In Wake of Self-Plagiarism, ESPN Drops Rick Reilly Column

Rick Reilly will no longer be able to copy Rick Reilly. ESPN has announced that Reilly — who has penned a column for ESPN.com since joining the company in 2008 — “has decided to go part time” and will “concentrate on television duties.” This, of course, is all code for “Reilly won’t stop trying to pass off his old columns as new ones, so we had to cut his writing duties.”

In February, Reilly’s column titled “Don’t act like you’ve been there” featured multiple exact sentences from a column he wrote in 2009, titled “You just won the US Open! Act like it!” The self- plagiarism was so bad we were honestly worried about the guy.