Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan yesterday penned his last piece as a full-time writer for the newspaper and wrote, “How many columnists on a major American daily newspaper have spent their entire journalistic lives with one newspaper? The answer is close to zero. But why would I want to go anywhere else?” Ryan wrote he will “remain as a Sunday contributor for 30-40 times a year,” but he is “stepping aside from full-time duty.” After reporting from the London Games, Ryan noted, “I will have covered my last event and written my last deadline story for the paper that has been my home for 44 years.” Ryan: “I firmly believe I have been a member of a true All-Star team in sports journalism for the entire 44 years. … I want to be judged by the people I’ve worked with.” He added, “Just appreciate that I have been in a killer lineup for 44 years.” Ryan: “I do want it known that I have spent 44 years doing it from the heart. I have never once written to provoke or to attract attention.” Ryan, who is a regular contributor for ESPN’s “Sports Reporters,” as well as “Around The Horn,” wrote, “I still have the Globe part-time gig and I still have a bit more TV shelf life, how much I really don’t know. I want to do what I want to do and not do what I don’t want to do” (BOSTON GLOBE, 8/12). The GLOBE’s Dan Shaughnessy wrote for “4 1/2 decades, Bob Ryan has been our sports section’s passion and its institutional memory. He changed the way NBA basketball was covered in America” (BOSTON GLOBE, 8/12). SI.com's Peter King wrote, "Simple, declarative sentences are good things," and Ryan "specialized in them." He said "what he thought without couching it, column after column" (SI.com, 8/12).
