A biography of Rick Reilly (sportswriter)

Rick Reilly is a prolific American sports writer who is best known for his column, "Life of Reilly", which he wrote for Sports Illustrated magazine and ESPN magazine. This article describes Rick's media career, the books and films that he has written, his charity work and the prestigious journalism awards that he has won.

Newspaper, magazine and television career

Rick's career began in 1979 when he worked as an assistant at the Daily Camera newspaper in Colorado. He went on to become a football writer for the Denver Post and the Los Angeles Times before joining Sports Illustrated magazine in 1985, as a sports writer. Rick had a back page opinion column for Sports Illustrated, called "Life of Reilly" which ran for ten years and became a favourite among the magazine's readers. Rick left Sports Illustrated in 2007, to work for ESPN. There, he continued to write "Life of Reilly" for the ESPN magazine until earlier this year. The sports writer now presents his own ESPN show, Homecoming with Rick Reilly and he writes for ESPN's Sports Centre show and for ABC Sports.

Books and films

Rick co-wrote the screenplay for the film Leatherheads, which was directed by and starred George Clooney. He has also written a number of books and novels and his first fictional novel, Missing Links is currently in development to be made into a feature film. Several of his books have made it into the New York Times best-seller list and he has also co-written autobiographies for hockey star Wayne Gretzky and American footballer Brian Bosworth. Another book of note includes Who's Your Caddy. It contains short stories of the remarkable people Rick has met and caddied for over the years during golf tournaments. The book The Life of Reilly includes a number of Rick's most notable columns from Sports Illustrated.

Awards and charity work

Reilly has won the NSSA National Sportswriter of the Year Award no less than 11 times. He was also given the Damon Runyon Award for Outstanding Contributions to Journalism in 2009. He won the New York Newspaper Guild's Page One Award for Best Magazine Story. In 2006, Rick wrote a column for Sports Illustrated that talked about providing $10
anti-malaria nets for African children. He also requested contributions from members of the public. Thousands of people donated money, leading to the Nothing But Nets Foundation being created in partnership with the United Nations Foundation. The Foundation has raised millions of dollars since its inception.