Ryan Gorcey: Connecting People Through Storytelling
Sports Journalist
"I tell the stories of the names on the backs of the jerseys, so the name on the front meant more."
Inspired by a childhood spent reading Jim Murray and Rick Reilly, Ryan has spent more than a decade as a sportswriter, specializing in crafting compelling human interest features that connect reader and subject, whether that subject is a recreational record-setter or a Hall of Famer.
Ryan spent nearly four years as the publisher of BearTerritory.net, developing, growing and expanding the site for Rival.com, part of Yahoo! Sports. Going beyond the everyday beat coverage responsibilities for college basketball, college football and recruiting, he added coverage of college baseball, established the site's social media presence, wrote in-depth enterprise features, produced video features and started the Bear Republic Podcast, making BearTerritory a must-read for fans of the University of California Golden Bears.
Recruited by Scout.com to bring BearTerritory to a new network under the auspices of FOX Sports, Ryan continued to innovate, adding freelancers, expanding video coverage to include live reporting and utilizing new digital content management tools to grow a new site from the ground up, while adding national writer responsibilities covering Major League Baseball. In April of 2018, he was hired by the San Francisco Examiner to become its sports editor. There, he supervised and recruited a stable of over 10 freelancers while working closely with an editorial and design staff to own coverage of prep and small college sports while also providing award-winning coverage of the City's major sports franchises.
2020 First-Place Sports Feature, San Francisco Press Club
2019 Finalist, California News Publishers Association: Sports Feature
Published August 14, 2019
For much of his life, Mission baseball star C.J. Pino has been bullied for the way he speaks. When he was born weighing just one pound, two ounces, Pino was given just a 30% chance of survival. When he’s on a baseball field, though, his speech impediment disappears, and he turns into one of the most dominant San Francisco prep baseball players in recent memory.
Published July 3, 2019
A three-star prospect committed to play wide receiver for North Carolina, Ky Bowman gambled on himself after a jailhouse heart-to-heart with his imprisoned older brother. After a standout three-year career at Boston College, Ky went undrafted, but managed to make enough waves to sign a contract with the Golden State Warriors.
2018 First-Place Sports Column, San Francisco Press Club
Published August 12, 2018
During his 16-minute, 45-second address to fans on Saturday, Barry Bonds paused for 24 seconds. The hardest part of his speech, on the occasion of his number retirement, wasn’t thanking his mother for driving him to baseball practice, or the fact that it took 11 years after his final inning at AT&T Park to see his number placed alongside his godfather Willie Mays’s No. 24. It was the fact that his father, Bobby, wasn’t there.
Published January 27, 2020
Giants manager Gabe Kapler, late of the Philadelphia Phillies, comes to San Francisco seeking the redemption he found at Moorpark College after blowing a scholarship at Cal-State Fullerton.
Shortly after the controversial Kapler was announced as the new manager of the San Francisco Giants, I drove down to Los Angeles and Ventura County to report this story during Thanksgiving, 2019. After being laid off by the San Francisco Examiner due to budget cuts, I continued to report the story, and, even though the Giants did not make Kapler available for an interview, I completed this in-depth profile for the Bay Area News Group.
Published May 3, 2020
Six thousand miles removed from his family and home in Senegal, Cal State Northridge's Lamine Diane strives to make the leap to the NBA from a team that hasn't made the NCAA Tournament since 2009.
2019 First-Place Sports Feature, San Francisco Press Club
Published December 8, 2018
He dances and laughs his way through warm-ups. He’ll shake hands with opposing fans as they leave the arena and thank them for coming. After spending the first nine years of his life abroad, then attending 10 different schools back in the United States, Charles Minlend, exceedingly bright and yet, long painfully introverted, has finally found a home in San Francisco.
2020 Second-Place Sports Feature, San Francisco Press Club
Published November 4, 2019
Charles Minlend couldn’t even hit a layup.
Finally back on the court after missing a year with a torn shoulder labrum, the dynamic University of San Francisco guard had tweaked his knee during an open run. When he returned to the gym a week later, he couldn’t even get through warmups. He limped out of War Memorial Gym, headed to a bathroom in the lobby and sank to the tile floor, weeping. “I just broke down,” Minlend said.
Todd Golden, then the Dons’ top assistant, soon came in. Through tears, Minlend told him that basketball was his everything; he couldn’t bear losing it again. Golden lifted Minlend to his feet. “Regardless of what happens,” Golden said, “I’m here for you.”
2018 Third-Place Sports Feature, San Francisco Press Club
Published September 27, 2017
During the upheaval surrounding San Francisco 49ers' quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the National Anthem in 2017, Bay Area-born and Cal-educated Mark Canha—a red-headed Caucasian outfielder from a largely-white suburb of San Jose— stood in solidarity with his mixed-race Oakland A's teammate Bruce Maxwell to protest systemic racism.
Published Sept. 8, 2018
A year after witnessing his grandfather’s fatal heart attack, 12-year old Ronald Blair and his mother were staying with his widowed grandmother, Annie Peek, who was suffering from colon cancer.
As her illness progressed, Blair would dutifully bring Peek a plastic monkey doll, to make her feel peaceful. As Blair tended to Peek, one day, she gestured towards it. She wasn’t speaking much at that point in her illness, but when she pointed at the doll, Blair brought it over. He then left the room for a moment, and by the time he got back, she, too, was gone.
Peek used to tell her grandson, “Even if somebody tells you something 100 times, keep listening, because that 101st time that you heard it, it might be something different than you heard the first time.”
Published November 2, 2018
As San Francisco 49ers quarterback Nick Mullens walked up the tunnel and into the locker room on Thursday night, he wept.
After going undrafted in 2017, the 49ers signed Mullens to their practice squad, where he spent all of last season. After starting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo went down in Week 3 of this year with a torn ACL, Mullens was promoted to the active roster, but until Thursday, he hadn’t seen so much as a snap. Then, C.J. Beathard injured his throwing hand on Sunday.
In his first NFL start, in his first NFL game, in a primetime matchup against the Oakland Raiders in the final Battle of the Bay, Mullens — the undrafted free-agent signee without a Wikipedia page, who lacked even a verified Twitter account — completed 16-of-22 passes for 262 yards and three touchdowns, didn’t turn the ball over and beat the Las Vegas-bound Raiders in resounding fashion, 34-3.
Published August 27, 2021
After COVID-19 forced the tournament’s cancellation in 2020, Torrance’s run through the bracket has represented a return to normalcy for youngsters who have endured 18 months of lockdowns, distance learning and mask mandates. For the first time since 1975, though, no international teams are participating, and for the first time ever, the public is not allowed to attend. It is a starkly different experience than the previous four times a Los Angeles County team has claimed the tournament crown.
Given just 48 hours notice and zero sourcing to work with, I tracked down players and coaches from previous L.A.-area Little League World Series championship teams for a quick-turnaround feature for the Southern California News Group.
Published September 16, 2018
It’s quite a thing to contemplate one’s own mortality at the age of 11. Swimming in the San Francisco Bay on May 17, 2014, with Alcatraz behind her and her and her club swim coach ahead of her, Angel More thought: “Oh, I could die.”
