Bill O'Reilly (political Commentator) - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

O'Reilly was born on September 10, 1949, at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City to parents William James, Sr., (deceased) and Winifred Angela Drake O'Reilly, from Brooklyn and Teaneck, New Jersey respectively. Bill O'Reilly's ancestors on his father's side lived in County Cavan, Ireland, since the early eighteenth century, and those on his mother's side were from Northern Ireland. The O'Reilly family lived in a small apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey, when their son was born. In 1951 his family moved to Levittown, on Long Island. O'Reilly has a sister, Janet.

He attended St. Brigid parochial school in Westbury and Chaminade High School, a private Catholic boys high school in Mineola. His father wanted him to attend Chaminade, but Bill wanted to attend W. Tresper Clarke High School, the public school most of his closest friends would attend. Bill O'Reilly played Little League baseball and was the goalie on the Chaminade varsity hockey team. During his high school years, O'Reilly met future pop-singer icon Billy Joel whom O'Reilly described as a "hoodlum." O'Reilly recollected in an interview with Michael Kay on the YES Network show CenterStage, that Joel "was in the Hicksville section – the same age as me – and he was a hood. He used to slick it back like this. And we knew him, because his guys would smoke and this and that, and we were more jocks."

After graduating from high school in 1967, O'Reilly attended Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, his father's choice. While at Marist, O'Reilly played punter in the National Club Football Association, and was also a writer for the school's newspaper, The Circle. An honors student, he majored in history. He spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London. O'Reilly received his Bachelor of Arts in history in 1971. He played semi-professional baseball during this time, as a pitcher for the New York Monarchs. After graduating from Marist College, O'Reilly moved to Miami, Florida at age 21, where he taught English and history at Monsignor Pace High School from 1970 to 1972. O'Reilly returned to school in 1973 and earned a Master of Arts in broadcast journalism from Boston University. While attending Boston University, he was a reporter and columnist for various local newspapers and alternative news weeklies, including The Boston Phoenix, and did an internship in the newsroom of WBZ-TV. During his time at BU, O'Reilly also was classmates with future radio talk show host Howard Stern whom O'Reilly noticed because Stern was the only student on campus taller than he was. In 1995, having established himself as a national media personality, O'Reilly was accepted to Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government; he received a Master of Public Administration in 1996. At Harvard, he was a student of Marvin Kalb.