My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana is on Rick Reilly, one helluva writer.

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Last week, Rick Reilly announced that he is giving up his ESPN.com column at the end of June. He is going to be exclusively a TV guy now, filing reports for the network’s coverage of Monday Night Football and SportsCenter.

It truly is the end of an era if he is indeed closing out his writing career. Let’s just look at what is on the back of his so-called baseball card.

–11-time National Sportswriter of the Year.

–2009 Damon Runyon Award for Outstanding Contributions to Journalism. Previous winners have included Jimmy Breslin, Tim Russert, Bob Costas, Mike Royko, George Will, Ted Turner and Tom Brokaw, among others. Not bad company there.

–23-year career at Sports Illustrated, including 10 years as the back-page columnist.

–Author of 10 books, several of which were bestsellers.

–And coming this June, Reilly will be inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame. That begs the question: What took so long?

Reilly easily is the most read sportswriter of his generation, given his platforms at Sports Illustrated and ESPN. Is he best? He definitely is in the team picture.

Often, Reilly’s is so good, it almost is painful for sportswriters like me to read him. Even on my best day, I’ll never get within 10 shots of Reilly on the leaderboard.

Reilly plays to another level with his one-liners. He has the rare ability to turn phrases that only could come from his imagination.

On golf, he once wrote: “Golf is the cruelest game, because eventually it will drag you out in front of the school take your lunch money and slap you around.”

Reilly describing Tom Brady: “Six-four with a chin you can crack coconuts on. Eyes greener than the 13th at Augusta. And one of those oh-darn-I-forgot-to-shave-and-now-I-look-like-a-cologne-ad beards. But it’s not his heroic arm or his lifeguard body or his Crest smile that makes women smooth their skirts and men curse their parents. It’s that he seems to see himself as a tall Milhouse.”

I mean, I won’t even try to come up with a one-liner for those. I’d just look silly.

Yet Reilly’s columns always have been about more than just one-liners. He also tells stories about the human condition in sports, pieces that invoke deep emotion. He did it again a couple weeks ago with a column on Jim Kelly, who is battling cancer.

Reilly writes: “Next time you’re running about two quarts low on hope, or feel like you’re on the wrong end of God’s Whac-A-Mole game, think of Jim Kelly and be glad you’re not him.

“Jim Kelly is sport’s Job. If it’s raining anywhere, it’s raining on Jim Kelly. He’s as unlucky as a one-legged dog.”

Reilly, though, goes on to write that Kelly somehow is trying to maintain a positive attitude despite all the obstacles he has endured in his life. It is a moving piece. These are the kind of columns that you have come to expect, and will miss, from Reilly.

I know there are people who will disagree with my assessment here. If anything, Reilly became a victim of his own success. His big name made him a target for bloggers. They quickly learned that tearing him down equated to major page views. Suddenly, it became open season on Reilly.

It has felt like death by a thousand paper cuts to Reilly. Surely, it has been painful for him. If his critics contributed to him giving up his column, well, that’s just sad.

I have been careful to write in the present tense here. It’s not as if Reilly died or is retiring. He’s still going to be writing for TV. Now instead of reading his words, you will be listening to them.

Yet it won’t be the same. People in the sportswriting fraternity, either long-time colleagues or those who grew up reading him, know his impact. It is profound.

When Reilly made his announcement, award-winning Yahoo! Sports columnist Pat Forde said in a tweet: “My first sports writing role model. Still have the handwritten note he sent me in college critiquing my stuff.”

Reilly’s hero, Jim Murray, once said, “Writing a column is like riding a tiger. You don’t want to stay on, but you don’t want to get off either.”

Reilly has decided to get off the tiger now. On his behalf of all his readers, thanks for taking us on one helluva ride.