Death of Ralph Wiley
 

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=1821759

Very sad, he was only 52. Not sure how many of you are on espn.com or watch ESPN, but he was a columnist in the Page 2 section and would sometimes appear on SportsCenter.

Had some good articles on the site, was a little bit of a different perspective on things.

Again, a shame that he died so young. Working with heart failure patients though, I've seen time and time again how quickly it can happen.

Re: Death of Ralph Wiley
 

R-Dub was one of the few Cali journalists who I thought had a very solid grasp on nationwide sports - often the "West Coast Bias" is just as bad, if not worse, than its semi-mythical East Coast analog is assumed to be.

His views, especially on the racial politics in sports, were groundbreaking to my mind - he was unafraid to confront social and ethical isSues in sports, and whether or not you agreed, his desire to get off the fence that most journalists rode was certainly commendable.

It's a shame to go so young.

Wow, I thought I would be the only one on here who knew who he was. I enjoyed reading his articles on Page Two.

"The greatest athlete is the one who can rescue a child from the fourth floor of a burning building; the greatest athlete is the one who can face four thugs in an alley and protect a couple of nurses and get them out of there, then disappear and not wait for credit. A real player is somebody who never gives up, who keeps thinking all the way through, who's scared, damned right, but plays through being scared." - Ralph Wiley, 9/12/01

I thought there'd be more people on the site who knew who he was...lots of sports fans on here, in their travels on espn.com may have run across his stuff.

I didn't always agree with what he said, but as was said, he was never on the fence about topics, and I respect that.

I loved his thought balloons after each weekend of football during the season. He will be missed.