You Know You Should Probably Stop Writing When You Plagiarize Rick Reilly

That's exactly what Everett Daily Herald writer John Sleeper did with his June 3rd column, "Trust Me, Coaching Girls Is A Whole New Ballgame", which has since been removed and replaced with this apology letter from the paper's executive editor. The portions Sleeper ganked from Reilly were (I think) from this 2002 column, " Out OfTouch With My Feminine Side, " which seems to have some telltale passages that would've fit nicely into Sleeper's column based on his title alone. But, as Regret The Error points out, this is not an isolated incident of Reilly-lifting from a sports columnist — even this year.

This is the second time in less than two months that a sports journalist has been busted for plagiarizing from an old Rick Reilly column. In early June, Dave Pratt, a Vancouver radio personality, lost his column in the Vancouver Province after he stole from a 2000 Reilly column in Sports Illustrated. When contacted for comment, he told the CBC, “It was a Saturday and I wanted to get out of [the office] before noon.”

At least Pratt was honest then. But this is an interesting phenomenon. One more and we might have ourselves a trend. Let's analogize: Small market sports columnists lifting material from Rick Reilly are like the equivalent of a struggling stand-up comedian using jokes from "Everybody Loves Raymond" in their act. Plagiarism at the Daily Herald; Rick Reilly Robbed Again [Regret The Error]