Bill Simmons

Bill Simmons (born 1969), best known as "The Sports Guy," is a columnist for "Page2" on ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine.

Basics

His ESPN.com column, which started in 2001, is notable for its prodigious length and the irregularity with which it is written, as well as its extended analogies and references to pop culture (especially from the 1980s and 1990s). Simmons aims for humor in his columns, which are written from the perspective of a fan rather than an objective journalist.

Simmons has earned a love/hate relationship with his readers, who often complain that he writes far too often about Boston-related topics and the NBA in general at the expense of other more popular sports. He recently announced that the FIFA World Cup piqued his interest in soccer, to the extent that he would choose an English Premier League team to follow; he selected Tottenham Hotspur. A native New Englander, Simmons is a passionate fan of the Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots, Holy Cross Crusaders, and Boston Celtics. He also passionately roots against certain teams, specifically the New York Yankees, Boston College Eagles, Indianapolis Colts, and Los Angeles Lakers. He moved to Los Angeles at the end of 2002, and is currently a Los Angeles Clippers season ticket holder.

Memes

Simmons responds to issues in the sports world in a unique way, usually putting a different, funny, and unique spin on events, ideas, and theories. One of his most used Internet memes, which was actually the brainchild of David Cirilli, has been the "Ewing Theory", which details the unusual increase in success teams often have after the departure of a superstar. Additional Simmons running conventions include referring to players who are no longer effective as having "a giant salad fork sticking out of their back", the Vengeance Scale, the "Juvenation Machine" (used to describe an athlete or team having a strong comeback year) and "I will now light myself on fire" (a catchphrase he uses whenever forced to admit an unpleasant truth, such as his 2006 acknowledgement of Kobe Bryant as the player most deserving of the 2006 NBA MVP award). Simmons recently made the semi-serious suggestion that sports teams should hire a Vice President of Common Sense who would be an average fan essentially taken off the street and given no behind-the-scenes knowledge. This official would be called in to assess important transactions; his reaction would be a gauge to help the team notice obviously mediocre decisions arising from such problems as bureaucracy, group-think and hype (by way of introduction to the concept, Simmons said that the VP of Common Sense would have selected Reggie Bush over Mario Williams in the 2006 NFL Draft). He uses such terms so frequently that ESPN.com has a glossary of Simmons conventions, with links to articles in which they were used.

Reggie Cleveland All-Stars

Simmons also created the "Reggie Cleveland All-Stars", a list of sports figures whose names seem not to match their ethnicities. (The namesake is Reggie Cleveland, a former pitcher whose white background did not seem to match his "African American-sounding" name.)

Simmons officially designated the following players as All-Stars:

Many others have been nominated on various websites. He also noted that recently drafted Patrick O'Bryant is a "mortal lock" to be named to the All-Star team. Kendrick was added during the latest mailbag on Page 2.

Style

His writing is characterized by references to movies, television shows such as Sopranos and Entourage, his disdain for the WNBA, male insecurities, and anxiety about the emasculating effects of wives and girlfriends.

He frequently mentions friends and family in his column, and trips to Las Vegas or other gambling venues with his friends. Simmons frequently writes about his gambling, whether it's at the blackjack table or his many parlays during football season. On Fridays during the NFL season, he makes picks for every game.

He will also discuss movies (most notably, Hoosiers,The Godfather, The Shawshank Redemption, Boogie Nights, the Rocky series, and The Karate Kid), favorite TV shows of the past and present, his many fantasy sports teams, memories regarding professional wrestling (mainly with the WWF/E) and video games. One of his ongoing projects is "The Best 72 Sports Movies of the last 33 Years", which he updates in no particular order. He also occasionally writes columns answering reader's e-mails. One of his more popular columns is his annual Draft Diary, where he discusses watching the NBA Draft and mocks various aspects of it.

Controversy

Simmons is an avid NBA fan and is quick to express his opinions over who's doing a good job and who's not. He has heavily criticized Celtics head coach Doc Rivers, Los Angeles Clippers general manager Elgin Baylor (who once called Simmons an "asshole"), and especially New York Knicks coach and general manager Isiah Thomas. This led to Thomas threatening Simmons on Stephen A. Smith's radio show in early 2006, saying, "If I see this guy Bill Simmons, oh, it's gonna be a problem with me and him." He has claimed that despite his comments in the past, he and Baylor are now on good terms.

Personal life

In 1988, Simmons completed a postgraduate year at Choate Rosemary Hall, a prep school located in Wallingford, Connecticut after attending Brunswick School in Greenwich, Connecticut. Simmons attended and graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 1992, and subsequently studied sports journalism at Boston University, where he received his masters degree. Before his affiliation with ESPN, he was known as the "Boston Sports Guy" on the web site Digital City Boston. Simmons also worked for the Boston Herald briefly in the 1990s, and he was a bartender for a short time while he established himself on the web.

In the fall of 2002, he moved to California to work as a comedy writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live. Although he left the show in 2004, he remained in California. Simmons also frequently writes about his non-sports related personal life in his columns. He often mentions his wife, Kari, but only as "The Sports Gal", and his baby daughter Zoe, born in the spring of 2005.

Simmons now boasts his own section of ESPN.com's Page 2, entitled "Sports Guy's World", and in late 2004 launched an online cartoon based on his columns. He has appeared on VH1's I Love the 90s: Part Deux and Jim Rome is Burning, and is an occasional guest on several sports talk radio shows.

On October 1, 2005, Simmons released his first book, Now I Can Die in Peace: How ESPN's Sports Guy Found Salvation, With a Little Help From Nomar, Pedro, Shawshank and the 2004 Red Sox. The book is a collection of his colums, with minor changes and lengthy footnotes, leading up to the 2004 World Series victory by the Boston Red Sox.

In the March 13, 2006 edition of ESPN The Magazine, Simmons revealed that he would be competing in the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event. Simmons busted out of the tournament during his first day of play.

On April 19, 2006, Simmons won the NBA Cares Celebrity Fantasy League beating out Bernie Mac in the final by a score of 1028-852. Other celebrites that participated were Pamela Anderson, Cedric the Entertainer, Samuel L. Jackson, Matthew Modine, Michael Rapaport, Star Jones Reynolds, Kenny Smith and Diana Taurasi. Simmons attributed his success to his extensive knowledge of the NBA and to star player Kobe Bryant, as well as the Isiah-esque ineptitude of TNT analyst Smith.

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