What Sportswriter Did You Want to be When You Grew Up?

DeFord. Price is great because you start reading one of his pieces and on page two you want to know who wrote it, and look back and see his name, again and again. He's a writer who sells the story, but doesn't rely on one kind of "tic" to do it so you're kind of surprised one person writes so many great stories, many different ways. Not dismissing Gary Smith, who had the ability to draw you in to a story you might not otherwise care about, which is a real gift.
Grew up reading three papers in a major metro area, ended up working at one and working with some of my heroes as a kid, appearing on the same pages they did and they treated me as a colleague. Thrill of a lifetime.

 

Bert Sugar.

 

All three are great. I think that Reilly and Murray were guys who inspired a lot of bad sports writing. A lot of people tried to use humor in their pieces and it lead to the material sounding like a bad vaudeville act. I think Reilly, in his column, frequently fell into that trap and guys with less talent really flame out doing it. As someone who grew up in the Denver area I am looking at you, Woody Paige.

 

I saw Steve Belichick's book on Football Scouting today on sale on Amazon for .99. I read the foreword which Povich did and it reminded me that he may have had the smoothest style of any columnist. And the line "Brown integrated the end zone" is maybe the best of all time.

 

Joe Falls. And later, Leigh Montville.

 

I did not use DeFord because he was someone I read a lot after high school when I knew I would never be a journalist. Price and Smith are great but I used to read DeFord and wonder how the hell could anyone be that original in his construction of a story.

 

Don't know that I ever wanted to "be" one of them, but growing up in Chicago I always loved reading John Schulian, Mike Downey, Bob Verdi, David Israel and Rick Talley, among others. And, although he wasn't in the same class as a writer, Taylor Bell of the Chicago Daily News and later the Sun-Times -- possibly the best prep reporter who ever lived. If you were a high school athlete, getting a mention from Taylor Bell was the ultimate.

 

Brown! ... Bron came later.

 

I should have listed Downey right alongside Montville. I thought he was an awesome columnist in his prime. Downey's doing OK in retirement, too -- married to Dean Martin's daughter.

 

Would not argue this point at all. Quite true.

 

I don't understand Reilly's career. He was at his best writing articles. Gained fame and loot when writing a column (but didn't seem to put much effort into it) and now doesn't seem to write much.
I don't know if he never really enjoyed it, was just looking for fame or what - but it is a waste of talent. I can understand someone growing frustrated living up to past greatness, but I don't understand not trying. Same with Billy Joel. Hasn't written a song since he was 44. I don't know how you can just turn the creativity off.