Bill Shanks is an American sports broadcaster and writer.

Personal life

Shanks lives in Macon, Georgia. Shanks, originally from

Waycross, Georgia Waycross is the county seat of, and only incorporated city in, Ware County in the U.S. state of Georgia. The population was 14,725 at the 2010 Census and dropped to 13,942 in the 2020 census. Waycross includes two historic districts (Downtown ...

, is a graduate of the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

. Shanks was a television sports anchor at WBSG in Brunswick, Georgia and

WGXA WGXA (channel 24) is a television station in Macon, Georgia, United States, affiliated with Fox and ABC. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station maintains studios on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard ( GA 11/ GA 22/ GA 49/US 80/ US 129) i ...

in Macon, Georgia. Shanks also had a sports production company and produced and hosted weekly television shows with the

Atlanta Braves The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East division. The Braves were founded in Bos ...

, the

Atlanta Hawks The Atlanta Hawks are an American professional basketball team based in Atlanta. The Hawks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The team plays its home games at ...

, and the

Atlantic Sun Conference The ASUN Conference, formerly the Atlantic Sun Conference, is a collegiate athletic conference operating mostly in the Southeastern United States. The league participates at the NCAA Division I level, and began sponsoring football at the Div ...

Professional background

Broadcasting

Bill Shanks hosts "The Bill Shanks Show" on WXKO Middle Georgia's ESPN in Macon. Shanks is also a columnist for The Athens Banner-Herald and hosts a weekly high school football show called The End Zone on

WMGT-TV WMGT-TV (channel 41) is a television station in Macon, Georgia, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is the flagship television property of Savannah-based Morris Multimedia. WMGT-TV's studios are located on Poplar Street in downtown Macon, an ...

41 NBC. Shanks has covered the

for Fox Sports South.com and Scout.com. In 2006 Shanks was one of the co-hosts of the Braves Wrap-Up Show on the Atlanta Braves Radio Network. Shanks' show covers topics like the

and Head Coach

Mark Richt Mark Allan Richt (born February 18, 1960) is a retired American football head coach, former player, and television analyst. He was the head football coach at the University of Georgia for 15 years and at the University of Miami, his alma mater, ...

, who "lost him" in 2008. Shanks started his daily radio show in March 2007 on WIFN 105.5 The Fan in Macon. The show was canceled on February 9, 2009. Six weeks later, on March 23, 2009, Shanks' show was back on the air on the Clear Channel (now iHeartRadio) affiliate. After 7 years at iHeartRadio, he moved his show to his own station which is affiliated with ESPN Radio starting on June 1, 2016. Shanks has provided Braves' reports on radio stations in

Athens, Georgia Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital. The University of Georgia, the sta ...

on WRFC, in Spartanburg, SC on WSPG and in Florence, AL on WYTK.

Writing

Shanks wrote a book called ''Scout's Honor: The Bravest Way to Build a Winning Team''. He interviewed people for nine months and afterwards took six months to write the book. It is both Shanks' answer to Moneyball and the story of how the Braves became the successful organization that they are today. It tells how

John Schuerholz John Boland Schuerholz Jr. (; born October 1, 1940) is an American baseball front office executive. He was the general manager of Major League Baseball's Atlanta Braves from 1990 to 2007, and then served as the Braves president for a decade from 2 ...

rose through the ranks and tells the tales of individual Braves prospects, from

Jeff Francoeur Jeffrey Braden Francoeur (; born January 8, 1984), nicknamed "Frenchy", is an American former professional baseball right fielder, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Atlanta Braves, New York Mets, Texas Rangers, Kansas City Royal ...

, Brian McCann,

Adam LaRoche David Adam LaRoche (born November 6, 1979) is an American former professional baseball first baseman who played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). He played for the Atlanta Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates, Boston Red Sox, Arizona Diamondbacks ...

John Smoltz John Andrew Smoltz (born May 15, 1967), nicknamed "Smoltzie" and "Marmaduke", is an American former baseball pitcher who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball from 1988 to 2009, all but the last year with the Atlanta Braves. An eight-time A ...

, and

Adam Wainwright Adam Parrish Wainwright (born August 30, 1981), nicknamed "Waino" and "Uncle Charlie", is an American professional baseball pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball (MLB). The Atlanta Braves selected him 29th overall in th ...

. Some have questioned Shanks' objectivity in regards to John Schuerholz. Baseball writer

Jon Heyman Jon Heyman (born February 7, 1961) is a baseball columnist for the ''New York Post'', a baseball insider for MLB Network and WFAN Radio and co-host with Joel Sherman of the baseball podcast ''The Show''. Heyman has also appeared as a guest on n ...

described Shanks' close relationship with John Schuerholz being "so close to John Schuerholz he’s practically his ghost writer.

David Leonhardt David Leonhardt (born January 1, 1973) is an American journalist and columnist. Since April 30, 2020, he has written the daily "The Morning" newsletter for ''The New York Times''. He also contributes to the paper's Sunday Review section. His colu ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' described Shanks as "openly contemptuous of the Lewis book". John Conniff of

Scout.com Scout Media is an integrated sports publishing company that produces Internet content covering hundreds of professional and college teams across America. The company was founded in 2001 and was acquired by Fox Sports in 2005. In 2013, Fox Sports ...

criticized the book for "fail ngto develop any type of coherent argument, structure, or evidence to support his contention or to more importantly explain the reasons for the Braves success". The '' Sun-Sentinel''s Mike Berardino praised the book for "present nga fascinating and long-overdue look at Atlanta's baseball dynasty".

Controversy

On May 3, 2016 Shanks authored a controversial column in the

Macon Telegraph ''The Telegraph,'' frequently called The Macon Telegraph, is the primary print news organ in Middle Georgia. It is the third-largest newspaper in the State of Georgia (after the ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' and ''Augusta Chronicle''). Founded ...

advocating the return of

Chief Noc-A-Homa Chief Noc-A-Homa was a mascot for the American professional baseball team Atlanta Braves from 1966 to 1985. He was primarily played by Levi Walker, Jr. After being a mascot for the Braves franchise for two decades the Atlanta Braves retired th ...

as the Braves mascot Shanks also called for a return of the teepee in the bleachers. The article immediately received criticism and the Macon Telegraph deleted the article within a few hours. The Telegraph’s sports editor claimed on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

that the piece was pulled because Shanks "had a better idea for a column."

References

External links

Shanks's columns in the Macon Telegraph
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shanks, Bill University of Georgia alumni Sports commentators Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) People from Waycross, Georgia Writers from Macon, Georgia