Dan Marino retired without winning a Super Bowl ring. Two other legendary quarterbacks - Peyton Manning and Brett Favre - have but one NFL championship to their credit.

Jeff Reed, by contrast, owns as many rings as Manning, Favre and Marino combined.

"It's tough to believe, really,'' marvelled Reed, who was among the special guests Thursday at the inaugural Jon Ryan Charity Golf Classic.

Reed, who was a placekicker with the Pittsburgh Steelers from 2002 to 2010, helped his team win the 43rd and 46th Super Bowls.

"There's 40-plus Super Bowl rings, ever, and I have two of them - and I was a soccer player,'' Reed said. "I never even thought I'd play football. I just started my senior year in high school. My true love was soccer, and it still is, but I realized that I had the gift to kick a football.''

In fact, Reed kicked the very first football at the 2006 Super Bowl, in which the Steelers defeated the Seattle Seahawks - for whom the Regina-born Ryan is now the punter - 21-10 in Detroit.

"I did have the honour of doing the opening kickoff in Detroit,'' Reed recalled. "I almost missed the ball, because it was blinding (due to all the cameras in the stands). Obviously, as a kicker, you're looking at the ball. Because of all the flashes on the way to the ball, it's very distracting. Other than that, it's just a football game.............

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