Rick Reilly

Rick Reilly

Richard "Rick" Paul Reilly (born February 3, 1958 in Boulder, Colorado) is an American sportswriter. Long known for being the "back page" columnist for Sports Illustrated, Reilly moved to ESPN on June 1, 2008. He has won the national Sportswriter of the Year award 11 times.

Career

Reilly began his career in 1981 with the Daily Camera in Boulder, Colorado. He joined Sports Illustrated in 1985 and contributed a column for Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit issue. He hosts The Riffs of Reilly on Verizon VCAST and SI.com.

Reilly has become one of the most popular sportswriters in the industry because of his light-hearted human interest pieces in SI. His column on Sports Illustrated's back page was called "The Life of Reilly." He announced in October 2007 that he would leaving Sports Illustrated to work at ESPN. He now writes a weekly column for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com, and reports live from sporting events for SportsCenter and other programs on the ESPN family of networks. [1]

Reilly officially left SI during the week of November 29, 2007, after 23 years with the magazine.

He co-wrote "Leatherheads," a film starring and directed by George Clooney released in April 2008.

Style

Reilly's style is usually humorous, poking fun at the absurdities of athletes, coaches, and almost anyone involved in sports at any level. Reilly does have a serious side, and has written on many subjects, from small town heroes to his own personal life. Reilly has also done features, notably one about a week spent with Marge Schott that ultimately helped lead to her suspension from baseball. He has said in his columns that he doesn't write about sports, but writes "about people IN sports."

Slate's Josh Levin noted that Reilly had an affinity for discussing pro athletes and their accomplishments via tooth jokes. For example, he would characterize . He is especially harsh on dental flossing. He described Tiger Woods's 2002 victory at Augusta as suspenseful as flossing, riding Lance Armstrong's team car about as boring as flossing sharks, would rather floss crocodiles than go skydiving, and stated John Elway's perfect endorsement product would be Johnson & Johnson dental floss. Reilly would tell Levin that he was a "Sugar Babies kid" and "had more cavities than the surface of the moon", which might explain why he is so avid in taking frustration out on the dental line.

Controversies

In 2002, Reilly responded to Sammy Sosa's assertion that he would "take a drug test if someone offered it to him" by spontaneously offering him a drug test after a game; Sosa reacted by yelling and threatening him. Reilly then wrote a critical column the next week. [2]

Reilly has also been a constant critic of former San Francisco Giants star Barry Bonds, and Bonds has become a regular subject of his columns. Reilly has ridiculed Bonds' treatment of his teammates, his off-field behavior and his alleged steroid use.

Despite being highly critical of the recruiting and sexual assault scandal at his alma mater, the University of Colorado, Reilly himself has been accused of not being able to supervise his own teenage daughter while an alleged sexual assault and underage drinking took place in his own home. .

Nothing But Nets

In 2006, Reilly wrote a column in Sports Illistrated about malaria, and challenged each of his readers to donate at least $10 for the purchase of an anti-malaria bed nets. Thousands of Americans across the country donated, which led to the creation the Nothing But Nets foundation. To date the foundation has collected around $20 million, with the average donation being $40.

Bibliography

• Slo Mo! – A fictional diary of a naive 7'8" kid taken from high school to the NBA.
• Missing Links – A novel about an eccentric group of golfers who are regulars at the worst course in America
• Shanks for Nothing – A novel which is the sequel to Missing Links
• The Life of Reilly – An anthology of Reilly's best early works from Sports Illustrated
• Hate Mail from Cheerleaders and Other Adventures from the Life of Reilly – An anthology consisting of one-hundred Reilly's best weekly articles from 2000-2006.
• Who's Your Caddy – A collection of stories about Reilly caddying for several remarkable people ranging from Donald Trump to the blind golfing world champion.

Trivia

• During an altercation in a bar in 1997, Charles Barkley threw 20-year-old Jorge Lugo through a plate-glass window. This led to a long standing running gag in Reilly's column which included a year-end award dubbed "The Chuckies" dedicated to people or things in sports that deserved to be thrown through a plate-glass window. Barkley later wrote the foreword to "Life of Reilly."
• Reilly has his own football card, which he detailed in a column. The card was part of the Donruss "Fans of the Game" series, and featured Reilly with the logo of his favorite team, the now-relocated Los Angeles Rams.
• Reilly is an avid supporter of Lance Armstrong and has often argued him to be the greatest athlete of all time. Armstrong wrote the foreword for Hate Mail from Cheerleaders and Other Adventures from the Life of Reilly.
• Six of his articles have been included in the Best American Sports Writing anthology series.