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Columnist, ESPN The Magazine & ESPN.com; Host Homecoming with Rick Reilly

Rick Reilly

Rick Reilly joined ESPN in June 2008 as ESPN The Magazine’s back-page columnist and as a featured columnist for ESPN.com. In addition to his columns, is an essayist for ESPN SportsCenter and is a contributor for the network's programming including coverage of major events, including the Masters, British Open, Ryder Cup and US Open. Reilly has made appearances on PTI and will also host Homecoming, a yet to be launched monthly interview show.

Reilly joined ESPN after 23 years at Sports Illustrated, where his unique, breezy, hilarious style graced the pages of the publication from 1985 until 2007.  Reilly’s popular “Life of Reilly” column was the magazine’s first signed weekly opinion column in its history; it ran on its last page for 10 years.

In addition to Reilly’s award winning magazine writing, he is an accomplished author and screenwriter. His titles include the New York Times bestsellers “Hate Mail from Cheerleaders”, “Missing Links”, “Shanks for Nothing”, and “Who’s Your Caddy?”   His collection of columns -- “The Life of Reilly: The Best of Sports Illustrated’s Rick Reilly” --also was a New York Times bestseller.  He co-authored ``The Boz,'' the best-selling autobiography of bad-boy Oklahoma linebacker Brian Bosworth; “Gretzky,'' with hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky of the Los Angeles Kings; ``I'd Love to but I Have a Game'' with NBC announcer Marv Albert, and the ``The Wit and Wisdom of Charles Barkley”.  Reilly co-authored the movie "Leatherheads," a romantic comedy centered on the 1924 Duluth Eskimos of the fledgling NFL, starring George Clooney and Renee Zellweger.

Reilly began his career in journalism in 1979 at his hometown paper the Boulder Daily Camera, while a sophomore at the University of Colorado, from which he graduated in 1981. He wrote for the Camera for two years.  He went on to the Denver Post and the Los Angeles Times before moving to Sports Illustrated in 1985.

Reilly has won numerous awards in his 30-year writing career, including the prestigious New York Newspaper Guild's Page One Award for Best Magazine Story and the Denver Press Club’s 2009 Runyon Award. He as also has been voted National Sportswriter of the Year 11 times.

Outside of writing, Reilly is founder of the anti-malaria effort “Nothing But Nets”, a partnership with the United Nations Foundation, which has raised millions of dollars to hang mosquito nets over kids in Africa, where 3,000 children die every day from the disease.  Every dollar raised by “Northing But Nets” goes to buying nets. 

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