Rick Reilly - Tiger, Meet My Sister...: And Other Things I Probably Shouldnt Have Said

Now that Im dead, Id like to discuss my funeral.

First off, I want chili cheeseburgers. And Guinness. And the Miami Dolphins cheerleaders.

I want the Cure playing, live. I hid some money under the rock out back. Should cover it. If theres any left, get the Phoenix Gorilla, too.

Ill need a mix of crying and laughing, 25 percent/70 percent, if we could. The other 5 percent is going to be those who will be there howling happily to see that Ive boxed. That will be Bryant Gumbel, Steve Garvey, and Sammy Sosa, people like that. Let them holler lousy things out about me now and then. I dont mind. I was hard on them.

A lot of my final rankings will be hanging on big posters on the walls of whatever hall you rent. (The back room at an Olive Garden ought to do it.) They are as follows:

NICEST PEOPLE:

1. Steph Curry
2. Jim Nantz
3. That bald guy with the mushroom-cloud ear hair who always comes up to me and tells me how much he loved my last column even though Mitch Albom usually wrote it

BIGGEST JERKS:

1. Barry Bonds
2. Barry Bonds
3. Robert (Arliss) Wuhl
4. Barry Bonds
5. Jay Cutler

MOST FUN:

1. Charles Barkley
2. George Clooney
3. David Feherty

GREATEST WITNESSED THRILLS:

1. Nicklaus wins the 1986 Masters
2. North Carolina State wins the 1983 NCAA March Madness
3. My first SI Swimsuit shoot. Oh. My. God.

LARGEST REGRETS:

1. Believed Lance Armstrong
2. Didnt believe Jose Canseco
3. Sold all my Apple at 125

DUMBEST QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASKED ME:

1. Where do they store the hockey ice at the arena when they switch over to basketball? (A: They cut it up in little squares and the players take it home and keep it in their freezers.)
2. Why has Greg Norman never been selected to play in the Ryder Cup? (A: Because Norman has a deal with U-Haul.)
3. When was the last repeat winner of the Kentucky Derby? (A: Sigh.)

PEOPLE I WAS SURE WOULD BE DEAD BEFORE ME:

1. Mike Tyson
2. Dennis Rodman
3. John Daly

BEST INSULT:

1. Thanks for sending me your book. Ill waste no time reading it. (From a reviewer.)

PRESIDENTS MET:

1. Ford (stepped on my foot)
2. Carter (wouldnt let go of my wife)
3. Bush 41 (very fast, very bad golfer)
4. Clinton (smart)
5. Obama (fantasy football partner)

ANNOYANCES:

1. The readjust, re-Velcro, triple loogie done between pitches every freaking time
2. The stupid rule that wont let you pull it out of a divot
3. Guns

THINGS ILL MISS:

1. Wife and kids and buddies
2. Third-and-8 and Peyton Manning deciding who hes going to burn
3. Piano bars

THINGS I WONT:

1. Can you take a look at my nephews book? Its a true story!
2. Wide receivers who pump their chest and point to the name on their back after a six-yard gain.
3. The 43 million waiters and waitresses in this country who set the plate down and say, Enjoy. Hey, lady, its a cheesesteak. Where do you think Im putting it?

WHAT I LEARNED:

1. The faster a sprinter is, the slower he walks
2. There is no point talking to a 5-iron
3. The Kenyan with the most impossible name to pronounce will win the race
4. All other Kenyans will finish 2-through-10
5. Media company lawyers do not get paid to get your joke. They get paid to kill it
6. Even if there are 1,000 people in front of you enjoying your after-dinner speech, you will focus on the lady whos asleep
7. The guy you need the most to finish your story will be last out of the shower
8. Every hate e-mail starts with Ive enjoyed everything youve written, until _____, and ends with hope you die in a fiery ____ accident
9. Ninety-seven percent of athletes are lovely people and really boring columns
10. If youre not adding some tiny good to the world, then youre wasting everybodys time

Up on stage, there will be a bottle of Macallan scotch from every year Ive been alive. Each person will come up to the stage and take a shot from the year they met me, then smash the glass. If you dont drink, we probably never met.

For flowers, Id like the purple kind. Theyre pretty.

MC Vin Scully (hell outlive us all) will get up and opencoldwith Sentences That Have Never Been Uttered in the History of the English Language. I have a whole collection Ive been saving and theyll be perfect coming out of Vins velvet voice box. A few sentences nobodys ever uttered:

• Tiger, meet my sister.
• Shaq, you shoot the technical.
• Tebow says go screw yourself.

Then Vin is going to open it up for speeches.

But be warned: Rip me, roast me, rave about me, but dont be boring. Im going to have Nate (No Neck) Syzmanski standing there. If youre dull, hell disconnect the mike and encourage you off the stage.

If Charles Barkley shows, Id like him to get up and tell about the time we were driving along and the steering wheel came off in his hands. Or the time we were walking along in Barcelona in 1992 and looked back to see 200 people following us.

Id like John Elway to tell about the time we were playing golf and he tripped on a tee marker at the top of a steep par 3 and tumbled 30 feet cleat-over-baseball-cap. One of the best up and downs of his life.

And itd be great if one of my buddies got up and read some of the dumb quotes Ive had to stand there and write in my notepad. Do you know how hard it is to write about people who make their livings with their bodies, not their brains? For instance: