2025 DENVER GAZETTE TRUE WEST AWARDS: DAY 8

University of Colorado football star found a new home and purpose with Magic Moments after devastating brain injury

Every time Ed Reinhardt walks into a room, he will look you straight in the eye and introduce himself.  That is, if you also happen to be nearly 7-foot tall. Otherwise, you know … the looking will be at an angle.

Hollywood scriptwriters could not have written a more dramatic biopic than the one they have yet to write for Reinhardt, the former hometown college football star who tells his own story better than anyone – and in the only way he physically can after suffering a permanent traumatic brain injury on the football field back in 1984: Memorized through hard practice, relentless repetition and by employing the cheerful, chipper conviction of Dale Carnegie:

“Hi. I’m Ed Reinhardt. Many years ago, I had an accident. I was a football star at the University of Colorado. I was the second-leading pass receiver in the nation. My grade-point average was 3.6. In the second game of my sophomore year, I caught a pass and was tackled. My head hit the ground very hard. I was in a coma for 62 days. The injury was a sub hematoma, complicated by pneumonia. The doctor said it was a miracle I survived. They were sure I would stay in a vegetative state. I threw myself into rehabilitation with the same work ethic I had as a football player. It took five months before I could speak. It took two years to walk. My intelligence is intact, and I’m a great listener.”

What he didn’t mention was this: He’s also a great singer. And, as an actor … a total ham.

For 27 years, Reinhardt has been a beloved member of the Magic Moments family. That’s a Littleton nonprofit that has staged a massive, all-comers community musical extravaganza since 1984 — the same year as Reinhardt’s injury — as an opportunity for up to 150 persons with disabilities to perform together on a stage alongside “abled” people.

For Reinhardt, Magic Moments has been a seasonal second home that has regularly afforded him a purpose, a project, a sense of community and a return to the spotlight he once owned as a college football player.

Each year, Reinhardt sings a pop song that brings the house down and audiences to their feet.  It’s a task that might seem ordinary to most others, but to him is a Herculean challenge because of how difficult it is for his brain to memorize.

In his first year with Magic Moments, Reinhardt was given a Gershwin song to learn and sing. In 2000, he played the world’s tallest Elvis impersonator. The next year, he was assigned the ultimate Reinhardt, er, Will Rogers song: “Never Met a Man I Didn’t Like.” His repertoire includes “I Got Friends (in Low Places) and Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely.”

If you ask director KQ Quintana, the longtime creative leader of Magic Moments, what Reinhardt brings into the room every year, it’s a pure love of the stage. Take, for example, the broken hip of 2012.

Reinhardt slipped on something backstage, “and he would not go to the hospital, because he still had a song to sing,” Quintana said. “So, we stuck him in a wheelchair, wheeled him right out onto the stage, and he sang his song. Then we took him to the hospital.

“That’s dedication,” he added with a laugh.

This past March, Reinhardt made his final appearance with the group. The song he sang was Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which Quintana wisely chose to end the show. Because nothing could possibly follow Ed Reinhardt’s last time on a Magic Moments stage. 

“I think Ed Reinhardt’s story encapsulates why Magic Moments exists, and why we continue to persevere doing this epic work every year,” said Assistant Director Rachael Lessard. “There are people who come to see Magic Moments every year because they want to see Ed Reinhardt perform. And some of those people who saw Ed Reinhardt perform got inspired and then decided to participate in Magic Moments themselves.”

Back to the beginning 

Reinhardt has been part of the Magic Moments family for so long, very few here know that their All-American boy was on his way to an All-America season for CU back in 1984. The 19-year-old sophomore from Heritage High School opened that season by catching a school-record 10 passes against Michigan State. The next week, on Sept. 15, 1984, CU was in Eugene to play the University of Oregon.

It was, by all accounts, a clean and unremarkable hit. There was just 1:57 left in the game when Reinhardt ran 6 yards, turned and caught a pass from Steve Vogel. He ran 13 more yards before he was tackled by two safeties. Nothing seemed amiss. But what the naked eye could not see was Ed’s brain crashing into the inside of his skull, bursting a blood vessel. Ed made it to the sideline but passed out, lapsing into the coma that would last, as he now says for added emphasis, “Siiiiiiixty-twooooo daaaaaays!”

It was an injury so rare that doctors say there is no way to quantify the odds of it happening.

When the family assembled in Oregon, they were told Ed’s chance of survival was 10%, with no possibility of normal brain function. His beloved mother, Pat – half of a relentless parental caregiving team that tended to his everyday needs for 40 years after his injury – told me in 2001 she felt a peace that could only come from God. She calmly prepared her son’s epitaph, should the time come. It read: “Farewell, Gallant Warrior.”

The story of Ed’s survival over the next few months is one of daily, quiet miracles. He had severe brain pressure, a temperature of 104 and a near-fatal bout with pneumonia. But, in time, the family’s one simple prayer was answered.

“We just wanted him back, no strings attached,” said Ed Sr., his father, buddy and constant companion. “We didn’t care about anything else.”

The son they got back from the coma was paralyzed on the right side of his body. His short-term memory, vocabulary and reading skills were all but wiped out. He underwent 15 surgeries and threw himself into physical rehabilitation at Craig Hospital with the help of his four brothers, a sister and an army of 140 volunteers.

What does that tell you? I asked Ed Sr.

“People are great,” he said.

Reinhardt’s comeback has been excruciatingly incremental. Doctors warned the family that Ed’s recovery would plateau at 24 months. Pat didn’t believe it for a second. “We are cockeyed optimists,” she told me. “From the moment this happened, we were in denial — and we have ridden a horse named denial for a very long time.”

Ed’s greatest rehabilitative win took place well beyond 24 months after his injury. More like 10 years. It came when a doctor suggested that he take singing lessons. The thinking being, said Ed Sr., “Singing will help the speech, and the speech will help the singing.”

Ed always loved to sing, but because of his short-term memory deficit, singing became one of his most difficult challenges. His brain can now only learn lyrics through so much rigorous repetition that the words finally cross over into long-term memory. For years, his father helped him with the exercise for an hour every day.

In 1998, a family friend suggested that Ed check out Magic Moments. Over the past three decades, father and son have become as interchangeable as Gilbert and Sullivan.

“I do kind of love that Ed is someone who was so impactful to the Colorado community on the athletic field,” Lessard said, “and then, when that arena was no longer available to him, he went, ‘Well, what arena can I be successful in?’ And he just applied that same kind of energy and perseverance to being successful at memorizing one song and performing it to the very best of his ability every year. And with the same kind of tenacity that he learned on the field, which, as a football fan, is awesome to me.”

So why stop now? Reinhardt is now 61. His mother, Pat, died March 3, just two weeks before the 2025 production. Ed Sr. is now 92. Each year, the rigorous rehearsal schedule becomes a little bit harder for Ed to physically manage. So, for his own sake, it was mutually decided that this year’s show would be his last.

To maximize the moment and protect Reinhardt from fatigue, he made his first appearance on the massive stage at the Kent Denver School in the very last scene of the show. He played a record-producer character whose retirement in the story became a meta opportunity to acknowledge the real-life retirement of Ed, who then led the cast of 112 and the packed audience in an irresistible singalong of “Don’t Stop Believin’.” It made for an unforgettable moment. The kind the True West Awards were made to tell.

“We saved him for the final number so we could send him off in the best way possible,” Quintana said. “That standing ovation was for the entire incredible cast, but it was also a celebration of who Ed is, and all the time and effort and energy that he’s brought to this organization.

“It was quite a retirement party.”

Magic Moments 2026

• What: “Another Night at Nick’s: A Love Story of Passion, Pirates and Pianos”

• When: March 26-29

• Where: Kent Denver School, 4000 E. Quincy Avenue Englewood

• Information: magicmomentsinc.org

More True West Awards coverage:

• KQ earns Henry Awards’ Lifetime Achievement Award

• The tragic magic of Magic Moments

• 2025 True West Awards, Day 1: Matt Zambrano

• Day 2: Rattlebrain is tying up ‘Santa’s Big Red Sack’

• Day 3: Mission Possible: Phamaly alumni make national impact

• Day 4: Jeff Campbell invites you to join him on the dark side

• Day 5: Cleo Parker Robinson is flying high at 77

• Day 6: Mirror images: Leslie O’Carroll and Olivia Wilson

• Day 7: Philip Sneed will exit Arvada Center on a high