I am legit. I did Sports.
I have been writing about Sports for 47 years. It started with Globe newspapers in Fairfax, then the college paper at West Virginia U. I have written for The Manassas Journal-Messenger……and USA Today, The Athletic, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Boston Globe, Forbes, The New York Times, OZY, ESPN, The Washington Post, Simon & Schuster, MLB.com, and many others. I told stories as a kid. Still doing it.
I have talked the game with Trae, Matty Ice, Murph, Nique, Snit, Hank, Chipper, Freddie, Skip and Chip, and Glav, but also with Doug from Decatur, Peter from Dallas, John from Atlanta, Irene from Atlanta, and many others.
I came from a one bathroom house in Fairfax, Va. 11 kids. Four bedrooms. Bunk beds galore. I was child No. 9. It didn’t seem like a small house to me because I was always outside. There was a ball, or a can to kick, or a race to run, or woods to explore. We always mixed in with a flock of kids from the neighborhood. We improvised. One bike. Two kids. Easy to handle with the cross bar. Speaking of cross bars. My mother’s plastic cups disappeared because they were tees for kicking the football over the telephone wires, which were the goal posts.
We would end up on a patch of grass for football, the street for baseball with a rubber ball, and asphalt with a worn out basketball, or just the dirt court in the backyard.
That’s how I got started in this business of writing on Sports. I am legit, you know. Raised on sports.
I think you should know that and trust me here with Ball Atlanta. I have credentials for all this pontificating.
I played.
Why Subscribe? Here’s Why.
In 2018, Ray Glier won 1st place in the Georgia Sportswriters Association contest for Best College/Pro Feature Writing. Selfishly, Ray won 2nd place, too. His book “How The SEC Became Goliath (Simon & Schuster) is the most authoritative look at how the SEC rose to become the No. 1 conference in college football. Ray had the sports cover story in the New York Times and USA TODAY…on the same day in 2007. Two different topics, of course, but 6 million eyeballs on one byline. (A test later on how many readers that is).
“When it comes to sports, especially football, if Ray writes it I'm reading it. His work is at a different level, info-wise, partly because it's clear the player, coach, etc. are not the only ones in the interview who really know the game." Chuck Oliver, 680 The Fan, Atlanta.
What You Get
One newsletter a week of stuff you won’t read in The AJC, The Athletic, or hear on radio. Free for now. Unless I win the lottery, I will eventually turn on the “Pay Here” sign. If you are not buying what I’m selling, it will be my fault, not yours.
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Please share. My goal is 1,000 subscribers. I’m up to 312. Slow going, yes, because I learned how to throw a wicked curveball on Poplar Street, not how to market.
