Really Reilly? Not cool
After Cornell fell to Kentucky 62-45, ESPN columnist Rick Reilly posted this column on ESPN.com. Reilly does what you are not supposed to do: go after the underdog. He belittles and mocks the Cornell men’s basketball team, and its cheerleaders, for being smart. Really Reilly?
I mean, come on man, are you trying to be a jerk or does it come naturally? Cornell’s two upsets against Temple and Wisconsin had the nation buzzing. Everyone from fans to announcers had only positive words for the Ivy kids that were torching the big schools and their big sports scholarships. CBS was showing highlights of Ryan Wittman before and after commercials. But you decide to go the complete opposite direction and whip out the nerd jokes. We get it. We Ivy Leaguers like to read, do Rubik’s Cubes, and learn new languages. But what the hell does that have to do with basketball? How about you show some respect for the athletes by writing about the sport? Oh wait, you did eventually, but you even got that wrong.
Yes, Kentucky dominated statistically, but the game was not a blowout. Cornell shot poorly, 23.8 percent from 3-point land, and turned the ball over too many times. However, despite all of that, it was still in position to win the game. With 5:15 left in the second half, the Big Red were only down by six. That seems awfully close considering, as you put it, “the janitors were sweeping under [their] feet by halftime.”
At some point in your column I thought you were going to either A) be funny or B) talk about how in the end academics are more important than sports (I mean, they are student-athletes). Instead you end with a revenge-of-the-nerds joke (sort of). I just wish you had written a more compelling column that didn’t state the obvious that Ivy people are smart and Kentucky is good at basketball. What can you expect from an University of Colorado alum?
Since when do we stick up for Cornell? Their 15 minute lasted way way way too long.
My dislike for Cornellians aside, Reilly actually has spent years of his life honing his sense of nuance. The entire point of the column is that for Cornell players, this loss isn’t that big of a deal. None of these players are thinking about going pro, and they will all be totally employable and not have to worry about job skills or basic literacy when they graduate. He’s making the point that Kentucky might be awesome at athletics, but they are prioritizing at a price. His point is that Cornell kids are going to go on to make bank so they can afford season tickets to UK games.
Can you argue with him? I mean, really, isn’t that the number one selling…
I’m not sticking up for Cornell, I’m sticking up for Ivy athletes. I don’t think it’s fair to say the loss isn’t that big of a deal (as you put it) because the Cornell players are smart and don’t have to go pro. Also, it’s insulting to the players to say “don’t worry about losing, you can always buy season tickets to watch the Kentucky players play in the NBA.” Also, why mention the cheerleaders?
You completely missed the tone of the column. Yes, Reilly gently pokes fun at Cornell and the Ivy League, but he admits that we are eventually going to be leaders of our generation, the people with high-paying jobs and prestige that can afford to pay thousands of dollars for good basketball tickets. It is most certainly not insulting, it’s the highest form of flattery. Many college athletes go all out for their sport, neglecting academics, and the VAST majority of them, even at Kentucky, fall short of professional level and end up in much worse job situations. And come on…every athlete knows that if you want to shut up the critics you have to win. And if you lose, you face the music. But you don’t know this because you’re not an…
… athlete, you’re a whiny columnist who writes about athletes.
Well said.
I understand that Ivy athletes will go on to high paying jobs etc. Of course it’s not insulting to say they will be successful. But it is insulting to focus on their academics when you’re writing about basketball. When they step on the court they are athletes, and damn good ones. Of course they should face the music, but it should be basketball music, not Rubik’s Cube music. Also, whiny? That hurts.
I’m sorry for calling you whiny. I went a little overboard there.
You have to remember that collegiate athletes are not professional athletes. We’re not just basketball players or just baseball players or just anything, we’re scholar-athletes and when we take the court, we represent both our team and our academic institution. I think it would be offensive to make fun of the Utah Jazz’s academics, but as NCAA student-athletes, academics are inexorably tied to athletics — there are mandatory credit and GPA requirements that must be completed before we can compete. And I still don’t think Reilly means it as an insult to the Cornell players at all.
no one at cornell wears a slide rule. this column is ridiculously ignorant and just comes across as someone who felt their territory was being infringed upon by a team too “smart” for comfort, and this was the insecure response. what a joke, and what a disrespectful joke to everyone it mentions.
see comment above. i guarantee nobody on the cornell team takes this column as an insult. it’s only the people that sit on their couches with their beers and remotes that get offended
I disagree with the other CU Athlete and am highly offended on behalf of all Ivy League athletes everywhere that have ever existed
I disagree with all the other CU Athletes that have spoken thus far and propose an arm wrestling tournament to settle matters.
Now we’re talking. I say we go straight from Over the Top starring Sylvester Stallone. Google it.
You can’t disparage a columnist for stating the obvious when you wrote a column about Cornell playing like a number-one team against Temple and Wisconsin. I mean, can you get more obvious than that? Plus, a major reason why Cornell generated so much buzz during the tourney is, as you say, because the Cornell men are “Ivy kids that were torching the big schools and their big sports scholarships.” The fact that they are Ivy League students, that they go to an academically competitive school that focuses less on athletics than institutions like Kentucky, is a huge part of why their success on the hardwood this year was so impressive. Reilly would be insulting Cornell by ignoring this fact, not by addressing it.
To defend my stating the obvious, that was one sentence. My entire column focused on how Ivy basketball is on the rise and how Cornell was helping to put it on the map. Yes, the fact that Cornell is an academically competitive school does make their success that much more impressive. However, I don’t think it’s ok to focus almost entirely on their academics, or their nerdiness, when discussing how they lost a basketball game. When they are on the court they are basketball players first. So in a column about the loss to Kentucky, it should focus on them as basketball players, and not as kids that like to solve Rubik’s Cubes.
but nobody wants to read a column about cornell as a basketball team. as a team, they are not compelling. as ivy league students without scholarships taking on the best scholarship teams in the nation….highly compelling. you can’t rip on reilly for choosing to write for the more interesting compelling angle