Gerad, a native of Louisa, Kentucky, was born the son of Rick and Laura Parker. Parker graduated from Lawrence County High School, where he was a member of the basketball team, track and field team as well as the football team as a record-setting wide receiver. As a freshman and sophomore, Parker teamed up with Jason Michael to form one of the best passing attacks in the state of Kentucky. A 2000 graduate, Parker was Kentucky's all-time leading receiving with 4,814 career receiving yards in high school. His 65 receptions, 1,504 receiving yards and 20 touchdowns as a senior made him a finalist for the 1999 Kentucky Mr. Football Award, losing out to eventual teammate Travis Atwell. Parker also ran the 400-meter dash, 400-meter relay and 1,600-meter relay, as well as was a member of the basketball team.
College career
In January 2000, Parker accepted a scholarship to the University of Kentucky to continue his football career. He chose Kentucky over offers from Marshall and Western Kentucky. During Paker's career at Kentucky, he went through three head coaches, two broken collar bones and a leg injury.
Statistics
Source:
Coaching career
Early coaching career
Parker coached wide receivers and defensive backs at Raceland-Worthington High School from 2005–2006. In 2007 Parker took a graduate assistant job at Kentucky, where he worked with wide receivers and the offensive scout team. The following year Parker was hired by UT Martin, where he was the running backs coach and recruiting coordinator. In 2011, Parker became the wide receivers coach at Marshall.
Purdue
On February 11, 2013, Parker was hired by Darrell Hazell as the tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator at Purdue University. In 2015, Parker took over as the wide receivers coach and maintained his role as the recruiting coordinator. Parker mentored standout receiver DeAngelo Yancey during his time at Purdue. Yancey earned second teamAll-Big Ten honors after recording a career-high 49 receptions for 951 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2016, and wrapped up his four-year collegiate career ranking among the top receivers in Purdue history, finishing with 141 career receptions for 2,344 yards and 20 TDs. After a loss to Iowa on October 16, 2016, Purdue fired head coach Darrell Hazell and named Parker the interim head coach for the final six weeks of the season.
On June 1, 2017, Parker was hired by David Cutcliffe and the Duke Blue Devils as a Football Operations Assistant. In 2018, Parker transitioned into an assistant coaching role to mentor Duke’s wide receivers. During his one season coaching the Duke wide receivers, the unit combined for 2,252 yards, accounting for 70.4 percent of the Blue Devils’ passing production.
