Rick Reilly’s Rules of Sports Writing

A look back at the editor's introduction to the 2002 Best American Sports Writing.

I’ve been re-reading past editions of the Best American Sports Writing over the past few weeks. 

Specifically, I’ve been re-reading the guest editor's introductory essays. It’s for a research project I’ll be presenting next month at the IACS Summit on Communication and Sport in Chicago on one of my recent obsessions, The Platonic Ideal of Sports Journalism. 

Many of the editors write essays that detail their careers, talk about getting the love of sports and sports writing from their fathers, opining at length about the glory days, the state of things, or how things just aren’t the same anymore. In fact, I have a whole post in the works where I take a

Dave Karpf

-esque blowtorch to one of the guest editor essays that, while I won’t name the author¹, is pretty egregious.

When you’re reading these essay through a critical lens, it’s easy to become cynical and focus on the passages that didn’t age well or the ideas that you can ridicule. So I’ve been making sure to look for the good as well, to find the parts that resonate with me, the passages that stand out to me as containing essential truths about journalism. 

One full essay that does this is Rick Reilly’s essay introducing the 2002 edition.

To contextualize this, this was when Reilly was still at Sports Illustrated, after his time as a writer who redefined the sports profile² and during his stint as the backpage Life of Reilly columnist. Also a reminder that Reilly was an 11-time NSSA National Sportswriter of the Year — only his mentor, Jim Murray, won the award more often. 

What Reilly did in this essay was wonderful. Reilly turned his essay into 10 rules of sports journalism, connecting each of the rules to some of the works included in that year’s anthology. 

I remember reading this edition when it came out and it resonated with me as a young reporter. I’m happy to say that, upon revisiting it, it holds up. 

In his somewhat self-deprecating introduction³, Reilly writes:

“I finally came up with ten simple strategies that I know will work no matter the subject, length or deadline. And so, I present now, for your shredding pleasure … the Reilly Rules.”

No shredding here, but some thoughts from me on Reilly’s rules: 

1. Never write a sentence you’ve already read. 

Reilly writes: 

Why write “He beat the crap out of the guy” when it's so much more fun to write “He turned the guy into six feet of lumps.” … The best writing sounds like that. It sounds like a guy talking to you over a fence. The Los Angeles Times' Jim Murray, the greatest sportswriter who ever lived, wrote like that. Murray put simple words in an order nobody had seen before. 

My thoughts: 

Reilly writes that the rule is an Oscar Wilde line, and while I couldn’t verify that anywhere, it feels right. This is pretty good advice. My own personal preference is that Reilly sometimes over does this by a half and tries too hard to write something in a new way. But as writing advice goes, it’s solid. At its core, this advice is “avoid cliches.” 

2. Get ‘em in the tent. 

Reilly writes: 

“Murray used to say, ‘they’ll never see the circus if you can’t get ‘em in the tent.’ Translate, without a good lead, they’ll never appreciate your death-defying, twinkle-toe transition in the twenty-third paragraph.”

Have you ever been zapping around on the remote, going from one show to the next. And then something comes on that you just can’t zap because you have to know what’s going to happen next? That’s what a great lead does. In this fragmented world, readers are looking for the tiniest excuse to turn the page, put you down, and get out of their chair. There’s no city ordinance that says they have to read you.  So you have to make it impossible for them not to go on to the second graph. (emphasis added).

My thoughts:

I mean. 10/10. No notes. This is why, in journalism classes, we spend so much time on leads. They’re that important. This is probably the best piece of advice on the list. 

3. Say What you Think

Reilly writes: 

Bad sportswriters have this thing about pens and pads. The have to use them — to exhaustion. So if they take the time to talk to a coach or player or a fan, then they’re damn sure going to use it. But do you realize that some of the greatest sportswriters in history — Damon Runyon, Ring Lardner, Grantland Rice - quoted almost nobody. They said what they felt, knowing they could say it better, funnier, and pithier than any lummox in shoulder pads. 

What good is it to quote five people saying Bubba is fast when you can say it by yourself with just, “Bubba is faster than rent money.” 

My thoughts: 

The second part is really good, and it’s something I teach all the time. Quotes should be used to tell the reader something that the reporter can’t tell them. So factual statements like “Bubba is  fast” is not a good quote. 

The first part, I have some thoughts. First off, the reason that Damon Runyon, Ring Lardner and Grantland Rice and their generation didn’t quote anybody was that that was the accepted practice and style of sportswriting in their era. It wasn’t until Dick Young began scouring the baseball clubhouses in New York in the late 1940s and early 1950s that sports journalism began to focus more on access and quotes, and after that, it wasn’t until the young sports writers of the 1960s (the Chipmunks, led in part by George Vecsey) that quotes became integral to the profession.

And while a journalist should be judicious in using quotes, the point of talking to players is that it can make a story richer, and deeper, than just what the writer felt. You should never quote someone just to quote someone, but you shouldn’t avoid quoting them either. 

Also, between the “lummox in shoulder pads” and the Bubba comments, there’s a real “dumb jock” undercurrent of a vibe here that makes me uncomfortable. 

4. It sucks before you start. 

Reilly writes: 

You wrote a piece that sucked. The reason it sucked is not the way you wrote it. It's that when you finally sat down to write it, you didn’t have any good stuff. Unless you’re Dave Barry or Dan Jenkins or David Copperfield, you’re not going to make Putlizers out of puke.⁴ 

Sports Illustrated’s  Gary Smith, the I.M. Pei of profilers, has a rule. He’s not done researching a subject until he’s interviewed at least fifty people. That’s why he only does four a year. And that’s also why those four are of them the most unforgettable of the year. They are meticulous in their depth of reporting, nearly preposterous. And yet he throws around quotes the way Don Rickles threw around compliments. He prods and searches and hunts until he knows a story so well he can tell it himself, in his own crispr, penetrating prose. 

It’s not a hunt for detail. It’s the hunt for the right detail. 

My thoughts: 

Again, no notes. I’m reminded of this again and again in my own writing. If you don’t do the legwork — reporting, research, reading —not only is the story going to be worse off, it’s going to be much harder to write. 

Also, that last one — the hunt for the right detail — there’s an entire post in that point alone. 

5. The Interview Never Ends

Reilly writes: 

This is just a quickie, but so many writers shut down their ears when the formal interview ends. Don’t. Keep your eyes and ears open and the invisible ink flowing even after the subject shakes your hand and says goodbye. Follow him out. Watch him drive off. You never know what might happen. 

When I was covering golf for Sports Illustrated, I invited ‘trunking” which means following the winner from the eighteenth green, through his press conference, through his winner’s dinner, through whatever happens, out to the parking lot, until he puts his clubs in the trunk, slams it, and tells you to get lost. I got more good stuff doing that, and SI golf reporters still do it. In fact, that’s how SI managed to quote Vigay Singh winning the 2000 Masters, going out to the parking lot, slamming the trunk, and declaring “This place can kiss my black ass!” 

My thoughts: 

Another fantastic, actionable piece of advice. Currently, nobody does it better than Mike Silver at The Athletic. I do wonder how logistically possible something like this is now for a lot of writers, but when you’re able to do it, it’s fantastic.

The bigger picture advice — which we’ll see later in this list — is that reporting is at the heart of good sports journalism, and reporting is about far more than just doing an interview.  

6. Forget Cereal Boxes

Reilly writes:

We all get in ruts, where we believe the only sports worth writing about are the big four: baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. But more often than not, the best dramas, funniest scenes, most interesting characters, are places where we forget to go. 

My thoughts: 

Reilly refers to the four major sports as “cereal boxes” because they are the sports that typically yield covers of Wheaties box. He also refers to stories in that year’s edition of the BASW that include stories about bullfighting, mountain climbing, and backyard wrestling. 

So this one is interesting. Because it is, of course, 100 percent true. The best stories aren’t always found among the star players in the biggest sports, and a reporter probably won’t get access to the biggest stars to tell the interesting story in an interesting way.

At the same time, this is also a very WRITER thing to want to do, right? Go where the Rhinos are and all that. But is there a market for stories like this? We like to think that there is and wish that there is, but it’s just as likely that there is a market for quick hits from the NFL Combine, or possible moves the Bills might make this offseason.⁵  Years back, this was the source of an online feud between Tom Socca and Chris Jones.

This is the unsettleable argument between the journalism world we want and the one we live in now.

7. Death to Overwriting! 

Reilly writes: 

The quickest freeway to Bushdom, Hackville, Crap city, is to overwrite. Don’t. 

Just .. don’t. 

You can’t be graver than death, louder than bombs, more Catholic than the pope. So don’t try. Go the other way.

My thoughts: 

Reilly cites Jimmy Breslin’s Gravedigger column, and Frank Deford’s classic profile of Bull Sullivan as examples of this. 

I’ll be honest — this one’s a little odd for me. I don’t think it’s wrong or bad, but it just feels off. For one, that first sentence “the quickest freeway …” is … well, it’s an example of Rule 1, but it also feels overwritten? I assume that Reilly’s making a point, but it’s a weird way to make it. 

To me, the point of this advice is that when confronted with something that is very big and immense, you don’t have to write that it’s big and immense. It’s more powerful to tell the story in plain language.⁶

8. Adjectives and Adverbs sorta suck, really

Reilly writes: 

If I can avoid using an adjective I will. If I can avoid writing “He was a lucky sort of guy” and write instead, “He was the kind of guy who could drop a quarter in a pay phone and have it pay 20 to 1’ then I’ve not only made it fun for me and the guy in the Barca lounger in Peoria, but I stand a good chance of not being fired for the week.

And don’t even talk to me about adverbs. I hate adverbs. I would rather be coated in chicken drippings and dropped in a leopard den than use adverbs. If you can’t find a better way to say hungrily or proudly, you need to find a new line of work, preferably nowhere near words

My thoughts: 

So. Rick has lots of feelings about adverbs. 

As far as adjectives, he references examples from Gene Wojciechowski’s profile of Al McGuire, how Wojciechowski demonstrated McGuire was he was trusting by noting that the late-coach would throw his car keys on the seat of his unlocked car. 

This is a way of saying “show, don’t tell.” And since that’s top-tier writing advice, I can get behind this.

Not the adverb thing, though.⁷ 

9. Look Around, Stupid

Reilly writes: 

Not to be insulting, but sometimes the best stuff is right  in front of us. The only trick is seeing it. 

Referring to Mike Bianchi’s column about Dale Earnhardt’s funeral, Reilly writes: 

He didn't write about Earnhardt. Or Earnhardt’s family. Or Earnhardt’s legacy. He wrote about the other drivers sitting in the church that day, staring into a box they knew could contain them next week. 

My thoughts:

I mean, you can’t insult the reader in the name of the rule and then say “Not to be insulting” immediately after insulting them. But I digress. 

I love this advice, and loved Bianchi’s column from Earnhardt’s funeral. It really is great journalism advice. Always look around the room. I’d argue that the Gravedigger column is really an example of this rule, of looking around and seeing what no one else sees.⁸  

10. Ignore all the Rules

Reilly writes:

After all, you probably have real talent and will end up making Hemingway look like a guy who writes owners manuals for Japanese television and will show up someday and take my job. And I refuse to go back to the jackhammer refueling industry. 

My thoughts: 

Um. OK. Weird ending (it’s a callback to something from the introduction of this essay). It feels little overwritten - I could argue that Reilly himself overwrites in the name of not writing anything he’s read before, and tries a little too hard at times.

Along with the self-deprecating thing, I always find it odd to end a list of “rules” with a final rule that is “forget all these rules.” 

Especially since at their core, these are all bangers. These are all good pieces of advice for a young journalist, or an older one, or any writer. Report or research the heck out of a piece. Show, don’t tell. Take your time to write a really great lead. Don’t write in cliches. 

All in all, Reilly’s Rules are a solid list of journalism principles to live by. 

1. JK it’s Wilbon.

2. His profiles of Ron Powlus is one of the best structured profiles I’ve ever read.

3. An interesting thread through many of the essays, one that may become a post here, is the male sportswriters’ tendency to self deprecate.

4. Really going all in on Rule 1.

5. Myles Garrett would look really good in a blue uniform. Also, a wide receiver so that Mack Hollins isn’t the primary deep threat in the AFC title game. 

6.  I find the Gravedigger example oddly placed here, because to me the genius of Breslin’s column isn’t in the underwriting of the column but the idea to talk to the gravedigger in the first place. That feels like Rule 9 on this list, but I’m getting ahead of myself. 

7. I don’t really have strong feelings on adverbs in either direction.

8. Told you I’d come back around.