[Vision2020] Giving Up the Life (Rick Reilly)

Fri Nov 30 15:39:26 PST 2007

Say it ain't so!  First Steve Rushin leaves SI, and now Rick Reilly?  Man, if it weren't for the, um, issue that comes out in February, with the, uh, all-stars, I'd cancel my subscription.  Carl Westberg Jr.

Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:26:34 -0800
From: sdredge at yahoo.com
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Giving Up the Life (Rick Reilly)

He's off to live happily ever after.  The end.

-Scott

----- Original Message ----
From: Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com>
To: Moscow Vision 2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 1:11:13 PM
Subject: [Vision2020] Giving Up the Life (Rick Reilly)

>From the "Life of Reilly" (by Rick Reilly) column of the December 3,
 2007
edition of Sports Illustrated -

---------------------------------------------------------

Giving Up the Life
By Rick Reilly

I was born the youngest of four, an attention-seeking missile, half
 boy,
half caffeine and a leading cause of teachers' facial tics.  But I
 always
had one clear dream - to work at SI.

So why now, after 23 years, am I quitting?

I mean, we're talking more than 850 bylines - which is funny, because I
thought I'd never get to 10.

I came to this job 100 feet over my head and with no snorkel.  I was 27
 and
terrified of being fired.  I'd gobble aspirins and down them with
 coffee
until my stomach blew out and dumped me into the hospital.  Twice.

I learned to control my fears with biofeedback - making one giant
 breath
last 30 seconds, puffing my cheeks out on the exhale until I turned
 slightly
purple.  I looked like a nauseated puffer fish.  When I made my first
 TV
appearance, on a SportsCenter segment in 1988, my stomach was all
 knives.
We were supposed to go live from my living room in two minutes, enough
 time
to take a couple 30-second breaths to calm down.  I was in the middle
 of my
second when my then wife ran in, horrified.

"You're on the air!"

My earpiece had failed.  The host had asked, "Rick, is your book an
indictment of college football?"  Cut to me, peering into the camera
 and
suddenly inhaling mightily.  But the host thought I was thinking hard
 about
his question, so he waited.  The the slooooow exhale.  Still waiting.
Purple.  Surely, the answer was coming now?  Nope, another suck-in.

"Well," the host deadpanned, "we know he's alive.  We can see him
breathing."

Eventually, I switched to decaf, and realized how much fun this job
 could
be.  I got to smoosh cars in a monster truck, mush dogs in Alaska,
 crush
balls with Tiger, chase Lance, face Ryan and race everything from a
 blimp to
Indy cars.

One time I picked up the phone and heard, "Hold for the President,
 please."
One of my pals, no doubt.  The president of what, the Kiwanis?" I
 sneered.
Only to hear a gravelly voice on the other end go, "What?  No, it's
 Bill
Clinton.  We're just laughin' our asses off over here over whatchu
 wrote!"

Best moment ever?  In a men's shower.  Hours after he led his Denver
 Broncos
to a stunning win over Green Bay - ending his run of Super Bowl
 humiliations
- I could hear John Elway whooping and hollering alone in the shower.
  "You
know what?" I said to the old towel guy sitting on the bench next to
 me.
"That's the sound of redemption.  That's primal joy, man."  He shrugged
 and
said, "Nah, we ran out of hot water."

Still, the big names and big events weren't the best part of the job.
  The
best part has been my e-mail inbox.  I seem to have become the national
clearinghouse for stories about people overcoming disease, war or
 tragedy to
achieve great things - tales of courage and resilience that would melt
 an
executioner's heart.

I could tell only a fraction of those stories, but the ones I did write
 have
stayed with me.  You may read them once and forget about them, but I
 hear
from my columns all the time.  They call, they write, they tell me that
their lives just keep getting better.

Just one example from this year:  Do you remember Sean Cronk, the kid
 in
Everett, Mass., with cerebral palsy but could make tons of free throws
 in a
row (SI, March 5, 2007)?  He finally got into a game and won a playoff
 with
one.  Well, he's going to go to college, thanks to the guy I wrote
 about the
very next week - billionaire Kenny trout, who flies his sixth-grade
 Dallas
AAU basketball team in private 737s.  Troutt called Sean's mom and
 asked,
"Anywhere Sean wants to go, I'm paying."  So Sean is going to junior
 college
in the fall, with plans to transfer to UMass.  Nice.

My favorite column, though, was not about one person but millions - the
impoverished Africans who benefited from Nothing But Nets, the
 anti-malaria
campaign you and I started with the help of the United Nations
 Foundation
(SI, May 1, 2006).  Every week I hear about another kid donating his
 bar
mitzvah money, a Brownie troop sending its lemonade profits, a family
choosing nets over Christmas gifts.  We're at $16 million, and much of
 that
has come in twenties and fives and rolls of quarters.  Nobody does
 teamwork
like sports fans.

Anyway, it's been my privilege to write for this elegant magazine and
 its
wonderful readers.  Now I'll find out if my little voice can carry in a
whole new way.  You can reach me anytime at RickReillyonline.com, and
beginning June 1, I'll be starting a new job, which includes writing a
column and working in TV.  Of course, when I told my son Jake that, he
 said,
"Dad, it's not gonna be high-def, right?"

Right.  And I promise not to turn purple, either.

---------------------------------------------------------

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

Came a tribe from the north brave and bold . . .

"Here We Have Idaho"
http://www.tomandrodna.com/HWHI.mp3

"I-D-A-H-O Idaho Idaho Go Go Go"
http://www.tomandrodna.com/Vandals.mp3

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