Reid began piano lessons at age 6 and eventually earned a degree in music from Penn State in 1970. Moving to Nashville, he then pursued songwriting, even though he wasn’t necessarily a country music fan.
“Nashville is like Mars to me,” he said in a 2019 interview. “I’d never listened to country music, ever. But what this was and still is, it’s a song town. So I came here.”
The gamble paid off. His songs started to turn heads almost immediately.
In 1982, Reid signed with country star Ronnie Milsap’s publishing firm, which kicked off an impressive run of hits between the two. Reid’s first No. 1 came a year later with “Inside,” an early-’80s New Country track, performed by Milsap.
Further songs Reid wrote for Milsap throughout the ’80s include “Show Her,” “Still Losing You,” “She Keeps the Home Fires Burning,” “In Love,” “How Do I Turn You On,” and “Lost in the Fifties Tonight (In the Still of the Night),” the latter of which was nominated for a Grammy and named ASCAP’s Country Song of the Year in 1986.
Reid actually won a golden gramophone two years earlier with “Stranger in My House,” which won for Best Country Song.
“’Stranger in My House’ has a sweet place in my heart,” Reid said. “But I do a different version when I perform it now. I like the character in that song. And I wrote that before I had any idea what talent was doing. I can almost say that about most things.”
Reid clearly knew what to say in song form, because he found his greatest commercial success writing hits for legendary country acts—first with Milsap, then with other major artists including Conway Twitty, Alabama, Collin Raye, Wynonna Judd, and Tim McGraw.
But country wasn’t Reid’s only lane. Pop became one of his specialties, too.
The songwriter’s greatest claim to pop fame is the heartbreak ballad “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” a track Mojo magazine once ranked as the eighth-best song ever written. First recorded by Bonnie Raitt in 1991, the track became a pop masterpiece as dozens of artists, including Adele, George Michael, and Tank, recorded their own renditions.
“It really belongs to Bonnie,” Reid told ESPN. “I found that out when my wife and I were watching George Michael’s Unplugged on MTV. He introduced the song by saying, ‘This is a song made famous by the great Bonnie Raitt and written by… well, actually, I’m not sure who wrote it.’ [My wife] was steamed, but I thought it was funny.”
In 1990, Reid got behind the mic himself, launching a brief solo singing career. He even scored his own No. 1 country hit with 1991’s “Walk on Faith.” Written by Reid and Allen Shamblin, the soulful, uplifting country ballad was the lead single from his debut solo album, Turning for Home.
Ultimately, Reid wrote more than 30 Top 10 country and pop hits, with 21 reaching No. 1, his biography stated. His incredible second act culminated in his induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005. And he’s not done yet.
Following the release of his 2025 collaborative album, Life & Time, with Joe Henry via Thirty Tigers, the singer-songwriter and College Football Hall of Famer is still going strong.
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