The return of Rick Reilly at SI

Here's a link to his story on the Golden State Warriors.

And an editor's note:

Rick Reilly is back in these pages, and we are thrilled. It has been more than 400 issues since he wrote the Dec. 3, 2007, Life of Reilly, the back-page space that defined the writer and, to a large extent, SI for more than a decade. From 1996 through ’07, Reilly wrote all but a small handful of our back-page columns; in seven of those years he was named National Sportswriter of the Year.

I arrived at Sports Illustrated in the spring of 1992. Then, Reilly was as celebrated for his longform chops as he later would be for his back-page excellence. It was tear-it-out-of-the-magazine-tape-it-to-the-wall-and-nerdily-recite-it-back-to-your-coworkers good. His stories mixed urgency, humor, pathos and tragedy, often in the same paragraph. I had my favorites. We all did.

...

The summer of 2014 marked the 60th anniversary of Sports Illustrated, and senior editor Ted Keith was charged with identifying the 60 best stories in the franchise’s history. Ted used his interviews with 21 current and former writers as an opportunity to broaden the conversation with such questions as, “Hey, Rick, by any chance, would you ever consider writing for SI again?”

More than three decades after Larry Keith helped bring Rick Reilly to SI, Ted, the second of his four children, brought him back.

We have yet to define a specific arrangement with Reilly, but we settled on a story pretty easily. Like the rest of the one-third of this planet that isn’t covered by water, Reilly had become entranced by the Most Joyous Show on Earth, the Golden State Warriors, who are no longer a team so much as a movement. From their 53–5 record to the crowds they attract on the road to the trio of stars leading them, the Warriors recall the 1997–98 Bulls, with whom Reilly had traveled during the final months of the Jordan dynasty (May 11, 1998).

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Oh goody. More basketball great, golf great, baseball bad columns. Still, Reilly and SI are a match so this is news.

 

I thought the Warriors stuff was pretty creative. A nice bit of writing. Not like it's a surprise, but Deadspin tore it to shreds before I even read it, so I went in with low expectations.

 

Say what you want about it Reilly, but he keeps it lively. Him returning to long reported features—if that's what he's doing—would be a win for readers.

 

Over-under on number of pieces he writes before using "tongue bath?"

 

Reilly at this stage is like Jordan with the Wizards. He's a shell of his former self and keeps trying to go back to the old tricks. No one seems willing to tell him it's not working anymore.

 

Best part of the Deadspin piece:

"SI was given the chance to embed a writer in the Warriors’ locker room and send them on the road with what is possibly the greatest NBA team in history, and for some reason they decided to give that assignment to Rick Reilly."

 

I'd be excited if this was 25 years ago. It's not. I'm not.

 

That is just pure Hater. Rick Reilly's run at ESPN had it undeniable embarrassments, but he did so much before that, and to suggest that Reilly not a person of legitimate accomplishment, talent and stature is an absurd overreach.

 

Yup. All haterz!

 

Based on his writing and his beyond awful TV work, Reilly got really full of himself and became a lazy smarmy insufferable asshole a long, long time ago and he's been phoning it in for more than a decade. What should make anyone think that would change because he shows up at SI again?