Rick Who????

What has happened to ESPN’s Rick Reilly?

The feature columnist for ESPN.com has gone poppy and not in a good way.

Today, Reilly came out with a new weekly column for the ESPN website. It was about how he went to a sports bar and read the closed captioning on the bottom of the screen during live games. Reilly pointed out all the hilarious misprints that were made.

Stupid!

Maybe that is a cute story from a journalism student at New York University who blogs and one day wants to be a sports writer. But for Rick Reilly?

Not only was it corny, but it is one of many consistent recent columns that reveal how different Reilly’s stories have become.

Reilly worked for Sports Illustrated for 23 years. From 1997-2007 he had a back page column called, “ Life of Reilly.” Over his span at SI, Reilly was an 11 time winner of the Associated Press National Sports Writer of the Year Award. But after 23 years with the best sports magazine in the world Reilly inked a deal with the best sports media company in the world for $17 million dollars over five years where he would continue his " Life of Reilly" column. It made him one of the highest paid sports writers in the business.

Since his ESPN debut, Reilly is not the same writer. At SI, he would write, mainly, about off the track sports stories: Stories about people, hardships, small towns and heroes that fans would not read or hear about in main stream media.

At ESPN, for the most part, Reilly writes about main stream sports. He primarily sticks to professional sports teams, players and issues, but almost always goes for a fairy tale kind of story with a warm and funny ending. True, Reilly has always written with a heavy dose of sarcasm and witty humor ( The Daily News called him the funniest man in the world) but he always had a message, a theme, something to learn and take and say “hey, that goes beyond sports.” Some Reilly articles even changed my life.

One of my favorite stories was about a poor sixth-grade basketball team that traveled to tournaments in family vans. They beat a rich sixth grade team that took private jets to games four times in one season. I could relate, being that I played on a successful high-school team that had no gym and practiced outside, sometimes in the rain.

Once, Reilly wrote about an Iowa truck driver named Mark Lemke who lost his son, an up and coming golfer, in a tragic motorcycle accident. A few months later Lemke got a call from than Indianapolis Colts head coach, Tony Dungy, who wished to offer advice. Dungy’ son hung himself two years earlier. It made me think of how coaches and athletes are ordinary people who deal with real life problems.

But at ESPN, Reilly writes fluff columns that do not carry the same weight as his SI work. Back in August, he wrote about why he hates when professional athletes and coaches gloat after winning championships. He hated how Phil Jackson wore a hat with an “ X” on it after the Lakers won the championship in June, signifying Jackson’s tenth ring. Another column wrote about tryouts for Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. One last month spoke of athletes and their tattoos.
Enlightening.

Reilly has had some stories at ESPN that mimic the ones from SI. I really enjoyed one about kids who suffer from XP -- xeroderma pigmentosum, which means they can die from too much sunlight, and how they played ball with Yankee players at the new Yankee Stadium in the middle of the night. A few weeks ago Reilly did a great profile on the legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, who turned 98.

I am not saying that all of Reilly’s most recent work is un-inspiring, it just seems overdone. Sure, ESPN has a different agenda than SI. ESPN is geared towards main stream sports where as SI gives fans more of a behind the scenes look. But if that is the case, than I can no longer say Reilly is the best sports writer in the game.

Others agree with me. Last week a friend of mine told me he thinks Reilly reads like a hallmark card now-a-days. A different friend said he thinks Reilly would have a better legacy if he stayed at SI.

Still, I will continue to read his work, in hopes that I will get the “ real” Reilly stories from time to time.

I remember a long time ago when Reilly was at SI and on top of his game. I was at a friend’s house whose father was a big lover of Reilly. “ You know what makes Reilly great?” he asked me. “ That at the Super Bowl he will get you the janitor’s story.”

Sadly, since he has been at ESPN, it has been more about the Super Bowl, less about the janitor.

ESPN has gone TMZ on the Woods Story

ESPN has not been bashful when covering the Tiger Woods saga the past two weeks.

They have covered everything from his affairs, his new tainted image and which new sponsors are dropping him.

But earlier this week, ESPN went a little too far. Just before an episode of SportsCenter the introduction read like so:

“New developments in the Tiger Woods case! See what happened that brought ambulances to his house!”

The real story was that an ambulance came to pick up Tiger Woods mother in law who had food poisoning from going out to dinner the night before. But still, ESPN decided it was newsworthy. Probably because they thought it may have some connection with his recent sexcapade.

But to me, and some others, ESPN is venturing outside of its borders. They do not need to cover this story to the extent that they have. They are ESPN, not TMZ.

Perhaps that is the problem. Because entertainment publications like TMZ, People Magazine and especially The Post, have covered the story to the extent that they have, ESPN might be feeling pressure. They do not want those other outlets to beat them to the punch. There are too many people, sports fans and non sports fans, who care about this story.

When Tiger Woods’ mother-in-law, Barbro Holmberg, rushed to the hospital in the wee hours of the morning, I happen to be up doing some late night homework. I took a break, went on ESPN.com and saw that they had they story at about 6:00 a.m. In other words, no rest for the Tiger saga.

But doesn’t ESPN have better things to do? The NFL is heating up. College football is getting ready for bowl season and the NBA is still relevant. Yet, I can’t spend one second on ESPN radio, television or its website without being bombarded with Woods this and Woods that.

Rick Reilly has written two columns on Woods. Two. ( ok, so one was like a mini column which Reilly calls “ Go Fish, two small for a column,” but still) ESPN radio guys can’t get enough. And SportsCenter is now leading off its segments at times with this garbage.

I am not saying that ESPN shouldn’t be reporting this story. But it has to stick to the sports aspect and chill with the excessivnes of it. It’s ok to report that Woods’ mother in law went to the hospital, but do not lead off SportsCenter with it.

Colin Cowherd dedicated part of his show last week about the pressures athletes feel when they travel and women who throw themselves at them. Rick Reilly’s “ Go Fish” column said Woods should come clean to save his image. Those angles are all great but there is no need to go overboard. I do not need a second column from Reilly, that read like a hallmark greetings card. Michael Kay does not need to announce on his radio show that The Post has come out with more women that Woods slept with. And ESPN should not put an Associated Press story on its website that Jack Nicklaus, a former golf legend, said he wouldn’t comment on Woods because it is known of his business. Come on, is that even a story?

Like I said, ESPN is in this business for ratings and money. The Woods story is very juicy and it does sell viewers. But there is a limit that WE ask ESPN to abide by. Give us sports news. Give us a different angle. Give us something to think about when it comes to this whole Woods thing. But please, do not give us TMZ. We already have enough of that.