Hate Mail from Cheerleaders and Other Adventures from the Life of Reilly

by Rick Reilly, Lance Armstrong (Introduction)

For years, many of Sports Illustrated 's 21 million readers turned first to the magazine's last page, because that's where they find SI's most popular the Life of Reilly column, written by best-selling author Rick Reilly.

A 22-year veteran of Sports Illustrated and a 10-time National Sportswriter of the Year, Reilly took over SI's back page in 1998, and his column immediately attracted a devoted following, including the legions of fans who helped make his first collection, The Life of Reilly , a New York Times best seller in 2000.

Now comes Hate Mail from Cheerleaders , 100 of Reilly's favorites, along with a new foreword and column postscripts by the author. Alternately sidesplitting and heartwarming but always opinionated and provocative, these pieces are the best work by the best columnist in the business.

Genres: Sports, Nonfiction, Humor, Essays, Comedy, Memoir, Biography

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Chelsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Rick Reilly, and his columns fit neatly into the Sports Night category: for the most part, they're about sports the way Charlie's Angels was about law enforcement. Really, they're about the people who play sports, the people who love sports, and the people who live sports.

Now, my only issue with this collection is the state it left me in. The columns are in a pretty steady pattern: one funny, one touching. One minute I'm laughing hysterically, wondering if it would be annoying if I started typing up the entire thing in an email for my brother, the next, I'm crying so hard I can't see the pages.

And that, my friend, is Rick Reilly in a nutshell. Some familiarity with sports is helpful (as in, you know what the pitcher does in baseball, and maybe you know who Kobe Bryant is), otherwise Reilly gives you everything you need.

[Janette Grimshaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has some heartwarming stories as well as some pieces that are more like essays and could be used in English classes.
These are the ones I marked that might be good to use in class:
"Worth the Wait"
"Chillin' with the Splinter"
"Four of a Kind" --good to use on Sept. 11th or with a heroes unit
"Scales of Injustice"
"Saved by the Deep"--good to use with a unit on natural disasters
"Spittin' Image"
"Extreme Measures"--good for a unit about adversity
"Getting By on $14.6 Mil"--good to show tone and sarcasm
"On His Last Leg"--good to show tone and sarcasm
"Choking Up at the Plate"
"The Hero and the Unknown Soldier"--good to show pathos
"Half the Size, Twice the Man"
"Fair Game"--good to show tone and sarcasm
"No Doubt About It"--good to show tone and sarcasm
"Fear Factor"--good for a unit about adversity
"Dribblephilia"--Latin and Greek roots example
"The Weak Shall Inherit the Gym"--persuasive and tone
"You Make the Call"--good for a discussion of what is right
"Corpo-Name Disease: Stop the Plague!"

[Mattias · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Surgeon, after patient dies: “I don’t know. I just came out a little flat. You can’t get hyped up every single day.” (Reilly, 56)

This quote refers to what would happen if everyday people could use athlete's excuses. I like this quote because it just shows how ridiculous athletes can be. I've heard and even made up these excuses thousands of times without even stopping to realize how ridiculous they are.

This book is a collection of short stories relating to sports by Sport's Illustrated writer Rick Reilly. Reilly gives each story it's own personality. Each story is different yet common themes run through out the book. There really is a story for everyone in this book because of it's wide diversity stories. This book is an enjoyable read through out.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rick Reilly, columnist for Sports Illustrated, writes feel-good essays, mostly about the common people who are involved in sports one way or another. He also writes with biting sarcasm when necessary, as in this comment: “Just once, before you die, wouldn’t you love to see . . . Kobe Bryant’s run-jump-land-and-jump-again move get called for what it is: traveling”.

[Byron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I fished this bad boy out of a dollar bin and decided to copp after consulting the Wiki. Come to find out this guy Rick Reilly is one of the all-time most popular sports writers. Who knew? At the time, he was the only opinion writer in the history of SI - the source of this anthology of columns from circa 2000-2006. Now I think he's on ESPN. As you might suspect, I don't follow sports very closely. But I do find myself enjoying some sports journalism I find on the Internets. There's a lot of good stories in sports. Apparently, many of the best stories of the past 10 years or so either originated or eventually ended up in Reilly's SI column. Of the 100 collected here, I counted at least three that were turned into movies, and several others that I was familiar with from HBO's Real Sports, some other magazine, or the Internets. There's a lot of really good ones here, but there's also some shit I didn't really care for. It seems like every third column is something that's meant to be inspirational (which is just not my thing), or a more or less failed attempt at humor. Your mileage may vary, depending on how much you fit the intended demographic.

[Mayda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rick Reilly doesn’t really write about sports. He writes about people who are involved in sports. In this audio book, he selected 100 of his favorite columns written for Sports Illustrated during the last seven years. You don’t have to be a sports addict to enjoy these columns. Indeed, he writes about some people you probably never heard of as well as some who make the sports headlines regularly. Sometimes Reilly was funny and entertaining. Sometimes he was just venting his own slanted opinions. I guess that is what he gets paid to do. Maybe I would have liked this book better if he had only picked fifty columns. But while you might want to tell him to grow up and quit whining, you probably won’t think this book is boring. Well, not too boring. Just remember, it’s his opinion, and he’s welcome to it, but you don’t have to agree. Go, all you cheerleaders! Cheerleading IS a sport!

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know the title sounds odd; what in the world in this book about? The author, Rick Reilly, is a not your typical sportswriter: he's a writer that focuses on life-altering and inspirational stories that just so happen to have sports in the background.

I picked up this book because I love Reilly's writing and want to use it as a model of my own. His clever rhetoric included a plethora of witty metaphors and similes; even some conceits. As a sports fan I loved this book. As a student of writing I loved this book. And as a person reading about inspirational stories I loved this book. Really can't go wrong reading this.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book awhile back when it was an Amazon daily deal. I would have never come across it otherwise. I found myself reading it between other books and a couple of long flights. I liked the anecdotes and even though I wouldn't consider myself a sports fan, some of the stories go above and beyond the jargon. There were a couple of stories that even brought tears to my eyes (but I am a real sap, so take it how you will). Pretty darn good for just passing time.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice little collection of his columns. Some are great, some are forgettable, the rest are in the middle. But it's a nice book to come back to from time to time, read a few articles, and then set it down for later.

[Kathryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection of his "Life of Reilly" columns from Sports Illustrated covered a broad range of topics, ranging from ridiculous to inspiring. As he describes it, "I don’t write about sports. I write about people who happen to be in sports. I write about human joy, sorrow, religion and politics as it weaves itself through sports."

In addition to the diverse topics, Reilly uses a variety of rhetorical styles. Unfortunately, he spends lots of time in an obnoxious, hyperbolic provocateur mode. For example, here's the conclusion of his article titled "White Like Me":

We White Guys have faced it...We’ve come to grips with it. Even when we do something good—like the three white firemen who raised the U.S. flag at ground zero—we understand you have to change two of the guys’ race to nonwhite when you want to build the statue. Who wants three White Guys hanging around forever? What, you thought White Guys had feelings?

(To give credit where it's due, his racial politics seem more nuanced than columns like this might suggest; another one talked about the racial profiling and "Driving While Black".)

He does have a knack for storytelling, though, when he decides to set his snark aside. I just wish he did that more often. He couldn't even restrain himself in the Acknowledgments section, where he spent the first paragraph dissing people in the style of Bart Simpson. The only way I made it through this book was by recognizing which stories were written exclusively for my dad's demographic and skimming those.

[Mike Glaser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me start off by saying that I picked this book up at the local Senior Center from the free pile. What caught my eye was the fact that Lance Armstrong had written the introduction and I was curious as to who would have Lance Armstrong write an intro for their book. Turns out the book was written before Lance confessed and Mr. Reilly had been one of his most vocal supporters up to that time. And then of course, he wasn’t.
Now I had never heard of Mr. Reilly before but then I had give up on Sports Illustrated a long time ago. In any case while there were a number of columns that I enjoyed, it was pretty clear that Mr. Reilly is one of the new breed of sports writers who figures that people really want to know about him and his views on just about anything that has nothing to do about sports. I don’ t and that is why I wrote off SI and ESPN a long time ago.
But the real thing that stuck with me after awhile was just how fleeting fame in sports really is. Most of these columns were written between 2000 - 2006 and while just about every name was recognizable, I found that several required me to look up the individual so I could remember just what they were famous (or infamous) for doing. For that insight alone, it is a 3 star book.

[Mark Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun and easy read to start the year with. As a long-time subscriber to Sports Illustrated, I am very familiar with Rick Reilly - and this book is a compilation of about 100 of his back page articles from the magazine. Some make you laugh. Some make you cry. Some make you mad. He's an incredibly talented and funny writer, but also expresses a lot of opinions that make me think he's not someone I'd ever be friends with. It's not terribly surprising that he received a lot of hate mail over the years - including from cheerleaders.

[Donna Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did NOT just read this book today. I got it a few weeks ago when my school library was doing a purge of books and I forgot to add it to my list. Reilly is a clever writer for Sports Illustrated who has had his own column for 20+ years and this book is a collection of his favorites for seven years prior to publication (the book was published in 2007). Some of it was fun; some of it was meh, but I'm truly not a sports fan.

[Jordyn Roesler | Sorry, Booked Solid · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my husband’s book and he had been urging me to read it, so I’m glad to have finally made time for it. Even though sports journalism is definitely not my thing, I did enjoy quite a few of the articles in here - mostly the inspiring ones telling stories about athletes overcoming odds, disabilities, etc. There are definitely some things that have not aged well in here, but overall it was a quick read in a fun format and I generally enjoyed it!

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hate Mail From Cheerleaders and Other Adventures in the Life of Reilly From the Pages of Sports Illustrated by Rick Reilly (Sports Illustrated Books 2008) (796) (3950).

This is a collection of columns from Sports Illustrated magazine that were penned by erstwhile sportswriter Rick Reilly. As one would expect, some of these are funny, some of these are sad, but none of these are boring.

My rating: 7/10, finished 5/14/24 (3950).

[Karla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting collection of stories
Not really a fan of reading about sports but met and loved Bacons work so I gave this a shot and it’s not bad

Laughed at why the title is what it is... little heart over the wish you would die 😂...
worth the read
Some narratives are better than others but a few will leave you feeling lifted and who doesn’t want that?

[Kira · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a sports book, its a book about the people that play sports. A lot of the articles, and their post scripts, I was able to relate to even though I am not the most avid sports person. I love learning about people though. I like people watching and I like seeing how people react to situations and this book let me see all of that.

[Carol Lyzenga · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not being a sports fanatic, I thought this was decent because of the variety of information, but that was also why it wasn't riveting. It's hard to keep jumping from one sports life into another without anything to tie them together.

[a.t.m. · Rating 5 out of 5]

another great Reilly book

Humor in sports, and in life, this book has the Rick Reilly dna all over it. Love his approach and his subject matter. Not really all about sports, is it? I highly recommend!

[Kayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rick Reilly is such a funny and creative writer; I couldn't put this book down. I aspire to write like him one day...

[Laura Keniston · Rating 3 out of 5]

I probably would’ve rated it higher my first time reading it back in 2008 when the stories were more recent.

[Neil Hepworth · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you ever want to remind yourself about how much progress soceity has made in 20 years, here's a book.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trifle

[Whistler's Mom · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's like Dave Barry had a love child with Paul Harvey....

And there may be some genetic material from the Imus family involved here, because there's a certain "shock-jock" component.

Reilly is a long-time columnist for "Sports Illustrated" and these are all ones that have appeared since 2000. Reilly covers all sports so there's plenty in here about over-paid, badly-behaving professional athletes. In general, he's opposed to the breed. He makes an odd (to me) exception for Allen Iverson, the "guy who gives 100% in every game." What's a little domestic violence between friends? Reilly is a divorced man and sympathizes.

He plays golf himself and there's a lot about professional and amateur golf. That's good since it's the only sport I follow at all. We agree about Phil Mickelson and disagree about the Woods family.

In addition to age-appropriate golf, he makes occasional adrenaline-fueled forays into "extreme sports" like sky-diving and monster trucks. This impresses his teen-aged sons and makes the rest of us remember the old saying, "No fool like an old fool."

And he likes to branch off occasionally into a heart-warming "human interest" story. Even the most microscopic sports involvement is sufficient justification. These tear-jerkers prove that Real Men (like Reilly) are the ones who deserve our respect and admiration. A Real Man might slap his wife, but he will see that a disabled person gets to the big game and he's not ashamed to cry when his kid dies. When his wife cries, it's behind closed doors. She knows damned well Reilly isn't interested in HER problems.

So if you like the ramblings of an old-style kinda guy, you'll love Reilly. I laughed, I cried, I winced, I rolled my eyes. I finished the book and it was definitely worth the $2 I paid for it as an Amazon Daily Deal. That's why I love Daily Deals.

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second book by Rick Reilly that collects the best of his weekly Spors Illustraded back-page column. "Hate Mail From Cheerleaders" (320 pages) brings exactly 100 of those columns, from the last 7 years, in no particular order or chronology. The great thing is that for most of the columns, Reily gives an updated Postscript. In the postscript of his controversial 2004 column on the death of NFL player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, Reilly writes "I don't write about sports. I write about people who happen to be in sports. I write about human joy, sorrow, religion and politics as it weaves itself through sports."
Some columns are tearjerkers, such as the story of a blind man who finally gets to "see" a match played by his beloved New York Islanders, but most are laugh-out-loud funny, like the one detailing the season Reilly coached his daughter's middle school basketball team ("I learned something about seventh-grade girls: They're usually in the bathroom"). A few are scathing, as in his acid-laced response to Barry Bonds denying he used steroids ("Bonds's records should stay in the books. With a little syringe next to every one"). Others, though, are meant to make bigger points ("Blind Justice" on the Nets' Jason Williams "accidetnally" shooting his limo driver). And though it may not be surprising how many columns aim for inspiring-like the story of spirited Ben Comen, a high school cross-country runner with cerebral palsy-it's a shock how many hit the mark ("Trumpeting the Father of the Year", "Strongest Dad in the World", etc.), assisting a good cause such as collecting money for mosquito nets in Nigeria ("Nothing But Nets"), etc. Reilly's columns are short but pack a punch;).

[Tung · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rick Reilly is one of Sports Illustrated’s – and one of the country’s – most popular columnists. He and Mitch Albom are of the same breed – they are not sports columnists; rather, they’re walking Hallmark cards, human interest storytellers whose subjects have some connection to sports. They’re popular because their writing is schmaltzy and saccharine. This book is a collection of 100 of Reilly’s “best” columns (as chosen by him) from the years 2001-2006. Prediction: you could sit down before you open this book and guess at the subjects of the columns Reilly has written, and you’d probably be able to name 85% of his material: there’s the requisite three or four columns expressing disgust at the use of steroids in sports; there’s a column or two on Lance Armstrong; there’s a column on the death of Pat Tillman; there’s a column on 9/11, there’s several columns on Tiger Woods; there’s a column on a Lousiana high school sports team post-Katrina; there are columns about elderly people and sports, blind people and sports, disabled people with iron wills and sports, women in sports, etc. Name the generic topic that could be used to manipulate your emotions, and it’s likely you’ll find it in here. While I admit that there are several columns in here that I found inspirational, the vast majority are too predictable, and have already been written in your local paper. I picked this up only because I needed something to read on the plane home, and I was short on time in which to make a better choice. Recommended for Rick Reilly fans, and fans of those Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul books only.

[Nathan Mckinney · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you were like me as a child and immediately flipped to the back page of the newest Sports Illustrated issue as soon as it arrived then you will understand why I consider Rick Reilly to be one of the greatest sports columnists of all time. This book is merely a collection of 100 of Reilly's favorite columns ranging from '01-'06. I found just as much joy reading these columns today, a decade removed from these stories, as I did when they were first written. One of the things I appreciate most about Reilly, for those of you who are unfamiliar with his writing, is his honesty, and his willingness to tell it like it is, even if he knows it will make some enemies. I especially loved when he would call out guys like Jason Williams and Barry Bonds and Latrell Spreewell for their lack of respect and misconduct off the field/court. I also thoroughly enjoyed Reilly's personal comments that he included at the end of each story after getting some perspective years removed from the story. But in the article titled "The Hero and the Unknown Soldier", Reilly himself summed up why I find his writing so compelling: "I don't write about sports. I write about people who happen to be in sports. I write about human joy, sorrow, religion, and politics as it weaves itself through sports." Reilly is so good at looking beyond the stats and wins and losses and seeing the real stories that are going on in the world of sports and that is why I continue to find my self drawn to his writing, even if I can't find it on the back page of my Sports Illustrated anymore.

[Cara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for book club and was pleasantly surprised that I liked it for the most part. I was really bummed when I realized that I'll miss the next book club meeting to discuss it, though. I even dogeared the stories that I really liked and wanted to discuss! Oh well. There were some really sweet and uplifting stories, some funny ones, & some that went totally over my head (being a non sports fan). I skimmed a few that were TOO much about sports, but enjoyed the majority of them.

I really got a kick out of the stories about Tiger Woods and his upstanding character and holier than thou father. Ha! I also liked the couple of columns where he addresses reverse racism, which I thought was awfully brave of him. Then, the couple that addressed how fat and inactive kids are today, partly due due to the loss of focus in the schools on physical education. I hate the fact that when my son starts Kindergarten next year he will only take PE for 45 minutes ONCE a week. Unbelievable. I laughed a good deal during the column about coaching his daughter's basketball team. Ha! I also enjoyed Reilly's commentary on politics and the war, probably because my views are pretty similar. His support of Nothing But Nets is awesome as well. Then, of course there was the MANY heartfelt stories about people that really made the book worth reading.

[Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book because I dabble in sportswriting. Dabble might be too kind of a word. So, I wanted to learn from what I, as well as many others, consider the best in the business. Rick Reilly has talent in writing, but what makes his columns the best is that they aren't necessarily about sports, but about the people who play them. It is a fantastic angle that works well and can be very entertaining and deeply moving. This collection of 100 of Reilly's favorite articles is full of great examples. Some of the stories feel a bit dated (especially the one asking "Have you ever seen Tiger Woods do anything wrong?") but that is kind of the nature of journalism. Also, the seven or eight stories where Reilly uses unadulterated sarcasm as the main narration also fall distastefully flat. But, all in all, it is a good read for those who enjoy sports, human interest stories, and the unique combination that the two can make.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's hard to picture Rick Reilly's column inspiring anyone to write hate mail. He may purport to be politically incorrect, but when viewed in a compendium, his columns are pretty bland. Maybe a third are mild complaints about an overpaid athlete or a frustrating rule of the game, a third profile nontraditional sports, unsuccessful teams or unlikely aspiring athletes, and the remainder are schmaltzy, Make-a-Wish tales about kids with incurable diseases wanting to throw out a major league pitch. Some in this last category are incredibly sappy.

Also, many articles, written from 2000-2006, are not wearing well in 2013. His columns about Lance Armstrong don't (and couldn't) mention the doping scandal. Same for Tiger Woods' adultery, Ben Roethlisberger's sexual assault, Michael Vick's dogfighting... you get the picture. Plenty of beating up on Barry Bonds, though, and jokes about John Rocker, 1999's favorite racist pitcher.