r Lifelong Springville resident, Nancy Reed has worked for the Springville Recreation department for nineteen years, serving the last several years as a full-time coordinator.
The intricacies and ins and outs of running a city recreation program are complex, and no one knows it better than Reed.
She puts teams together, hires and trains referees, and is the lifeblood of Springville sports. She also does payroll, hiring, terminations, and oversees softball tournaments. During any given sport’s season, she works with thirty to forty referees—a daunting feat that requires an enormous amount of coordination and patience.
Reed works in the office in the mornings, and then spends her evenings dragging the softball fields, preparing the city’s twenty soccer fields, training, watching the games and coaching two cub soccer teams.
Born and raised in Springville, Reed wouldn’t trade what she does for anything. Coworker Jodi Gooch explains the passion: “Nancy grew up on these fields around town, the same fields she now cares for and works on.”
On Sundays, as a child, Reed would sneak out of the house with her younger brother and walk to a nearby field. They set out large vegetable cans to use as soccer goals, hoping their parents wouldn’t notice them missing. On one of these covert missions, she kicked a sprinkler head and broke her toe in two places.
Reed played five sports at BYU: basketball, tennis, volleyball, golf, and softball. Before moving back to Springville to work with the Recreation Department, Reed coached all of the girls’ sports at Emery County High School for twelve years.
“I knew when I was little what I wanted to do when I grew up: play sports at BYU and coach. Once I’d gotten that done, I started lawn mowing and working for the Rec Department,” Reed says.
All of her experience with her lawn care business has been a boon to our community because Reed goes to any length to make sure the fields are in optimal shape. “When I drive around town, I look at lawns.”
In her free time, Reed watches sports and “Walker, Texas Ranger.” She loves Snoopy, and her dog named Marty, a yorkie.
Softball is her favorite sport, but she likes them all. A lifelong dream is to attend Wimbledon someday.
When asked what the best part of her job is, Reed’s face lights up. “Being around all of the kids and watching them improve. I can go into Reams and a little girl says, ‘Hey Mom, that’s the sports lady.’”
A recent post on the Springville/Mapleton Utah Community Awareness Facebook page honored Nancy and more than sixty people commented to share their support and love of this Springville hero.
