The Life of Reilly: The Best of Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly

Amazon.com
Rick Reilly, the mainstay of Sports Illustrated's back page, is a writer with a facile short game, but, as The Life of Reilly makes clear, he was born to go long. As entertaining, clever, witty, and, at times, irate as his rants and raves at the end of each week's issue can be, it's the sheer talent and bravura he displays in the features he's penned for the magazine that best exhibit why he's considered one of the finest sportswriters of our time. If his columns have a way of constantly poking you in the ribs, the longer pieces can sometimes take your breath away.

While The Life of Reilly covers the bases of all major and most other sports, Reilly's writing about golf is especially stellar, and three pieces alone--his chronicle of a round of golf with President Clinton, his account of O.J. Simpson's trials on public golf courses, and his reportage, on deadline, of Jack Nicklaus's sixth victory at Augusta--are worth the volume's greens fee. As beautifully as Reilly can paint the big picture, these pieces display his uncanny eye for detail, his skills as a reporter, and his inventiveness as a writer. On Nicklaus's improbable Masters title at age 46: "Maybe Nicklaus had drawn up a contract with Lucifer for one last major, for that slippery 20th that had eluded him since 1980, for a sixth green blazer. In exchange, Nicklaus would do pro-ams in Hades for the rest of his days. What else could explain it?" What else, indeed.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Witty, irreverent, opinionated, honest, laugh-out-loud funny -- these are just a few of the adjectives that have been used to describe the writing of Rick Reilly, the six-time National Sportswriter of the Year who has entertained the readers of Sports Illustrated for 15 years with his unique perspective on the world of sports and life in general. Now, in The Life of Reilly, Rick has selected 66 of his finest stories to create a collection that is sure to amuse, inform, and provoke sports fans and non-fans alike.

The book is organized around Reilly's seven Rs: Rants, Raves, Reality, Roots, Rough, Wrecks, and Royalty. His subjects range from the sublime -- UCLA coach John Wooden, one of sports' most honorable men -- to the ridiculous -- Reilly's terrifying trip aboard an F-14D Tomcat fighter -- and also include a healthy dose of opinion, on everything from the ubiquity of the Nike symbol to the overpaid brats we call professional athletes these days. There are features on sports greats, rants against high-profile athletic programs, tales of golfing glory in and out of the spotlight, reflections on enduring values and the true meaning of sacrifice, and personal stories about the Reilly family's trials and tribulations.

Evident throughout is Reilly's trademark humor, on ample display in his story of playing golf with President Clinton (whom he finds himself, with horror, calling "Pard"), his discussion of cheerleading mania ("Cheerleaders from all over tried to write me hate mail, but cheerleader hate mail is not terribly scary. They'd write, 'I hope you die!' and put a little heart over the 'i.'"), and his experience as the coach of a quirky Little League team (his players are more concerned with how to eat sunflower seeds without using their hands than with the intricacies of baseball).