Life of Reilly: The rise, fall and rise again

Given his rep around here, deserves its own thread, even though the rise began with the golf topic.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...ter-trump-golf-critic/?utm_term=.68b620f1d672

 

Wrote some of my favorite longform pieces.

Fundamentally, Reilly's humor and style just didn't carry over into the fierce Internet age we're in, and instead of sportswriters coming around the guy and holding up great work, they cut him down. I didn't know him so, perhaps, he wasn't/isn't that likable. But the industry took a big pound of flesh out of him and I still don't think, not really, he's over it. Reading that story, I didn't get the sense of that. It also seemed like ESPN shifted from underneath his feet from what it long was to a progressive media organization for 4-6 years. He was a bad fit for it.

 

Good writer - bad humorist. I remember at least one back pager for SI when he wrote about how hard it was to come up with 800 words a week (being the highest paid writer at the time). For all the great leads people sent him - he coasted for most of his time in the back of the mag.

 

stop

 

He took the money. Worse people have done worse things. But in this industry especially, when you sell out, the knives are not only out but people have a venue to use them.

 

Why exactly? To act like the WWL under Skipper wasn't under the stewardship of a social justice warrior would seem to be ignoring facts. From the Undefeated to Jemele and Michael on Sportscenter, it was a pretty progressive regime. Rob King basically had every job under the umbrella there; if you can show me his successes, I'll listen.

 

He sold out who? Sports Illustrated?

ESPN wasn’t a bunch of slaps bumbling around the yard when he joined it. And ESPN always overpaid for stuff in that era. Writers. TV rights. Everything.

 

He sold out his freaking soul, like anyone else would have done. It's pretty baseline psychology and it's borne out in everything he did after joining the mothership. He flailed and failed. But he got paid, so kudos. Ya can't have everything.

Now he's reborn as a Trump antagonist? Great fucking career move; nobody is working those boards...

 

In what way did the "progressive regime" directly affect Rick Reilly's performance there?

 

I didn't say it did. Alma's comment might have been tangential, but it doesn't make it wrong.

 

Alma implied that ESPN's "progressivism" was part of Reilly's problem there.

It was not.

Rick Reilly is simply not good at television.

Not everything needs to be strained through Alma's colander of politics and culture.