Bob Ryan

For the Washington, DC meteorologist, see Bob Ryan (meteorologist).

Robert P. Ryan (born February 21, 1946 in Trenton, New Jersey) is a columnist for the Boston Globe. He has been described as a basketball guru and is well known for his coverage of the sport. Ryan is a history major from Boston College (class of 1968). He started as a sports intern for the Globe on the same day that Peter Gammons did.

Life & Work

File:Bob Ryan.jpg

Bob Ryan

In the Fall of 1969 a vacancy on the Celtics beat was created and Ryan would take that job. While covering the Celtics Ryan would have a tight knit relationship with the Celtics’ organization. Ryan would even go out to dinner with the team. Ryan would sit at the press table 8 seats from the Celtics bench where colleagues would refer to him as the "Commissioner", not unlike Peter Gammons nickname. One night Hue Hollins the referee went to the press table to explain a call to Ryan during a time-out. Another time Ryan wrote a column about the Washington Bullets player Rick Mahorn and how he played dirty under the hoop. When Mahorn was called for a foul Gene Shue the Bullets coach turned around and said, "that's your fault, Bob Ryan, your fault!" Dennis Johnson was often annoyed with Ryan and would go up to the press table and say, "hey, Bob, keep it down. We got a game going on here," when Ryan sideline coached.

In Tom (Tommy) Heinsohn's book Give 'em the Hook, Heinsohn is negative towards Ryan. Ryan who began writing for the Globe in Heinsohn's rookie season would make friends with the players and vent their feelings towards their coach, their fans and their teammates. Heinsohn didn't like how he didn't feel in control of his team. Heinsohn said that Ryan started to "think of himself as another member of the family" and that he even started coaching the team through his beat stories. Then Heinsohn went on to talk about Ryan's bloated ego and the fact that he was now thinking of himself as a Basketball guru. Heinsohn also says while noting disapproval of Ryan that at the time if you lived in Boston and even remotly followed basketball you read Bob Ryan. In recent years Ryan has been less critical of Celtics coaches including Doc Rivers who he said of, "I'm a Doc guy" even though he is not well liked in Boston. In 1982 Ryan would hand the torch that is the Globe Celtics beat to then not well known Dan Shaughnessy, and later Jackie MacMullan.

For the first 5 years of the 1980's Ryan would work at WCVB. He ended up hating it and moved back to the Celtics beat for two more seasons before finally in 1989 getting promoted to general sports columnist.

In May 2003, Ryan appeared on Sports Final, a local sports talk show airing on WBZ-TV. At that time, Ryan said that Joumana Kidd, the wife of New Jersey Nets guard Jason Kidd needed someone to "smack" her for taking her son T.J., then 4 years old, to NBA play-off night games where they could be taunted. He accused Joumana of being an exhibitionist and using the child as a prop to get television time. The show's host, Bob Lobel, asked Ryan to retract his statement, but Ryan refused saying:

LOBEL: You just don’t want to smack her. You don’t mean to say that.

RYAN: Alright.

LOBEL: I mean. Do you? Really, do you? Tell me you don’t.

RYAN: Why should I say anything different here than I said all last playoffs last year?

The comments struck a cord because in 2001 Joumana Kidd had been the victim of domestic abuse by her husband Jason Kidd. Ryan would return to Boston to meet with executives at the Globe. Ryan later apologized, but the Globe still suspended him and barred him from television for one month. "Four weeks took my breath away. But I’ll abide by it," he later said.

Gerry Callahan of the Boston Herald would defend Ryan while others such as Herald Ombudsmen Jim Baker did not. The Boston Phoenix called it a "moment of temporary insanity."

Ryan would cover 20 NBA finals, 20 Final Fours, 9 World Series, five super bowls, the last 7 Olympics and many other events. In recent times Ryan has become less basketball oriented and more general sports oriented. He has also written for the Basketball Times. Additionally he is a regular guest on WROR in Boston's Loren & Wally program and the radio in general. Some of his appearances include:

• The BOB RYAN REPORT Every Thursday morning at 7:50AM he goes on to give his oppinion about Boston sports.
• Ryan contributes to Michael Felger's show. He used to contribute to Dennis & Callahan on WEEI.
• Roundtable (featuring Ryan) on NPR's On Point to talk about the decline in Basketball viewership

In 1997, Ryan won the Curt Gowdy Award from the Basketball Hall of Fame. In 2000 he was the AP National Sportswriter of the Year. He is also a member of the College Basketball Writers and New England Basketball Halls of Fame. On the show Around the Horn of which he is a regular contributor he has--by far--the highest winning percentage of everyone on the show. In addition Bill Simmons has called him "the best basketball writer ever." Paul Silas joked on Cold Pizza while Ryan was a guest, that all Bob Ryan's success was due to him.

At 60, Ryan wants his retirement from the job to be graceful, "I’m not bitter. I enjoy my job and I still think I do it well, but they are chipping away, chipping away and they are making it far less pleasurable. I want to get out when I feel like getting out. If you stay around too long, there is no way you can dictate your terms," he said. Also saying, "How do you explain to Stephen A. Smith that he has no idea of the game and how much fun it was? He thinks he knows everything, but he will never know what I know about the Celtics."

He and his wife Elaine have two children and are proud grandparents of three triplets. Today Ryan lives in Hingham, Massachusetts. The dedication page in Forty Eight Minutes one of Ryan's books says, "To Elaine Ryan: In the next life, maybe you'll get a nine-to-five man who makes seven figures." Ryan has also done humanitarian fundraisers for years to help inner city teenagers with their educations. Ryan "can't stand fellow Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy."

Books

• Celtics pride: The rebuilding of Boston's world championship basketball team (1975)
• Celtic Man in Motion (1977) coauthored with John Havlicek
• Forty Eight Minutes (1987) with Terry Pluto
• Cousy on the Celtic Mystique (1988) coauthored with Bob Cousy
• Boston Celtics: The History, Legends, and Images of America's Most Celebrated Team (1990)
• The Four Seasons (1997)
• The Road to the Super Bowl (1997)
• A Day of Light and Shadows (2000) Only introduction
• When Boston Won the World Series: A Chronicle of Boston's Remarkable Victory in the First Modern World Series of 1903 (2004) released before Red Sox victory
• The Best of Sport: Classic Writing from the Golden Era of Sports (2005)