UT-Tyler’s Mike Reed Wins #800: Five Fast Facts

UT-Tyler head coach Mike Reed celebrated his 800th career win in a 4-1 win over Regis on Friday to open his team’s season.

As the Patriots’ leader celebrates the milestone victory, here are Five Fast Facts about his career.

1. He is a national champion.

Reed guided the Patriots to the 2016 Division III national championship, with the squad posting an undefeated record in conference play that same season. In an eight-year stretch surrounding the championship season, the Patriots played in the D3 World Series five times.

2. The win was his 695th at UT-Tyler.

Reed spent three seasons as head coach at East Texas Baptist before taking over at UT-Tyler in 2004. He is five wins away from his 700th triumph as the Patriots’ head coach.

3. He has never lost more than 18 games in a season.

Reed’s career trajectory of winning might be his most impressive statistic. In twenty seasons as a head coach, he has only recorded double-digit losses eight times. His 2002 ETBU team finished with a 38-18 overall record, the most losses ever recorded by a Reed team. He has never finished fewer than 16 games above the .500 mark in a season.

4. He is the architect of the UT-Tyler program.

When Reed came over from ETBU in 2004, he spent a year building the UT-Tyler program before their first games in 2005. The program hasn’t known another head coach and has experienced tremendous success under Reed’s consistent guidance ever since.

5. Under his guidance, the Patriots are perennial championship contenders at every level.

Even a transition from Division III to Division II didn’t slow down Reed’s or the Patriots’ success – in the program’s first two years competing in the Lone Star Conference, the Patriots won back-to-back regular-season championships and advanced to the D2 World Series in their first year of eligibility in 2022. This followed a D3 stint that included eight D3 World Series appearances.