Reginald "Reggie" Wayman Wilkes (born May 27, 1956 in

Pine Bluff, Arkansas Pine Bluff is the eleventh-largest city in the state of Arkansas and the county seat of Jefferson County. It is the principal city of the Pine Bluff Metropolitan Statistical Area and part of the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Pine Bluff Combin ...

) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, p ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

for the

Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team plays ...

and

Atlanta Falcons The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The Falcons joined th ...

. He attended university and played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

, graduating with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

. Wilkes was drafted by the Eagles in the third round of the

1978 NFL Draft The 1978 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held May 2–3, 1978, at the Roosevelt Hote ...

. Wilkes was all-state at Southwest Atlanta High School and won the 1973 Georgia AA State Championship, heading a defense that allowed 126 yards rushing for the whole season. He went on to letter for Georgia Tech football all four years of college. Upon graduation, he was granted membership into the prestigious ANAK Society, Georgia Tech's honor society, which recognizes exemplary student leaders. In his rookie NFL year with the Eagles, Wilkes recorded 88 tackles, and along with

Pro Bowler The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players. The format has changed thro ...

Bill Bergey William Earl Bergey (born February 9, 1945) is a former American football linebacker who played professionally for 12 seasons, most notably with the Philadelphia Eagles of National Football League (NFL). He was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals ...

, co-led the team with five fumble recoveries. He was named to the

UPI United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th c ...

and

Pro Football Weekly ''Pro Football Weekly'' (sometimes shortened to ''PFW'') is an American sports magazine, founded in 1967, and website that covers the National Football League (NFL). It was owned by Pro Football Weekly LLC and headquartered in Riverwoods, Illinoi ...

All-Rookie teams in 1978–79. Wilkes played in every regular season game in his first three NFL seasons, and was a starting outside linebacker on the 1980–81 Philadelphia Eagles

Super Bowl XV Super Bowl XV was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Oakland Raiders and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Philadelphia Eagles to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for ...

team. After eight seasons with the Eagles, Wilkes finished his career with two years on the Atlanta Falcons. In 1989, Wilkes was inducted into the Georgia Tech Hall of Fame. In 2013, Wilkes was inducted into the

Georgia Sports Hall of Fame The Georgia Sports Hall of Fame is located in Macon, Georgia. It is the largest state sports hall of fame in the United States at . Exhibitions The Hall of Fame houses over of exhibit space broken down into sections including Hall of Fame Induc ...

. During his 10-year NFL career, Wilkes worked on the staff of

Merrill Lynch Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment bank ...

advisory group in the off-seasons. Following his retirement from the NFL in 1988, Wilkes and two partners began a registered investment advisory firm, Pro Cap, which specialized in investment and lifestyle management services for professional athletes. They later sold that business to Mercantile Trust Bank, based in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, and Wilkes maintained his position as senior vice president, heading up its sports and entertainment division. Wilkes returned to Merrill Lynch in 2007 and founded "The Wilkes Sports Management & Advisory Group", before moving to Janney Montgomery Scott, LLC, where he continues to specialize in wealth management of high-net-worth athletes in the

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

and

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

. Wilkes, and his group, has been featured by numerous news and media outlets, including ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

,'' ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

,''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

, ''

Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel ''Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel'' is a monthly sports news magazine on HBO. Since its debut on April 2, 1995, the program has been presented by television journalist and sportscaster Bryant Gumbel. Overview Format Each episode consists of fou ...

'', and the documentary film ''Broke'', which premiered at the 2012 Tribeca/

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

Sports Film Festival. The film is part of ESPN's ''

30 for 30 ''30 for 30'' is the title for a series of documentary films airing on ESPN, its sister networks, and online highlighting interesting people and events in sports history. This includes three "volumes" of 30 episodes each, a 13-episode series un ...

'' series of sports documentaries. Wilkes is a member of the NFL Alumni Association and is a

NFLPA The National Football League Players Association, or NFLPA, is a labor union representing National Football League (NFL) players. The NFLPA, which has headquarters in Washington, D.C., is led by president J. C. Tretter and executive director DeMa ...

Registered Player Financial Advisor. Wilkes operates offices in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

and

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

and lives with his wife in Philadelphia.

References

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