Tom Heinsohn's book Give 'em the Hook, Heinsohn is negative towards Ryan. Ryan, who began writing for the Globe in Heinsohn's rookie season as a coach, would make friends with the players and vent their feelings towards Heinsohn, their fans, and their teammates, claims Heinsohn. Heinsohn didn't like how he didn't feel in control of his team. Heinsohn believes that Ryan started to "think of himself as another member of the family" and that he even started coaching the team through his beat stories. Heinsohn goes on to talk about Ryan's bloated ego and the fact that he was then thinking of himself as a basketball guru. Heinsohn also says while noting disapproval of Ryan that at the time anyone who lived in Boston and even remotely followed basketball read Ryan's columns. In recent years Ryan has been less critical of Celtics coaches, including Doc Rivers, of whom he said, "I'm a Doc guy." General sports columnist In 1982, Ryan would hand the torch of the Globe Celtics beat to the not-yet well-known Dan Shaughnessy, and later Jackie MacMullan. He did this in order to go to Boston television station WCVB for a couple of years. Ryan ended up hating it and moved back to the Celtics beat in 1984 for two more seasons, before getting promoted to general sports columnist in 1989. Ryan would cover 20 NBA finals, 20 Final Fours, nine World Series, five Super Bowls, the last seven Olympics and many other events. Later, Ryan became less basketball-oriented and more general sports-oriented. He continues to write for Basketball Times. Ryan is a voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Awards National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association National Sportswriter of the Year four times (2000, 2007, 2008, 2009). College Basketball Writers and New England Basketball Halls of Fame. 1996 Curt Gowdy Award from the Basketball Hall of Fame 2000 Associated Press "National Sportswriter of the Year" 2006 Dick Schaap Award for Outstanding Journalism 2015 PEN/ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sports Writing Retirement At 60, Ryan wanted his retirement from the job to be graceful: "I'm not bitter. I enjoy my job and I still think I do it well, but they are chipping away, chipping away and they are making it far less pleasurable. I want to get out when I feel like getting out. If you stay around too long, there is no way you can dictate