For many years, Oak Park native Rick Morrissey has been a leading voice for Chicago sports fans, first as a reporter for the Tribune, then as a columnist for the Sun-Times.
Now his 43-year sportswriting career is coming to a close: Morrissey announced on X (formerly Twitter) that he has accepted a buyout offer from the Sun-Times. His final Sun- column is scheduled for March 20.
Morrissey told the Wednesday Journal that the ongoing challenges the newspaper industry is facing played a role in his decision.
“I’ve been in the business for 43 years, and I’d been planning on walking away in a year or two,” Morrissey said. “This just speeded up the process, and I’m okay with that. I’ve been able to do a lot of cool stuff in this job, and I hope somebody else gets the same opportunities I did.”
Morrissey, a 1978 graduate of Fenwick High School, said that his older brother, who wrote for the school newspaper, The Wick, was the one who influenced him to embark on a journalism career.
“There was a Journalism 101 book lying around our house that I assumed was his,” he said. “I looked at it in sixth or seventh grade and thought the idea of writing for a living was pretty cool. I ended up being the sports editor for The Wick my senior year.
“A few teachers at Ascension grade school had encouraged me to write, and that made me feel good as a kid,” he added. “Also, I was terrible at math!”
Upon graduating from Northwestern University in 1982, Morrissey started his career with Star Publications (now the Daily Southtown). Next came stops at the Fort Wayne (IN) Journal-Gazette, the Charlotte (NC) Observer, and the Rocky Mountain News of Denver. In 1997, Morrissey returned to the Chicago area, joining the Tribune as a beat reporter for the Chicago Bears. Three years later, he became the lead writer for the Tribune’s daily sports column, “In The Wake of the News.”
In 2009, Morrissey left the Tribune to become a sports columnist for the Sun-Times. Moreover, in 2012, he wrote a book about former White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, named “Ozzie’s School of Management.”
Morrissey, now residing in Riverside, said he will miss the people he met and worked with over the years as well as the press-box camaraderie. He said his favorite highlight is covering the 2016 Cubs’ World Series championship “because no Chicago journalists in the previous 108 years had been able to say they did it.”
The fact that he wrote for both of his hometown newspapers is something that he is grateful for.
“If you had told me when I was 21 that I would have this career, I would have never believed it,” Morrissey said.
As for his future, Morrissey said he’s not sure what comes next.
“I really don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said. “I do love to write, so hopefully I’ll find an outlet. I just don’t know what that is yet.”