WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Bob Ryan is 72 and has been officially retired as a sportswriter since 2012, except he still writes several Sunday columns every month for the Boston Globe, makes regular TV and radio appearances on ESPN and hosts his own podcast.
"I'm just an observer," he said. "It seems all I'm doing is watching sports."
He didn't offer that as a complaint. Ryan was relaxing inside a hotel lobby, a Hall of Fame sportswriter talking shop about the state of his profession. He's here to present his friend Dick "Hoops" Weiss, who was inducted into the National Sports Media Association's Hall of Fame on Monday night.
NSMA honored writers and broadcasters from all 50 states at its annual banquet — somehow, my name got pulled out of the hat — and a few of the industry's giants, including Ryan, Bryant Gumbel and Thomas Boswell.
Ryan and Weiss are two of the most respected basketball writers in the history of sportswriting. Ryan became known as a master storyteller in his coverage of those championship Celtics teams of Bird, McHale and Parish.
Journalism operated much differently back then. Ryan had intimate access to players and coaches and was able to see behind a curtain that often serves as a barrier stopping the flow of insight and information today.
We chatted for a few minutes about the challenges of covering sports in the age of Twitter and shifting media climate. Afterward, I couldn't help but reflect on how the NBA that Ryan chronicled for decades also has changed substantively with the proliferation of superteams.
Except the superteam model really isn't new.