10. William Rhoden – The New York Times

William C. Rhoden (born 1950) is a sports columnist for The New York Times. He has been in his current role since March 1983. Previously, he was a copy editor in the Sunday Week in Review section since October 1981 when he joined the newspaper.  Before joining the Times, Mr. Rhoden spent more than three years with The Baltimore Sun as a columnist. Before that, he was associate editor of Ebony magazine from 1974 to 1978. William C. Rhoden is also the author of the controversial Forty Million Dollar Slaves, which was published by Crown Publishing in 2006.

This book compares the relationship of black athletes to team owners and agents to white plantation owners and slaves of the Antebellum period. It also deals with the complexities of societal implications on black athletes. Howard University has devoted a few students from its spring 2007 semester to further analyze this topic. In 2007, Rhoden’s next book Third and a Mile: The Trials and Triumph of the Black Quarterback was published. This book continues the work of Forty Million Dollar Slaves by discussing the struggles that many black quarterbacks have endured by being labeled as “athletic” and not smart enough to play the position. Rhoden is a frequent guest on ESPN’s The Sports Reporters. -Wikipedia.org

9. Bill Plaschke – The Los Angeles Times

William Homer “Bill” Plaschke (born September 6, 1958, in Louisville, Kentucky) is an American sports journalist who has written for the Los Angeles Times since 1987. He attended Ballard High School in Louisville. He spent his freshman year at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. In 1980, he received a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where he was the sports editor for the school’s paper, the Alestle. Plaschke is a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America and the Professional Football Writers Association.

He is also a regular panel member of ESPN’s sports-themed debate show, Around the Horn. Plaschke is often referred to by Denver Post columnist and author Woody Paige as “Reverend Bill.”  Plaschke has been named National Sports Columnist of the Year by the Associated Press four times. He is known for his human interest stories about how steroid use is ruining America. -Wikipedia.org

8. John Feinstein – The Washington Post

John Feinstein (born July 28, 1956) is an American sportswriter, author and sports commentator who wrote the top two best-selling non-fiction sports books in history, A Good Walk Spoiled and A Season on the Brink. Feinstein is a columnist for The Washington Post, The Sporting News, and Golf Digest and is an on-air contributor with Golf Channel. In addition he does color commentary for United States Naval Academy football games. He is a frequent contributor to The Tony Kornheiser Show and The Jim Rome Show. He also writes a blog called “Feinstein on the Brink.” -Wikipedia.org

7. Frank DeFord – Sports Illustrated

Benjamin “Frank” Deford, III (born December 16, 1938, in Baltimore, Maryland) is a senior contributing writer for Sports Illustrated, author, and commentator for National Public Radio and correspondent for Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO. Deford began writing for Sports Illustrated in 1962. In addition to his Sports Illustrated duties, he has also been a correspondent for HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel since 1995, a regular Wednesday commentator for National Public Radio since 1980.

He is the author of fifteen books. His 1981 novel Everybody’s All-American was named one of Sports Illustrated’s Top 25 Sports Books of All Time and was later made into a film of the same title. His most recent book, The Entitled (2007), has been called one of the best baseball novels ever, although most of his fiction is out of the sports realm. He has also been a screenwriter on the films Trading Hearts (1987) and Four Minutes (2006). -Wikipedia.org

6. Joaquin Henson – The Philippine Star

Joaquin M. Henson (aka Quinito Henson) is a Filipino sports journalist and television color commentator. His newspaper column, Sporting Chance, has appeared in the Philippine Star since the 1980s. Dubbed as “The Dean”, he himself has laced his writing with nicknames given to various athletes, such as “Captain Lionheart” for Alvin Patrimonio and “Tower of Power” for Benjie Paras. Henson graduated from the De La Salle University-Manila in 1973 and began his career in sports journalism shortly thereafter.

Beginning in 1982, Henson was featured as one of the color commentators in the television broadcast of the games of the Philippine Basketball Association by Vintage Sports. He was retained as a television analyst by the various television networks that acquired the broadcasting rights over the PBA games after Vintage lost the rights in 2002. As of 2009, he is among the pool of sportscasters who covered the broadcast of PBA games on Solar TV. -Wikipedia.org

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5. Jason Whitlock – The Kansas City Star

Jason Lee Whitlock (born April 27, 1967, in Indianapolis, Indiana) is a sportswriter for Foxsports.com, as well as a former columnist at the Kansas City Star, AOL Sports writer, contributor to ESPN, and radio personality for WHB and KCSP sports stations in the Kansas City area. Whitlock previously worked for the Bloomington Herald Times, The Charlotte Observer and the Ann Arbor News. He has also been published in Vibe Magazine and The Sporting News. In the June 2008 issue of Playboy Magazine, Whitlock wrote a 5,000-word column questioning American’s incarceration and drug-war policies.

Playboy headlined the column “The Black KKK,” which provoked Whitlock into writing two columns—one in the Kansas City Star and another on Foxsports.com—criticizing Playboy editorial director Chris Napolitano for the misleading and inflammatory headline.  Whitlock was the celebrity spokesman for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Kansas City. Whitlock had guest-hosted several ESPN shows, including Jim Rome Is Burning, and Pardon the Interruption. He also appeared regularly on ESPN’s The Sports Reporters until he was fired from ESPN in September 2006. He is a regular fill-in host on the Jim Rome Radio Show. -Wikipedia.org

4. Gary Smith – Sports Illustrated

Gary Smith (born 1953) is an American sportswriter. He is best known for his lengthy human interest stories in Sports Illustrated, where he has worked since 1983. Smith worked as a sportswriter for the Wilmington News-Journal, the Philadelphia Daily News, the New York Daily News, and Inside Sports before joining Sports Illustrated. His writing has also appeared in Time, Rolling Stone, and Esquire.

For many years, Smith’s role as senior writer at Sports Illustrated has been to write four lengthy feature articles per year, most of which are in-depth personality profiles. His wife, Sally, has described his motivation as follows: “He is not satisfied with putting facts together. He wants to understand what is the core conflict that has driven that person. He hopes to tell a secret that a person might not be aware of.” Several of Smith’s subjects have attested to his profound insight. -Wikipedia.org

3. Bob Ryan – The Boston Globe

Robert A. “Bob” Ryan (born February 21, 1946) is a longtime columnist for the Boston Globe and a sports talk show host on the New England Sports Network. He has been described as a basketball guru and is well known for his coverage of the sport including his famous stories covering the Boston Celtics in the 1970s. After graduating from Boston College, Ryan started as a sports intern for the Globe on the same day as Peter Gammons. He is well known for his occasionally stuttering voice and has said of it “I don’t like my own voice – in fact I hate it.” -Wikipedia.org

2. Woody Paige – The Denver Post

Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Paige, Jr. (born June 27, 1946 in Memphis, Tennessee) is a sports columnist for The Denver Post, author and a regular panelist on the ESPN sports-talk program Around the Horn. He was also a co-host of Cold Pizza and its spin-off show 1st and 10 until Nov. 4, 2006, when it was announced that Paige would return to the Post. Paige is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee and is a Baseball Hall of Fame voter. Paige joined the Denver Post in 1981. As of 2007, he writes four columns per week.  

In 2001 there was a controversy over one of Paige’s articles. He reported that an employee at Invesco, which had the naming rights to the Denver Broncos stadium, Invesco Field at Mile High, claimed that the nickname for the stadium inside the company was “The Diaphragm,” after its shape (which slightly resembles a contraceptive device with the same name). The CEO of the company threatened Paige and the Post with legal action over the allegations, but had to retract the lawsuit when it was discovered that the story was true. -Wikipedia.org

1. Rick Reilly – Sports Illustrated

Richard “Rick” Paul Reilly (born February 3, 1958 in Boulder, Colorado) is an American sportswriter. Long known for being the “back page” columnist for Sports Illustrated, Reilly moved to ESPN on June 1, 2008 where he is a featured columnist for ESPN.com and wrote the back page column for ESPN the Magazine. Reilly hosts ESPN’s Homecoming with Rick Reilly, an interview show, and he is a contributing essayist for ESPN SportsCenter and ABC Sports. -Wikipedia.org

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