Ryen Russillo
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Ryen Russillo (born August 5, 1975 in Compton, California) is an American sports host currently working for ESPN Radio. He is a graduate of the University of Vermont, and worked as a play-by-play man in Minor League Baseball. Russillo hosted NBA Sunday, The Baseball Show, ESPN Radio College GameDay during the 2008 season. Ryen was also a regular host for GameNight and a fill-in host for The Pulse, The Doug Gottlieb Show and All Night with Jason Smith. Before moving to Hartford, Connecticut he lived in Boston, Massachusetts where he previously hosted a show entitled The Die Hards with co-hosts Anthony Pepe, John Anik, Kevin Winter, and Mike Winn (the final two both leaving the show relatively early on), while working for the Sportingnews Radio -owned, 1510 the Zone, which no longer runs non-sponsored local programming. He appears regularly on New England Sports Tonight with Gary Tanguay and Greg Dickerson, and has also appeared on Cold Pizza. Russillo is also a studio analyst for the Celtics' television coverage on Comcast SportsNet. Ryen was named Best Radio Voice of 2007 by Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch for his work on ESPN Radio, who praised Ryen's "reasoned approach and knowledge across sports." Starting July 6 2009 Russillo will be the co-host for The Scott Van Pelt Show on ESPN radio. Also, for the 2009-2010 NBA season, he is the host of The NBA Today podcast on EPSN radio.
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[edit] Controversy
[edit] Gary Payton trade
Russillo had a disagreement with journalist Bill Simmons, over who claimed to have broken the Gary Payton trade from the Lakers to the Celtics in August 2004. Simmons claims that he actually broke the Payton story first. Russillo claimed that he had time marked tapes proving that he was first to break the story.
[edit] Other
In an October 2009 broadcast of the Scott Van Pelt Show on ESPN Radio an awkward exchange between Russillo and ESPN columnist Bill Simmons took place when Simmons poked fun at Russillo's past. In the broadcast Russillo told Bill he was not mad at him, but Simmons insisted that Russillo gave him "the stink eye".
