It isn't just a game.

Rick Reilly is one of the best sports writers in the business. He used to write the back-page column for Sports Illustrated, but has now moved to ESPN. I don't think it's a conincidence that when Reilly left SI, Jeremy and I cancelled our subscription. The following is one of Reilly's final columns for SI. We have it up on our fridge, but I wanted to share it here as well. I think it speaks true for those of us who truly have a love for sports. Enjoy!

It Isn't Just a Game
By Rick Reilly

When I was a sophomore in college, working on the town newspaper, a professor took me aside and said, "You need to get out of sports. You're better than sports."

I still get that crap. "So when are you going to graduate from sports and go write for Time?" strangers will say. "You know, do something important?"

I stamp my feet and hold my breath and insist that sports is important and worthy of my devotion. And they go, "Why?" And that's when I look at them like a poodle at a card trick. But now I'm ready with my answer.

I love sports because . . .

- It's about loyalty and passion and family. We love the Vikings because Grandma loved the Vikings, and nothing and nobody is going to make us switch. Sports isn't an escape from life - it's woven into the fabric of it.

- It leads to instant parades. How cool is that? Name anything else in life that galvanizes a city to pull off a parade involving 500,000 people with two days' planning? And then the guys in the parades do jigs in kilts.

- It's the best kind of reality TV. That's real blood. Those are real tears. There's no director hollering, "Cut! Effects!" I was covering the NBA once when Seattle's 7'2" Tom Burleson fell hard under the hoop. No foul. As he was running downcourt, hand to bleeding mouth, he suddenly whipped something that hit me in the chest and plopped onto my notepad. It was his tooth.

- It gives us a sense of place. Even if there isn't a single Indianapolis Colt from Indianapolis, the players live there, they eat there, they take out their trash there. They carry the flag for our town and our friends. And in the era of one-Starbucks-per-parking meter cities, sports gives us Wrigley, Fenway, and Lambeau. Remember that the next time they want to tear down your stadium and put up a damn Invesco Field.

- There's no back door in. If you're Aaron Spelling's daughter and you want to act, you get to act. If you're a Trump, you get to build. But nobody in sports makes it onto the field because he caught a lucky sperm. Jose and Ozzie Canseco were identical twins. Jose played 1,887 major league games. Ozzie played 24.

- And sports doesn't care how you did last month, either. If you're Derek Jeter and you stop hitting, it doesn't matter how many Visa commercials you've done, you're toast. And yet Flavor Flav still puts out CDs.

- It turns hardened people to mush. Truck drivers weep over it. Nurses are overcome. Tell me the last time the ballet did that.

- The No Way That Just Happened moment seems to happen every 20 minutes. Fifteen laterals to win at 00:00; 41-point 'dog whips No. 1; kid overcomes cancer to clinch World Series. The notion that anybody can become president is pretty much dead - but in sports, anybody can still grow up to beat Michigan.

- It encourages good, healthy hating. If I'm an Auburn fan, I can hate you, an Alabama fan, from the bottom of my hater, and it's alright. I can seethe about it and write blogs about it and boo about it without getting arrested or hit with a restraining order. Who knows where all that hate would go without sports?

- It's cheap. With HD, who needs tickets? We've all been the guy who spent a week's salary to go to the game and ended up wishing he was back on the couch eating queso dip with his buddies. (That's another thing: Without sports, would there even be queso dip?)

- It's black and white, there's no gray area. Every night there's a winner and there's a loser and nothing in between. There's no waiting to see the third-quarter fiscal report. It's open to zero interpretation. I've never been to a game yet where, at the end, the ref announced, "O.K., Cleveland won 14-13, but the Cleveland coach was blocking his deep-seated childhood need for validation. So, actually Buffalo is the winner." There's a score and it's fair and clean and easy to understand. Except for figure skating, of course.

- It's new all the time. A Rolling Stones concert is the same 80 nights in a row, but an Avalanche-Red Wings game is a new, epic novel every time.

- It gives us something safe to talk about at Thanksgiving without upsetting Aunt Harriet or causing Grandpa to storm off in a huff. It's not religion, politics, war, or money. Sports is a way in. One of the best emails I ever got was from a 25-year-old: "Thanks for writing what you did about the RedSox. It's the first time I've been able to talk to my dad in five years."

So bite me, professor. Thirty years later, I still don't think I'm better than sports. In fact, it's been the other way around the whole time.