Life of Reilly: The rise, fall and rise again

One of my favorite writers and always will be. Everybody here criticizes and makes fun of him, but he's up there with Royko and Lewis Grizzard as far as I'm concerned. I get what happened to him, too. Some people simply cannot churn out award winning material year after year after year for 40 years. The pressure and workload is too much.

So he took a step back, mailed his shit in for a few years. Good for him. He's enjoying life now, not work, and that's all that matters.

 

Not irrelevant if ESPN is making a big push to make ESPN+ a success.

ESPN is doing kind of an interesting thing. They have a lot of really good people under contract doing several jobs instead of having a single promotable focus. People like Katie Nolan, Mina Kimes and Sarah Spain bounce around between writing, filling in on HQ and Around the Horn, hosting podcasts and doing weekend radio without having any main gig on the main network. It give the network a deep bench and a lot of flexibility.

 

Based on that article, it sounds like he has a great life.
He also lives in my state-- he's been under my nose this entire time!

 

You'll appreciate this story. I'll never forget working for a local TV station (this particular station = my definition of hell)... and I found out from the guys at the competing station that they were going to bid on the package to televise the local college hoops powerhouse.

Wanting to kiss ass, I immediately told our station GM. He said, "Fantastic. We'll bid too and raise the asking price sky high." He had no intention of getting the package-- he just wanted to hurt the other station badly. And he did.

 

The exact moment Rick Reilly stopped mattering:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/31/rick-reilly-self-checkout-rebellion/

 

We all get it, but it's tired.

 

not a big Reilly as columnist fan (except for his drive for mosquito netting, "nothing but nets," that is still saving lives and has been more impactful globally than just about anything anyone here, including me, has ever written), but I shop for my family.

sorry: that's a really good, fun column. I mean, no one's writing fun anymore. despite myself, I found myself saying, "yeah!," and enjoying the whole thing.

 

I have long thought Rick Reilly is an incredibly gifted sportswriter. But comedy writing is a different and difficult skill and Reilly does not have those gifts.

 

4200 comments.

4200.

 

I don't mind self-checkout if there are lines at the checker lanes - too often I find no checkers and lines at the self-checkout lanes. Not a fan. Better to design checkout stations that could have checkers/or self-checkout - but they don't.