Bill Reynolds' voice extended far beyond New England sports
The pecking. Always the pecking.
Hunched over his keyboard in the corner of the Providence Journal newsroom designated for the sports department, Bill Reynolds wrote hundreds of columns and a dozen books, pecking at the keys with just the pointer fingers on each hand. If he'd ever learned the "proper" way to type, he had no use for it.
Pretty much everyone in Rhode Island knew of Billy, who died last week at 78 years old. He was an institution in the state, a high school and then Brown University basketball legend who could also turn around copy like few others. His Saturday column in particular — "For What It's Worth" — was required reading for sports and non-sports fans alike. He'd opine on the news of the week, whether Providence College basketball, the Red Sox or Patriots, but among his bulleted thoughts were mini book reviews and other observations from the world around him. He didn't just stick to sports.
When I was 17 and about to become a high school senior, I entered the ProJo newsroom for the first time, part of a small cohort the newspaper chose as Emma Bowen Foundation interns. The idea was to get more Black people and people of color into journalism through paid, multi-year internships.
The funny thing when you're in high school and gassed up by your father/biggest fan is that sometimes you don't know how out there your career plan really is. I'd seen Robin Roberts on "SportsCenter," I was pretty confident the woman named Sonja Steptoe who wrote for Sports Illustrated was Black, but this was the mid-1990s and I really had no idea how rare it was for Black women to be part of sports media.
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But there I was, walking into that old brick building on Fountain Street in downtown Providence, a Black girl from a rundown former mill city, left behind like so many other New England mill cities, declaring to everyone who asked that I wanted to be a sports writer. Really, I may as well have been saying I wanted to be a unicorn for as rare as it was to see someone who looked like me in sports media at the time.
Some of the powers that be at the ProJo didn't believe me or tried to talk me out of it.
Bill Reynolds never did.
I can't remember the first time I met Billy, and I can't even say that I understood at the time how crucial his support was. Between he and Dave Bloss, who was the sports editor when I started at the paper, I got the kind of guidance and uplift that so many young journalists from marginalized communities need and don't receive nearly enough.
After the first Providence Bruins hockey game I covered, I ran back across the street from the Providence Civic Center to the newsroom, frantic to make deadline in less than an hour. Bill was there and stood at my shoulder, keeping me calm but also making sure I hit all of the points needed in a game story.
When I was at Syracuse, the ProJo mailed every day's edition to my dorm. Overwhelmed with classes and being part of the track and field team my first couple of years, I threw most of them away. I always kept the Saturday papers so I could read Billy's "For What It's Worth." I didn't care that it may have been days later; I needed to see what was on his mind.
If you were ever to read my very early copy, it looked a lot like his — he often used one-sentence paragraphs that said so much in just a few words, and I mimicked it. I have my own writing voice now, but his influence remains.
He was my sounding board, not just as a young journalist. When my husband and I were going through a rocky period early in our marriage, he was a trusted confidant. I remember back then laughing to myself that my bestie was a white guy in his 50s who grew up in tony Barrington; on the surface we couldn't have been much more different.
But I knew he cared. He listened. He offered his thoughts but never judgment.
The remarkable thing, the really remarkable thing, is I'm not the only person with stories like this. In an industry, in a world, where so many are concerned about only themselves, he is widely remembered for his kindness, and that he was an even better human than he was a writer. And he was a damn good writer.
In 2010 after nearly 16 years at the ProJo and essentially growing up there, I left for the Boston Globe. By then I was a New England Patriots beat writer and mom to a 7-year-old, facing new struggles in a high-pressure job. Billy, I heard, gave me a glowing recommendation.
I saw him only a few more times after that. He'd show up in the press box at Patriots games, always checking in with me. As I type now, I have the feeling many of us have when someone we love dies: I'm kicking myself for not making more time to see him.
I wrote to him a couple of years ago, to thank him again. For various reasons, I'd had to think about what I've accomplished in my career, about how a naïve Black girl from Pawtucket actually did become a sports writer and has been in press boxes all over this country and in two others, writing about games and telling the stories of those who play them.
For as not-easy as it has been, it could have been so much more difficult — or maybe not happened at all — if not for Billy.
Rest well, my friend. Thank you.
