Nothing But Nets

RICK REILLY, 47, is in his 21st year as a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. He has been voted National Sportswriter of the Year 10 times, including for 2005. He is the author of the weekly "Life of Reilly" column, which runs on the last page of SI. It's the first signed weekly opinion column in the magazine's 51-year history.

The New York Daily News called him "one of the funniest humans on the planet." Publishers Weekly called him, "an indescribable amalgam of Dave Barry, Jim Murray, and Lewis Grizzard, with the timing of Jay Leno and the wit of Johnny Carson."

His current book "Who's Your Caddy?" (Doubleday) in which he caddies for everyone from Jack Nicklaus to Donald Trump to a $50,000-a-hole gambler, rose to No. 3 on the New York Times best-seller list. His last book, "The Life of Reilly: The Best of Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly" also was a New York Times bestseller.

His first novel, Missing Links, (Doubleday) a comic golf romance, was hailed by the New York Times as "three laughs per page." It has been printed seven times in hardcover, nine in paperback, and is scheduled to be an FX sitcom. He also wrote, Slo-Mo: My Untrue Story, (Doubleday) a farce on the NBA, which the Denver Post called, "a romp that could have been written only by someone who has seen the game form the inside."

He has written about everything from ice skater Katarina Witt behind the Iron Curtain to actor Jack Nicholson in the front row, from wrestling priests in Mexico City to mushers at the Iditarod, from playing golf with President Clinton to playing golf with O.J. Simpson and back again. He has five times had the disagreeable task of accompanying the models on the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. He was once featured in a Miller Lite ad with swimsuit cover girl Rebecca Romijn Stamos.

Probably too curious for his own good, Reilly has flown upside down at 600 miles per hour in an F-14, faced fastballs from Nolan Ryan, jumped from 14,000 feet with the U.S. Army Parachute Team, driven a stock car 142 miles per hour, competed against 107 women for a spot in the WNBA, worked three innings of play-by-play for the Colorado Rockies, anchored a half hour of ESPNEWS, driven a monster truck over six parked cars and played 108 holes of golf in one day.

Reilly has won numerous awards in his 27-year writing career, including the prestigious New York Newspaper Guild's Page One Award for Best Magazine Story. He is the co-author of "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."

He is co-author of the Universal screenplay "Leatherheads," a comic romance centered on the 1927 Duluth Eskimos of the fledgling NFL. He is currently writing a screenplay for Warner Bros.