Rick Reilly’s article “Too Many Spoilsports”

First of all Reilly carries a lot of credibility that transcends well to the reader, making his ethos very strong and convincing. He is a very credible writer because he has been on the senior staff for Sports Illustrated and his columns are mostly highly respected and thought provoking. Reilly also knows numerous athletes which only boosts his credibility in the field of which he is talking about, which is athlete's personality and psychology. An example of his knowledge and credibility among the athletic community is that he personally knows Michael Jordan “Talks more trash on the court than prison hard-timers” (

In the end you don’t have to agree with Reilly and you don’t have to love his writing style or topics. One thing you must do is admire his passion, and his thought-provoking take on normal, everyday things. A regular person couldn’t give two-bits about sportsmanship but after they read Reilly’s article I’m sure even in the very back of their minds, thinking about some issue dealing with it and how this makes Reilly right or wrong. But that is what is so great about Rick Reilly, he gives you the facts, shoots straight from the hip, and he isn’t afraid to take shots for his writing. Those are the truest qualities of a fantastic writer if I’ve ever seen them.

Now one of the greater methods Reilly uses in promoting his point of view is his use of logos. This means he uses the truth, facts and simple logic, to grab and hold on to the reader’s attention. Reilly correctly delves into past sports facts that actually happened. We have all seen Deion Sanders “High-step the final 20 yards of a touchdown run” (68) and Indiana’s Bob Knight “Furniture-heaving” (68) escapades on numerous highlight tapes. People know this is true and they can relate to it because they’ve seen these images. They can also instantly connect with what the writer is saying. The logic of Reilly’s piece is just simply too overwhelming. When one reads that Dallas Cowboys receiver Michael Irvin “Announced before a recent game that he was going to try to reinjure Washington Redskin cornerback Darrell Green’s broken right forearm” (68), he cannot help but think that sportsmanship has really gone down in this country recently. It just grabs the reader’s attention and the logical thinking is that a guy trying to reinjure another guy’s broken arm is really not a good thing. Logistics and simple cold hard facts are a very powerful tool in catching the reader’s attention because facts don’t lie and logical thinking is pretty much the basis of human rhetoric, simple and to the point.

Emotion, or the pathos of the article, also plays a big role in this argument by authority. Reilly intelligently feeds off the minds of anyone who reads the article. He knows already that the reader probably is a sports fan or they wouldn’t be reading a Sp

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