American Sniper is in the news for good and bad reasons, be they the award nominations and the reviews or the public reception and also the reviews, but let’s stand here and distance ourselves from all that. We do sports and WVU sports.

The actor who plays Bradley Cooper’s father also played quarterback for the Mountaineers.

“At the beginning of the film he’s beginning to shoot his first insurgent and he starts having flashbacks,” said Reed recently from his home in San Diego. “My role is to let the audience know how Chris Kyle came to be the man he is, how he got his values, his discipline and his work ethic.

“You see us deer hunting at the beginning and you see how he becomes such a good shooter because (his father) taught him how to shoot,” said Reed. “In the movie, you will see my character say, ‘You’ve got quite a gift.’ He’s got a natural gift anyway, but (his father) is training him to be a deer hunter.”

Another key scene in helping the audience better understand Kyle is a dinner discussion Wayne Kyle has with his young son explaining the three different types of people in the world, as he sees it.

“There are sheep, there are wolves and there are sheep dogs,” Reed, as Wayne Kyle, explained. “You are not going to be a sheep because they are followers and they can’t protect themselves. I’ll kick your %$# if you become a wolf because they prey on the weak and my character is trying to instill in him to become a sheep dog because they protect the flock and look out for others.”

Reed said playing Kyle’s father was easy to do because he had similar experiences while growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“There is a church scene and my character is a Deacon in the church and you are hearing a sermon,” said Reed. “You see the fire and brimstone type of service he listened to as a child – and I did too because I grew up in Oklahoma and it was a Baptist church I went to so it was kind of fire and brimstone also.”