Andy Reid’s love of burgers is widely-known, but it’s a recently shared story about Reid and a steak dinner that deserves the spotlight.
Reid’s “left-hand man” Porter Ellett was a guest last week on former BYU basketball star Jimmer Fredette’s podcast, “From The Logo With Jimmer Fredette.”
During the episode, Ellettt, who grew up in Loa, Utah, and went to BYU, shared a story that demonstrates the kind of man Reid is.
For his first work trip, Ellett attended the NFL combine in Indianapolis with Reid. As Reid’s “left-hand man,” Ellett went everywhere Reid went.
While in Indianapolis, Ellett drove Reid to a dinner he was scheduled to attend with several prominent NFL coaches.
“I was just going to drop him off and go park. It was like this really fancy steak place, and when I dropped him off, he was like ‘Well, where are you going?’” Ellett said.
He told Reid he had planned to park the car and wait for him to finish dinner.
“He’s like ‘Well, do you want to come in? And I was like, ‘I don’t know. This isn’t really for me,’” Ellett said. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, but you might as well come in and come have a steak,’ and he knew I’m like obviously a country boy — steak and potatoes, that’s on the menu every day.”
Ellett thought it over and decided to attend the dinner with Reid.
“Not very often do I get to eat at a steakhouse like this, so I was like ‘Alright, I’ll go park the car.’ So I went and parked the car and got in there, and I walked in and there was like the who’s who of NFL coaches, like Steve Spagnuolo, Sean McDermott, John Harbaugh, Leslie Frazier, Brad Childress — everybody from coach Reid’s tree that’s like big-time coaches,“ he said.
Ellett felt out of place among the accomplished NFL coaches, though they were “the nicest guys ever.”
“As soon as I walked in, I was like ‘Ooh, one of us is not supposed to be here, and that’s me,’” he said.
Then Ellett, whose right arm was amputated in high school, looked over the menu. He wanted to order a steak, “but when you eat steak with one hand, it’s not like socially-acceptable even. It’s pretty barbaric,” he said.
So, he ordered a salmon, something he can cut one-handed with a fork, thinking, “I’ll look at least acceptable.”
After Ellett ordered, a surprised Reid leaned over and asked, “You ordered fish?”
“I’m like, ‘Yeah, yeah, I ordered fish.’ Then a couple minutes later, he leans over again and goes, ‘You ordered salmon?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, coach. Yeah I ordered salmon.’ Then like a third time, he leans over finally and goes, ‘You ordered the fish,’ like super disappointed in me, just like ‘Dude, what are you doing?’” Ellett said.
He then told Reid why he ordered the salmon over the steak he wanted.
“‘Coach, I wouldn’t have been able to cut my steak. I wouldn’t have been able to cut it,’” Ellett said.
Then Reid leaned back in his chair and sighed.
“It was the first time the whole meal where I felt like I had embarrassed coach Reid. It was my order that did it to me,” Ellett said.
Once the food was brought out, Ellett started eating his salmon when Reid, who ordered a steak, leaned over to him again.
“He leans over, ‘Hey, how’s the fish?’ and just starts laughing at me. I’m like, ‘It’s good man. It’s good,’” Ellett said. “Then he quietly cuts up his steak. I watched him and he leaned his plate over my plate and just slides parts of his steak onto my plate.”
Ellett, who is now in his first season as assistant special teams coordinator, thanked Reid and ate the steak.
“We were getting ready to go, and he’s like, ‘If you want to order the steak, you order the steak. I’ll cut your steak for you from now on.’ To me, that’s just such a perfect illustration of the kind of person coach Reid is. He had no reason to really care about my situation, or what I ordered or even care. But he did, and to care enough to say, ‘No, I’ll help you out. I’ll be your right-hand man, and I’ll take care of you.’ That’s the way he’s been my whole career, just taking care of me. He takes care of people around him, which is special,” he said.
Fredette called it “an incredible story” and praised Reid and his character.
“That just goes to show the type of person, like you said, coach Reid is. He’s a genuinely good person. He cares about others. He tries to live his life the right way. He’s a follower of Christ,” Fredette said.
The Chiefs lost to the Philadelphia Eagles in a Super Bowl rematch on Sunday, falling to 0-2 to start the season. Next up, the Chiefs travel to New York to face the Giants Sunday.