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Monday, November 17, 2014

Ryan in the Sun

Here's the title and deck from The CHB's column today: "For Suns GM Ryan McDonough, sports is in his blood" / "The son of sportswriting legend Will McDonough is making a name for himself in the NBA."

Before I click on the link, I'm going to guess what Shank writes. Then let's see how close I came.

1. Retelling of Will McDonough's toughness, including the time Willie punched out  Patriots defensive back Raymond Clayborn, an event that spoke more to how weak the Pats were at the time than it did about McDonough's right fist.
2. Reference to Ryan's brothers Terry and Sean, the latter once a voice of the Red Sox.
3. Mention of Sean calling the 2011 Red Sox-Orioles game which sealed the fate of Terry Francona and countless other "beer and chicken" players.
4. Recounting of history between Suns and Celtics, including name players (Paul Westphal, Dennis Johnson and of course Danny Ainge) who suited up for both teams.
5. Mention of the incredible 3-OT Game 5 between the C's and the Suns in the 1975 NBA Finals.
6. Mention of Ryan's runnerup finish for the NBA Executive of the Year Award.

Here we go!

1. "He studied sports at the right hand of his dad — the toughest, most street-smart and knowledgeable sports reporter of all-time." Point!
2. "I wasn’t nearly as good as Sean [Ryan’s brother is ESPN’s Sean McDonough], but I missed the competition. I wanted to have something to do with winning and losing.’’ 1/2 point!
3. Swing and a miss. 0 points.
4. No game mentions, but Danny Ainge is all over the piece. 1/2 point!
5. No mention. 0 points.
6. It's there. 1 point

Well, three out of six. And the rest of the piece is a montage of Ryan's youth and early days with the Celtics. Utterly predictable.

3 comments:

Roger Bournival said...

Here's my favorite part:

Getting an internship is one thing. Many folks have parents who can make connections. But connected kids don’t stay on the job unless they deserve to stay on the job. Ryan McDonough made the most of his opportunity.

Shank would know about parents who have connections when it comes to getting their kids an internship...

Anonymous said...

Ugh. Depressing but not surprising about the internship. Absolutely ridiculous.

Btw - it was 1976 Finals not 1975.

mike_b1 said...

That's correct. It was the 1975-76 NBA season, so the finals were actually in '76.