John Feinstein (1956-) Biography

Surname pronounced "Fine-steen"; born 1956, in New York, NY; Education: Duke University, B.A., 1977 (one source says 1978). Politics: Democrat. Religion: Jewish.

Addresses

Agent—c/o Esther Newburg, ICM, 40 West 57th St., New York, NY 10019.

Career

Washington Post, Washington, DC, sportswriter, beginning 1977; special contributor to Sports Illustrated. Commentator for National Public Radio and ESPN.

Member

U.S. Basketball Writer's Association, U.S. Tennis Writer's Association (vice president), National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, Newspaper Guild.

Honors Awards

Awards from U.S. Basketball Writer's Association, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985; National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, best sports stories awards, 1982, 1985, 1986, D.C. Writer of the Year award, 1985; best event coverage award, Associated Press Sports Editors, 1985.

Writings

A Season on the Brink: A Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1986.

A Season Inside: One Year in College Basketball, Villard Books (New York, NY), 1988.

Forever's Team, Villard Books (New York, NY), 1990.

Hard Courts: Real Life on the Professional Tennis Tours, Villard Books (New York, NY), 1991.

Running Mates (mystery novel), Villard Books (New York, NY), 1992.

Play Ball: The Life and Troubled Times of Major League Baseball, Villard Books (New York, NY), 1993.

A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1995.

Winter Games (mystery novel), Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1995.

A Civil War, Army vs. Navy: A Year inside College Football's Purest Rivalry, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1996.

(Editor) The Best American Sports Writing 1996, Houghton (Boston, MA), 1997.

A March to Madness: The View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1998, with new afterword, 1999.

The First Coming: Tiger Woods, Master or Martyr?, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1998.

The Majors: In Pursuit of Golf's Holy Grail, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1999.

The Last Amateurs: Playing for Glory and Honor in Division 1 Basketball's Least-known League, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 2000.

The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 2002.

Open: Inside the Ropes at Bethpage Black, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 2003.

Caddy for Life: The Bruce Edwards Story, Little, Brown (New York, NY), 2004.

(With Red Auerbach) Let Me Tell You a Story: A Lifetime in the Game, Little, Brown (New York, NY), 2004.

Last Shot: A Final Four Mystery (young-adult novel), Knopf (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including Sporting News, Basketball Times, Outlook, and Eastern Basketball.

Adaptations

A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour was adapted as an audiobook, Time Warner AudioBooks, 1998. A Season on the Brink was filmed as a made-for-TV movie starring Brian Dennehy, ESPN, 2002. Last Shot was adapted as an audiobook, narrated by the author.

Work in Progress

A sequel to Last Shot.

Sidelights

John Feinstein is an award-winning sportswriter who gained national attention with his 1986 best seller, A Season on the Brink: A Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers. The book recounts Indiana University's 1985-1986 basketball season, from the first organizational meetings to the team's surprising loss to Cleveland State University in the first round of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (N.C.A.A.) basketball tournament. Feinstein wrote the book after enjoying unusually close access to coach Bobby Knight and his team's practices, meetings, and game-time huddles during an entire season. (Many reporters have tried unsuccessfully to get the kind of intimate coverage Feinstein was allowed.) When A Season on the Brink was published, it quickly sold out of its initial printing of seventeen thousand copies and appeared on the New York Times best-seller list, where it was number one for seventeen weeks. Impressive sales of A Season on the Brink reflect the widespread interest in Indiana's legendary basketball coach. Kim Gagne wrote in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution that "Feinstein offers an insider's perspective that brings the reader to an appreciation of both the genius and the madness of the coach."

Feinstein has written two other books on college basketball. A Season Inside: One Year in College Basketball details the 1987-1988 basketball season, during which Feinstein saw 104 games. He recounts the highs and lows of that season and provides an inside look at such prominent university coaches as Dean Smith of North Carolina, John Thompson of Georgetown, and Larry Brown of Kansas, the school that won the 1988 N.C.A.A. championship. According to Washington Post contributor Robert D. Novak, in the book "Feinstein has attempted a tour de force and pretty well pulled it off. He has managed to convey the excitement, intrigue, confrontation, hysteria and sheer intoxication of college basketball." Feinstein's other college basketball book, Forever's Team, is his most personal: it concerns the 1978-1979 basketball team from Duke University, his alma mater.

In Hard Courts: Real Life on the Professional Tennis Tours Feinstein demystifies the glamour surrounding the world of professional tennis. He spent a year on the pro tennis circuit, getting to know the famous and notso-famous players, their families, and their agents. More The moving story of the man who dedicated his career to caddying top golfer Tom Watson until he became stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease is the focus of this 2004 book. than one hundred interviews form the text, which presents professional tennis in a distinctly unflattering light. As Julie Cart wrote in the New York Times, Feinstein shows he has "rare insight into the professional tennis tour. Hard Courts peels back layer after layer of surface gloss and undeniable glamour to expose the machinations of players' agents, the power of television and the wheeling and dealing of unscrupulous promoters. The picture is not pretty." Feinstein takes a similar approach in A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour, spending a year on the PGA tour to learn what life is like for golf insiders. He found golf a stark contrast to many other professional sports; golfers generally really do play by the rules, live quiet lives, and go to bed early. Michael Bamberger state in the New York Times Book Review that Feinstein "has proved himself to be a dependable, thorough and honest reporter." The author revisited the golf world several years later with The Majors: In Pursuit of Golf's Holy Grail.

According to a Kirkus Reviews contributor, Feinstein "revisits an important National Basketball Association incident and ably dramatizes how it changed the participants and the league forever" in The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight that Changed Basketball Forever. Retelling the story of Los Angeles Lakers forward Kermit Washington, who punched and broke the jaw of Houston Rocket All-Star Rudy Tomjanovich during a fight on the basketball court, Feinstein explains how the incident, which left Washington suspended and struggling to regain his reputation and brought Tomjanovich close to death, played out in both players' careers. Neither was able to recapture the promising status of his pre-fight career.

In a completely different sports story, Feinstein retells the life of Bruce Edwards, professional caddy for legendary golfer Tom Watson, in Caddy for Life: The Bruce Edwards Story. Edwards served as a caddy for Watson for over forty years, and his life story reveals aspects of the golf industry known only to insiders. Edwards was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease in 2003, and Feinstein covers the caddy's struggle with the disease. "This book will thoroughly entertain golf fans," promised a critic for Publishers Weekly. Larry R. Little, writing in School Library Journal, commented that readers will appreciate the "unique insight into a caddy's dedicated life on the P. G. A. tour."

In addition to his nonfiction work, Feinstein has also penned two mysteries. Running Mates is a political thriller involving the assassination of Maryland's governor. An investigative reporter looking into the case discovers a surprising alliance between a rightwing extremist and a radical feminist who may have had the governor killed so that his female lieutenant-governor can rise to power. A Publishers Weekly reviewer voiced praise for Running Mates, stating: "A strong, surprising resolution caps this thriller that delivers on its promise despite its protagonist's occasionally larger-than-life heroism and incredible luck."

In Winter Games, Feinstein's second mystery, a burned-out reporter returns to his hometown seeking peace and quiet, but discovers that the place is in an uproar because of a superstar on the high-school basketball team. The recruiting frenzy surrounding the young sports figure leads to the death of an assistant coach. Winter Games is, in the opinion of a Publishers Weekly commentator, a "dark portrayal of murder and rampant corruption on the college courts."

Feinstein combines his love of mystery novels and his expertise in sportswriting in his first novel for teens, Last Shot: A Final Four Mystery. Teen writers Steven Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson, both aspiring journalists, have won an award in a sportswriting competition, and are being allowed to cover the NCAA Final Four game alongside professional journalists. The two begin as rivals, but when they uncover a blackmail plot against one of the players, the pair become a team, working to uncover the mystery and get the scoop, "ultimately weaseling themselves into the bad guys' lair in classic Hardy Boys' fashion," as Bill Ott pointed out in Booklist. "This story … breaks new ground for teens, focusing primarily on the influential role of media in promoting college basketball," noted Gerry Larson, reviewing the book for School Library Journal. According to a Kirkus Reviews critic, "Feinstein uses simple prose, lively dialogue, and authentic details" to bring the Final Four game to life for his readers. A Publishers Weekly critic praised the mystery aspect, noting that "the author's plotting entails some fancy footwork that will keep readers on their toes." With experience as a commentator for National Public Radio, Feinstein performed the audiobook version of Last Shot himself.

On the Random House Canada Web site, an interviewer asked Feinstein why he decided to write teen fiction. "Mostly I was inspired to write this by having a ten-year-old son who is a huge basketball fan," the sportswriter/novelist explained. "It is tough for him to read my 'grown-up' stuff on basketball—though he tried—so I wanted to write something he could read that would give him a sense of the sport and, I hoped, entertain him at the same time."