End at the Beginning: Bill Simmons

For the first of the 11-part "Pubic Square" series, I focused on public intellectual and media mogul Laurence Lessig.  His contributions to the media world via the creative commons and other open-sourced projects have fueled the advancements of online media communities worldwide.  He has offered countless opinions on technology, consumerism and information over his career; he is regarded in the highest manner by his peers.  In every facet of the title, Lessig is a public intellectual.

For the last of this series of public comments and experimentations in opinion wiring, I wanted to give a shout out to an individual who I am just realizing has the same clout as Lessig: "The Sports Guy."

Bill Simmons is a sports writer.  He is the proud owner of "The Sports Guy" column on "Page 2" of ESPN the Magazine, and is also the featured columnist alongside equally experienced Rick Reilly at ESPN.com.  For dozens of years, Simmons has covered the entire spectrum of the sports world.  He has mastered a style that is just as colloquial as it is unique to Simmons, touching on topics that resonate with his audience: the "professional sports fan."

Personally, I am an amateur follower of Simmons' writing.  As an avid sports fan, I fit into his target audience, but have only dabbled in his content rarely.  Since I've been reading sports columns, he was an occasional selection amongst the masses, but I finally had my epiphany surrounding the greatness of Simmons' writing last night. Under the direction of a fellow Simmons admirer, I went into the archives and read his article on the 20 rules to being a "professional sports fan."

This article should be a requirement for all opinion writing classes.

Simmons has put on a clinic for how to write conversationally in a column.  Like Lessig's students at Stanford who follow him like the disciples of a new media messiah, Simmons commands a lecture hall for millions through his columns, books and even tweets.  His most fundamental understandings of the countless people who love sports is reflected in his easy-to-read prose and his effortless references to sports history.

What becomes blazingly clear as one reads "The Sports Guy," is his command of his craft. Over his years of writing, Simmons has perfected his style to not only appeal to his audience, but to enable his diction and syntax to match the moods and emotions of his readers.  His pairing of style and know-how results in a perfect communication of his point of view, forcing it upon the reader as his opinions are delivered so fluidly in his writing its feels like inception.

Over the course of these past 14 weeks of posting, the challenge has been to explain an argument with such clarity that it achieves the same feeling of inception that Simmons has found.  Whether or not I've accomplished this in any one of my "Public Square" postings is not for me to decide, but I do find that I read other writing with a far better understanding of what it means to communicate an opinion with an audience.  It's been a wonderful challenge, and I assuredly appreciate the commitments that writers like Bill Simmons have for their passion.

If you haven't read him before, go and check out "The Sports Guy." Trust me, it's worth it.