Reilly turns tables on Coeur d'Alene book thief

Without a heckle, flung fruit or vocal dissenter in attendance, Rick Reilly regaled a spilled-over Coeur d’Alene crowd Thursday, turning the crosshairs of a local trickster into an opportunity to shed a light on a local case of censorship, tell his personal stories of a cheating president and promote his newest book, all in one night.

“I come to Coeur d’Alene every year,” the Hall of Fame sportswriter told the laughing crowd. “I love this state, and then I come here and this place is packed, and then they said, ‘You better be careful,’ and so now we got cops.”

Coeur d’Alene Police were on hand as Reilly’s book, “Commander In Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump,” became the target of an anonymous conservative prankster who has been intentionally misplacing books around the public library. While this unknown literary assailant has been moving books critical of President Donald Trump for more than a year, a recent update blossomed into an international story, casting the one-time essayist for Sports Illustrated into an unusual limelight.

“I’m a sportswriter,” he told the crowd, “and I think tonight I’m the first sportswriter to have a police escort. Now, that’s not to say I haven’t been escorted by police. That’s different.”

Reilly — himself a famous golfing enthusiast who has played with and against presidents, celebrities and the very pinnacle of PGA winners over the years — said he had no intention of writing a book about Trump, but that the book ended up writing itself.

“This book was nothing I ever wanted to write,” he explained. “I was sitting in Italy, retired happily from sportswriting and writing movies, living there four months a year. And I was just trying to set the world pasta-slurping record, and I read on my phone Donald Trump telling people in 2016 that he is a great golfer, and he’s won 18 club championships ‘against the best golfers in the club — no strokes given — and that’s why you should vote for me; because I’m a winner.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, except you already told me how you win all those club championships,’ and he clearly forgot, because I’ve known the guy for 35 years.”

Reilly then went on to claim Trump once confided in the sportswriting icon that the now-president was the first to play a new Trump course, claiming uncontested victories before anyone — let alone the club professionals — had a chance to play.

“… he bullies magazines in order to get his courses ranked higher,” Reilly said, “and threatens to pull his ads if they don’t rank his courses higher … He’s got decent courses, but they’ve all got gold toilets and hundred-foot waterfalls.”

By the time the doors opened for the crowd to enter at 6 p.m. for the community room event, a line had already formed downstairs to the staircase. Library staff had prepared an overflow room, which they ended up using once the community room filled.

Trevor Griffitts was the first in line, waiting to walk through the doors.

“I think it’s great he took the time to come up here,” Griffitts said. “It’s a great chance to get a bit of humor and insight into the president.”

For Lisa Nunlist, fourth in line, she wanted to let Reilly and the world know Coeur d’Alene would not stand idly by for censorship.

“I want our country to know Coeur d’Alene is not that,” she said. “I want the country to know Coeur d’Alene is not that which hides books and censors ideas.”

The crowd of roughly 300 — some traveling from as far as Missoula, Boise and Penticton to listen to Reilly — got a bonus opening act, as library director Bette Ammon spent the first five minutes of the event playing Abbott to Reilly’s Costello.

“Were you surprised I wrote about you in the Washington Post?” Reilly asked the longtime librarian.

“I’m surprised your publicist called me,” she answered wryly. “I didn’t know who the hell you were.”

The evening of laughter was crammed with tales and parables of Trump’s golf game, blending the outrageous with the topical, covering every shocking topic from an attempt to cheat Tiger Woods to the president’s golf connections to the Ukraine.

“Why does it all matter?” he finally asked the crowd. “I’ve always said, ‘Golf is like bicycle shorts: It reveals a lot about a man.’ And if you cheat at the easiest game in the world to cheat at, that says a lot about your soul.”