Dear Rick,

There are a million reasons (and I don’t mean your paycheck) that you should not read this. To name a few, you don’t know me, the tone is direct, yet sincere – though to be honest, I take a few potshots. Yet most importantly, it ends with a direct call for you to do more.

Still, I had to write you. You see, writing is what I do, too, though I think we both do it for different reasons.

Before I go much further, I should offer my congratulations on your contract extension with ESPN. It’s a heck of a deal for you, being able to cover the topics you want in a medium you want, when you want. You’ve ascended to that moment when they pay you to do you. And that, in itself, deserves a tip of the cap. 

As you tweeted on Monday, the Worldwide Leader loves storytelling. It’s a natural fit, as you love storytelling as well. Human interest pieces have always been a prominent feature of your famous “Life of Reilly” columns. 

Well, I have a human interest story for you, Rick. It’s about the thousands of hungry, passionate young writers who grow increasingly frustrated as we watch you and many of your colleagues sit by and collect massive paychecks (for sportswriters, anyway) as we plug away trying to just get noticed.

But it’s not from a place of jealously, I can assure you. It comes from passion, and from a place where this is an art form, not a job. 

I’ve been writing for almost eight years now, sometimes for pay, sometimes for an e-mail from someone telling me they liked or hated what I wrote – and why. Sometimes, I write to an audience of just a few (my wife, my best friend or my mother – and to mixed results), other times to thousands of Central Indiana locals. 

I didn’t major in journalism, Rick. Didn’t write for the school paper. Two months after our wedding, I walked in and told my wife I wanted to write. About sports. And then I cringed. 

Amazingly, because, well, she is amazing, she said, “OK, what do we need to do to make that happen?” 

Well, that was both simple and incredibly difficult. All you have to do is write, find a voice, make a point, be compelling, tell a story, hit your word count, find an audience, repeat all that a thousand times, find a mediocre following and voila, you’re the national runner-up in a blogging contest on FoxSports.com. 

Which, when paired with a gift card from Starbucks, gets you a free cup of coffee. And I don’t even drink coffee.

I’ll be honest: man, I was bad. Like really bad. But I worked at it and over time, I turned out to be – well, not quite so terrible. A bi-weekly online column for a local newspaper, an editor job for a start-up magazine. Dynamics changed, so did the jobs, and currently, I write for basically whoever will read it. 

Yes, it’s a blog. Certainly, the stereotype of blogging somewhat fits. There’s just so many. And they are just so…poor. But it’s about the best way I know of to showcase what you’re doing, thinking and writing. It’s the ultimate clip, a group of writing samples that show the depth and breadth of what you can do. 

Yet despite the past seven paragraphs, this isn’t about me. And it’s really not about the thousands out there like me, who have stories that resemble mine, who dream of a break, a shot with the big boys to have our voices heard through print. 

This is about you, Rick, because there are a whole lot of us who just don’t get you anymore. 

I grew up reading you and “The Life of Reilly” on the back page. You and I both know how difficult it is to bring tears to the eyes of a high schooler, but you managed to do it quite a few times in the mid-to-late 90s. Those poignant pieces were touching, real and relatable. 

So I always assumed you got it, got what it was really all about.

Sports journalism and opinion-based writing is so much more than it appears now in the national media. Before PTI, Tony Kornheiser did that amazing piece on Nolan Ryan for Inside Sports in 1980 and absolutely mastered the longform piece. John Feinstein did “A Season on the Brink” and Peter King had the “Monday Morning Quarterback” column. 

Before all the ratings-grab radio, before Around the Horn and the goofiness of Steven A. and Skip, there were just writers., who did amazing things like that. Writers with powerful opinions who shaped the way we thought, the way we felt and how we reacted to sports and the people in them. 

Part of the joy of sports is the reaction afterward – having people to put perspective or spin on what we just saw. It never seemed about money. But it sure seems like it now. 

To be blunt, you write fluff, Rick. Every other line is a pun or a cliche these days. At times, it seems like you’re just pulling out the old hits and singing the chorus a little differently. What happened to the compelling guy who won the NSSA Sportswriter of the Year Award – 11 times? 

You may not like guys like Simmons and Whitlock, but at least they’re constantly trying new things. At least they’re out giving other writers a chance. At least they’ll retweet a link to a good piece every now and then. Look at your Twitter feed, Rick. It’s all about you.

You’ve arrived at a place many dream of and strive for, yet you do so little with it. And it’s disappointing. 

While your rival Simmons launches Grantland and gives a host of young writers a showcase spot to shine a light on quality writing, you turn in a column once every two weeks. Kind of like when the checks are mailed.

I’m not trying to be hurtful, honestly, but you once took Barry Bonds to task for the way he treated his teammates. What about the way you’re treating sportswriting?

It’s disappointing because this art form, this art form of sports journalism and opinion-based writing is dying. Painfully. 

Take a look around, Rick. Remember what it was like when you were in Denver or Los Angeles back in the 1980s – before Sports Illustrated and the coveted back page? 

The world has changed, to be sure. Newspapers are folding left and right, column space is dwindling as what remaining ad spaces increase. It’s why the papers – and magazines – are losing more and more ground everyday. 

We can blame technology all we want, but really, anything of quality can survive. But the quality of sportswriting is more watered down than a Lance Armstrong urine sample.

Around the Horn and the like exist because writers agree to do it – it’s how they’ll become bigger than just the city they cover. It’s not that they necessarily want to. They kind of have to. It’s survival. Once the papers and magazines inevitably go down, these writers will find other jobs. People will know them from TV and radio spots and they’ll be working SportsCenter with you soon enough. 

So they spend less time working on the art of sports writing. Less time fleshing out a column or an opinion. Less time arguing their point in print. More time in makeup. More time working on a catchphrase. More time working that Twitter feed. More time just typing and less time writing. 

Everything has become 140 characters or less. How would Tony K.‘s Ryan piece be received today? Deemed too long? Dare we even explain that was the point?

Rick, as you embark on your next chapter at ESPN, I urge you to do more.  You are a smart guy. Start your own thing, like “Writers of Reilly” or something. A place to highlight pieces that catch your eye. Or something else that will give back to the medium. 

It would mean a lot. Not just to me, or the countless unknown bylines out there who are not just looking for a break, but who are hungry to make a difference, to have our voice heard. Hungry to make it an art form again. 

As you like to say, you write about people in sports. You speak of legacies from time to time. I simply ask, Mr. Reilly, to reflect on what yours will be. Help save sportswriting. Make a difference. Maybe one day, one of us will then write about the real life of Reilly. 

Now wouldn’t that be a good story worth telling?

Sincerely,

Bri Moore