It was a sunny Sunday afternoon in October, one of those delightful days that make you glad you live in a place where the seasons change.

Hey, isn’t that … by golly, it is. The male half of the young couple sauntering on the Plaza was Nick Reid, Kansas University’s All-Big 12 Conference linebacker.

“Hi, Nick, how’s it going?” I said.

Moments later, the other half of the old couple that had crossed paths with Reid and his attractive girlfriend wondered who it was.

Courtney Kuhlen

“That’s Nick Reid,” I told my wife. “He’s one of the best college linebackers in the country.”

“Really,” she replied, “that was Nick Reid???”

So it goes with Reid. He stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 230 pounds, and, unless you know who he is, he doesn’t look at all like a football player while clad in street clothes.

I think it must be the hair. People just don’t correlate blond with football, and Reid has the lightest hair you’ll see short of a peroxide treatment. Football players are supposed to be dark-haired and menacing, yet Reid is fair-haired and friendly.

On the field, however, Reid is a terror, a trash-talking Tasmanian Devil of a tackler who once engaged in a saliva-projectile battle with a Nebraska offensive lineman.

In a football uniform, Reid is Mr. Hyde. Outside the lines, he’s Dr. Jekyll. Just goes to show you can’t tell a book by its cover. Blonds can’t play football? Don’t believe it.

“Hopefully, I’ve proved them wrong,” Reid said. “I don’t look like a rough, tough player, but I seem to be doing all right.”

Reid is doing all right as a Bob Parr lookalike, too. Bob who???

If you saw the movie “The Incredibles,” you know Parr actually is Mr. Incredible, a superhero living undercover until forced into action to save the world. I’ve seen the movie, and I’ve seen Reid up close, and the facial resemblance is uncanny.

And I’m not the only one who has noticed the similarity.

“Yeah, my buddy’s mom told me I looked like him,” Reid remarked after Saturday’s Iowa State game, “but I’ve never seen the movie. I go to all kinds of movies — even chick flicks — but I haven’t seen that one. I’ll have to check it out.”

Now if Reid just had the beefed-up body of Mr. Incredible.

I have no doubt Reid will be playing for an NFL team next season, but I don’t think he’ll be a high draft choice.

Sure, he has the instincts and temperament that will keep him off the Plaza on fall Sunday afternoons for a long time, but Reid needs about 20 more pounds of muscle to be regarded as a first-, second- or third-round selection.

Reid was an all-state quarterback at Derby High in suburban Wichita, and today, curiously, he is built like the prototypical NFL quarterback. Back in 2002, however, first-year KU coach Mark Mangino was desperate for linebackers. In Reid, he found a natural.

“Yeah, I thought I’d be a quarterback,” Reid said with a smile, “but linebacker turned out to be OK.”