Speaker 1: This podcast is part of the seventy Sixers podcast network
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Speaker 1: this week's edition of Tom's Talks, we hear from author
Speaker 1: John Feinstein, a well respected writer for years with The
Speaker 1: Washington Post. Finestein came to national prominence in the mid
Speaker 1: eighties with his New York Times bestseller A Season on
Speaker 1: the Brink. During the early weeks of the NBA hiatus,
Speaker 1: I found myself reading one of John's books about college
Speaker 1: basketball in the Patriot League, The Last Amateurs, and that
Speaker 1: was from twenty years ago. In addition, John has been
Speaker 1: put in out daily anecdotes from his long career on
Speaker 1: social media. That's what prompted me to reach out to John.
Speaker 1: Here's our conversation. Welcome to another edition of Tom's Talks
Speaker 1: and a great treat. Today we're joined by the author
Speaker 1: John Feinstein, authored thirty five books, longtime columnists in Washington
Speaker 1: with The Post and John a great treat. How are
Speaker 1: you doing during this most unusual time? Well, Tom, first
Speaker 1: of all, thanks for having me. Overall, we're doing very well.
Speaker 1: Although it's raining here and looks like it's going to
Speaker 1: rain all day, which my nine year old daughter will
Speaker 1: be very unhappy about. But I have a new young
Speaker 1: adult mystery coming out in What's Today The Two Weeks.
Speaker 1: I started writing them about fifteen years ago. They're all
Speaker 1: in sports settings. Obviously, interestingly, most of them are set
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia and involved kids from Philadelphia. And the reason
Speaker 1: for that is Philly's my favorite sports town. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that because I'm on with you. I've written
Speaker 1: that for years. I love the Pileester more than any
Speaker 1: arena in college basketball. I love the fact that Washington fans,
Speaker 1: who are the greatest front runners in history, look down
Speaker 1: at Philly fans, who are actually sports fans. They support
Speaker 1: their teams win or lose. So this book is set
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. It's called Game Changers. It involves a couple
Speaker 1: of sixth graders, both playing basketball, one on the boys
Speaker 1: team at school, one on the girls team, and they're
Speaker 1: good friends. They run into different issues. It's the second
Speaker 1: in the series. The first one was a soccer setting
Speaker 1: and the girl was being denied the chance to play
Speaker 1: on the boys team, which still does happen in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty on occasion, as we know. And nonfiction, I'm working
Speaker 1: on a book about race in Sports, which I actually
Speaker 1: started about eight months ago, right at the start of
Speaker 1: this year. I've always thought that race is the elephant
Speaker 1: in the room in sports and in our society, and
Speaker 1: we've certainly seen that since May twenty fifth. I had
Speaker 1: no idea that tragedy was going to occur when I
Speaker 1: started the book, but the pandemic has sort of set
Speaker 1: my recording back a little bit. But I've been able to,
Speaker 1: you know, do zoom interviews with people in phone interviews,
Speaker 1: and I hope to get back out sometime in the
Speaker 1: not too distant future to continue the reporting because I
Speaker 1: think for me it's a very important book. Absolutely, I
Speaker 1: want to get back into the children's books at a moment.
Speaker 1: But let's pick up on that, and I guess the
Speaker 1: line would be, what's a takeaway? But in the fact
Speaker 1: that you're still writing the book on race and sports's
Speaker 1: what's a theme? Like? What spurred that idea for you?
Speaker 1: And what should we know as we get ready for
Speaker 1: this book to be published down the road. Well, that's
Speaker 1: a good question. What what spurred me really was being
Speaker 1: around sports and race since the seventh grade, when I
Speaker 1: was the only white guy on an all black back
Speaker 1: then we said black junior high school basketball team. And
Speaker 1: I learned then from my teammates how different their lives
Speaker 1: were from mine, because I wasn't walking in their shoes.
Speaker 1: And I've sort of tracked that throughout my reporting career,
Speaker 1: but a couple of things really spurred it. You might
Speaker 1: remember when Donovan McNabb came here to Washington, there was
Speaker 1: an incident where Mike Shanahan yanked him late from a
Speaker 1: game in Detroit midway through that season. He'd taken every
Speaker 1: snap and Rex Grossman came in fumbled on the first
Speaker 1: play and that Donoican Sue picked the ball up, ran
Speaker 1: into the end zone. Game over. But Shanahan, rather than saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I had a gut feeling about Rex or
Speaker 1: Donovan wasn't playing very well, which he wasn't that day,
Speaker 1: came out with this weird thing about, well, I didn't
Speaker 1: know if Donovan was in good enough shape to run
Speaker 1: back to back plays. It's an eleven year NFL veteran.
Speaker 1: Then the next day he said, well, I didn't know
Speaker 1: if Donovan knew our two minute drill well enough. And
Speaker 1: then the following week there was an anonymous story one
Speaker 1: of those infamous anonymous Stories of Today's World on the
Speaker 1: ESPN that Mike and Kyle Shanahan had to cut their
Speaker 1: playbook in half for Donovan when he got there guy
Speaker 1: quarterback the team into the Super Bowl. I don't think
Speaker 1: I had that wrong. And I went on television the
Speaker 1: next day and I attacked the Shanahans and I said
Speaker 1: that this was racial coding. That's what the words I used.
Speaker 1: And we're going back to the sixties and seventies, when
Speaker 1: the stereotype was that Blacks weren't smart enough to play quarterback,
Speaker 1: weren't the leaders to play quarterback, weren't in shape a
Speaker 1: lot of the time. I mean it was so anyway,
Speaker 1: long story short, I was attacked in the local media
Speaker 1: and by some of the national media, and it stuck
Speaker 1: with me that here we are in twenty ten at
Speaker 1: the time, and people are still trying to stereotype African
Speaker 1: American quarterbacks. You remember the Rush Limbaugh incident back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and three right there in Philly, And so
Speaker 1: that stuck with me. And then when I was I
Speaker 1: did a book on playing quarterback in the NFL three
Speaker 1: years ago, and one of the guys I worked with
Speaker 1: was Doug Williams, who, as you know, was the first
Speaker 1: African American to win a Super Bowl as a quarterback.
Speaker 1: And when the draft happened that year, a couple of
Speaker 1: days later, I said to Doug, if the Shaun Watson
Speaker 1: and Patrick Mahomes were white, where would they have gone
Speaker 1: in the draft. Doug is one of the bright guys
Speaker 1: I've ever met in sports. People miss it sometimes because
Speaker 1: it's got a big Southern accent and we stereotype that too.
Speaker 1: And he looked at me and he said, before Trubisky.
Speaker 1: And I said, Trubisky went second, and he said exactly.
Speaker 1: And then, of course, the next year was the whole
Speaker 1: Lamar Jackson fin where all the experts wanted to move
Speaker 1: him to wide receiver or running back, and we know
Speaker 1: how that worked out. Four white guys drafted in the
Speaker 1: top ten that year. Lamar didn't go to the last
Speaker 1: pick of the first round. And what it took an
Speaker 1: African American general manager, as he knew, some him to
Speaker 1: take him. So all of that stuck in my head.
Speaker 1: I've known John Thompson, the great Georgetown coach, for years.
Speaker 1: We've discussed this issue, and I always wanted to do
Speaker 1: the book, and I finally found a publisher. Five publishers
Speaker 1: turned down this idea, which I take as a good
Speaker 1: sign because five publishers turned down Season on the Brink.
Speaker 1: So I finally found a publisher willing to pay me
Speaker 1: to do the book, and I've been working on it
Speaker 1: ever since. Now. I don't know. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: a little bit about the book industry. My late departed
Speaker 1: brother was an editor in New York for a number
Speaker 1: of houses. But John Feinstein doesn't have the same publisher
Speaker 1: for each and every one of his books. Well, no,
Speaker 1: although I have had publishers long term. My first book
Speaker 1: was published by McMillan. My advanced Season on the Brink
Speaker 1: was seventeen thousand, five hundred dollars. After the success of
Speaker 1: Season on the Brink, there was, I'm happy to say,
Speaker 1: a bidding war for my second book, and as it
Speaker 1: turned out, Random House came in with the highest bid.
Speaker 1: I knew the editor who was bidding on the book,
Speaker 1: so I was happy to go there. I stayed there
Speaker 1: for a while. There was a change at the top
Speaker 1: of Random House, so I moved a little Brown, stayed
Speaker 1: a little Brown for I don't know fifteen books, and
Speaker 1: then ended up at Double Day for a while, and
Speaker 1: now I'm back with Little Brown, with the guy who
Speaker 1: was my editor for years and years there. So it
Speaker 1: actually worked out very well. But writers do move around because,
Speaker 1: especially nowadays, because publishers are just scared to death to
Speaker 1: spend money on anything that isn't Danielle Steele or John Grisham,
Speaker 1: and even Daniel Steele and John Grisham are making less
Speaker 1: in this climate. But it's not as if I can't
Speaker 1: get a contract. It's just that in the old days,
Speaker 1: for example, I'll stop in a minute. But when I
Speaker 1: wanted to do Civil War, which was my book on
Speaker 1: the Army Navy rivalry, my editor was very skeptical. My
Speaker 1: agent was very skeptical. There was no one famous in
Speaker 1: the book. Army and Navy don't compete for national championships anymore.
Speaker 1: And I just said, look, I want to do it,
Speaker 1: and they said, look, we trust you. Go ahead and
Speaker 1: do it. Nowadays, no matter what the book is, the
Speaker 1: editor has to go to the sales staff and get
Speaker 1: the sales staffs approval. And the sales staff always said,
Speaker 1: once comps comparable books, so they can look it up
Speaker 1: and see how they sold. Well. What I always say
Speaker 1: is a Salespeople don't know what makes a good story
Speaker 1: number one and number two. If they've been looking for
Speaker 1: comps for Season on the Brink or a good walk spoiled,
Speaker 1: those books never would have been published. That's right. But
Speaker 1: that's what it's like today. Well, I'll say this on
Speaker 1: behalf of so many of us, that your brand is
Speaker 1: like a good wine, no matter what the vintage. You
Speaker 1: pull it off the shelf and you know you're going
Speaker 1: to get a good read. You're so good at telling
Speaker 1: stories like that Army Navy book that you spoke of.
Speaker 1: You know you're able to spend time with these young people,
Speaker 1: and you know, part of the reason we're visiting is
Speaker 1: this summer I was reading The Last Amateurs and that
Speaker 1: stories from twenty years ago about the Patriot, and clearly
Speaker 1: as a basketball book, so I'm interested, but I'm reading
Speaker 1: about kids that went to Bucknell, and whether I pick
Speaker 1: it up four days later or whatever, it's still interesting.
Speaker 1: So I mean that in the most complimentary ways, and
Speaker 1: you're able to visit that you're telling human stories and that,
Speaker 1: in part is what makes it compelling. Well, Tom, I
Speaker 1: appreciate that. And The Last Amateurs is another book that
Speaker 1: my editor and my agent didn't want me to do
Speaker 1: and it ended up on the best seller list, and
Speaker 1: as you said, I think it still holds up pretty
Speaker 1: well today, and it was great fun to do, to
Speaker 1: say the least. I mean a lot of times, this
Speaker 1: book that I'm working on, the Black Athletes in Sports book,
Speaker 1: isn't for fun. It's because I think it's important. But
Speaker 1: sometimes I do a book because I think it'll be fun.
Speaker 1: My last nonfiction book, The Back Roads to March, was
Speaker 1: basically me going to all every mid major I could
Speaker 1: think of and picking my spots and writing about kids
Speaker 1: who play for the love of the game. Cliche though
Speaker 1: it might be, and that was pure joy that that
Speaker 1: book was just pure joy from start to finish. I
Speaker 1: loved every second of it. Other books are are more work,
Speaker 1: but I always try to think is this a story?
Speaker 1: Because you're right, I think of myself as a storyteller.
Speaker 1: And I was talking to some people recently and they
Speaker 1: were talking about how to promote something I've been working on,
Speaker 1: and well, should we focus on basketball or should we
Speaker 1: focus on golf? And I should you don't focus on
Speaker 1: a sport because what I do is I try to
Speaker 1: tell stories about people who happen to be in sports,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't matter whether they're basketball players or coaches, golfers,
Speaker 1: tennis players, baseball players, football players. I've written about all
Speaker 1: of them at some point, and my approach always I
Speaker 1: learned this from Bob Woodward when I worked for him
Speaker 1: on the metro staff at the Washington Post. He once
Speaker 1: sent me that I was a night police reporter and
Speaker 1: I wrote a three paragraph story one night about a
Speaker 1: car crash in northeast Washington, and I came in the
Speaker 1: next morning. Nobody died. That's why it was only three paragraphs. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that's the way news is. But I came in the
Speaker 1: next morning and he said to me there might be
Speaker 1: a really good story there. And I said, what do
Speaker 1: you mean. He said, why don't you go to the
Speaker 1: hospital talk to the three people in the accident and
Speaker 1: find out exactly what was going on in their lives
Speaker 1: at three o'clock this morning. So I did. In those days,
Speaker 1: you could just walk into a hospital and say I'm
Speaker 1: looking for John Feinstein and they'd say he's in room
Speaker 1: six ten. And I did, and as it turned out,
Speaker 1: the couple that had been hit when the other car
Speaker 1: crossed the median they were holding hands in praying because
Speaker 1: they just found out a few hours earlier that she
Speaker 1: was pregnant with their first child. He worked a night shift,
Speaker 1: and they were driving to Baltimore to let their parents
Speaker 1: know that they were going to be grandparents. And the
Speaker 1: guy who hit them was a Howard University law student
Speaker 1: who had been pulling an all nighter to study for
Speaker 1: an exam and was driving home to take a shower
Speaker 1: and get a couple hours sleep before the test at
Speaker 1: eight am, and fell asleep at the wheel. Story ended
Speaker 1: up on page one, And what Bob said to me
Speaker 1: after that was, you don't have to be rich and famous,
Speaker 1: John to have a story to tell. And I've sort
Speaker 1: of carried that with me forever. Whether it was a
Speaker 1: Civil War, the Last Amateurs, my book on PGA tour
Speaker 1: Q School, my book on minor league baseball, all these
Speaker 1: guys have stories to tell. And I think, honestly, the
Speaker 1: most boring person on the PGA tourist Tiger Woods, except
Speaker 1: when he's playing golf, because he's the greatest golfer of
Speaker 1: all time. I'll due respect to Jack Nicholas, but when
Speaker 1: he gets outside the ropes and starts spewing cliches. I
Speaker 1: have no interest. I want to watch him play golf.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear him talk because he's not
Speaker 1: going to say anything. We'll have more of my conversation
Speaker 1: with John Feinstein after this. In this time of social distancing,
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Speaker 1: dot com. Now back to my chat with John Feinstein.
Speaker 1: You've touched on like ten things I want to speak
Speaker 1: to you about, including the Post and Woodward and Ben
Speaker 1: Bradley and all that. But you said recently on Twitter
Speaker 1: that you know, and you've done so much with NPR
Speaker 1: and radio and all these television appear, the Golf Channel,
Speaker 1: all that stuff, but your most favorite thing is the books.
Speaker 1: And I know why because I mean the other you
Speaker 1: have deadline, certainly, but you have you know, people telling
Speaker 1: you and like you said, they're trying to form this
Speaker 1: opinion with the books. It's your idea. It's organic. You're
Speaker 1: chasing down these stories. You probably certainly back in the day,
Speaker 1: we're able to, as you say, just drive around the
Speaker 1: back roads. Is that part of the appeal and uncovering
Speaker 1: and telling these people's stories. Yeah, you know. I when
Speaker 1: I was first at the post, my reputation was as
Speaker 1: somebody who always wrote too long. I was good on deadline,
Speaker 1: I could write fast. But I covered a Davis Cup
Speaker 1: final in nineteen eighty one, which was decided in the
Speaker 1: final match John McEnroe versus Louis. No, it wasn't Saint Louis.
Speaker 1: It was Cincinnati. That was the famous vel under match
Speaker 1: that you're referencing. But mcinroe played Jose Louis Clerk for
Speaker 1: the Davis Cup one in five sets. It was great
Speaker 1: stuff and McEnroe and Clark belling at each other. And
Speaker 1: I called the desk. It was a Sunday, and I
Speaker 1: said how much space have I gotten? And the editor,
Speaker 1: a very good guy named George Minett, said twenty four inches,
Speaker 1: which was pretty standard for game story. And I said, George,
Speaker 1: I can't write this in twenty four inches. There's no way,
Speaker 1: it's too dramatic. I said, I need at least forty
Speaker 1: and he said, that's fine, go ahead and write forty.
Speaker 1: We'll use the best twenty four. And that was kind
Speaker 1: of the story of my newspaper career and still is
Speaker 1: to this day. But the best thing about writing books
Speaker 1: was A. I had no space limitations and b I
Speaker 1: really had the time to earn the trust of the
Speaker 1: people I was writing about and to be able to go.
Speaker 1: When I went to do Season on the Brink, I
Speaker 1: had lunch with Woodward, who's been a mentor of mine
Speaker 1: as you can tell, for most of forty years, and
Speaker 1: Bob said, when you get back, if you've done your job,
Speaker 1: you should be able to write from inside Bob Knight's head.
Speaker 1: You should be able to say to the reader, I
Speaker 1: know what he was thinking at this moment when he
Speaker 1: said this, or did this, or took this particular action
Speaker 1: in practice or a game, whatever. And I've always kind
Speaker 1: of used that as a watchword for my reporting, and
Speaker 1: it worked out pretty well in Season on the Brink,
Speaker 1: as you know, and I've tried to do that, and
Speaker 1: to me, the thing I love about the books. The
Speaker 1: other thing what Ward said to me was your goal
Speaker 1: when you write a book should be to know more
Speaker 1: about the subject than anybody on earth. You won't, but
Speaker 1: the closer you come, the better the book will be.
Speaker 1: And that's the books have given me the opportunity to
Speaker 1: really try to climb inside the minds of a lot
Speaker 1: of people in sports, some very famous and some not famous.
Speaker 1: One thing that in your role as a newspaperman and
Speaker 1: a calumnist, and it reminds me of the late Phil Jasner,
Speaker 1: who covered the Sixers for so wonderful yep, great man
Speaker 1: for the Philadelphia Daily means. I used to joke that,
Speaker 1: you know, I followed I followed the Sixers through Phil
Speaker 1: so during the summer. But Phil had and this was
Speaker 1: clever and it was smart. But after a player was available,
Speaker 1: even a coach, he would then pull them aside. No,
Speaker 1: he was getting like one little thing for his story.
Speaker 1: It was a separate, one on one. And the reason
Speaker 1: I bring it up is because you're afforded this opportunity,
Speaker 1: certainly as an author in the books, as you say,
Speaker 1: with the luxury of time, and to make the relationship.
Speaker 1: In my role, I'm the seventy six Ers play by
Speaker 1: play announcer and players are made available and we all
Speaker 1: go to the scrum, if you will. But for the
Speaker 1: most part, I'm trying to give them space. I get
Speaker 1: to know players quite frankly more when their players when
Speaker 1: their careers are done and they see me in a
Speaker 1: hallway and they're like, ah, and then we relive all
Speaker 1: the times and I kind of ord that I did.
Speaker 1: But as a writer, and even today, like somebody will
Speaker 1: make a request of the PR department and then they
Speaker 1: get to sit down with the guy I'm doing. Get
Speaker 1: me wrong, I get the one on one every now
Speaker 1: and then. But you guys, really and that's to become
Speaker 1: best friends with Davis Love and you mentioned Doug Williams.
Speaker 1: That's almost like a little There are certain advantages, certainly
Speaker 1: of being with the team, but that's something as a
Speaker 1: writer that you guys have been able to employ over
Speaker 1: the years. Correct. Yeah, absolutely, you know. I never ask
Speaker 1: a question in a press conference for two reasons. One
Speaker 1: because if I do, if it's a good question and
Speaker 1: it gets good answer, I'm sharing it with the room
Speaker 1: and I'm selfish. And also, I know, especially at this
Speaker 1: point in my career, when I've been around for a while,
Speaker 1: I can probably get to the guy alone in the hallway,
Speaker 1: like you said, after he comes off the podium, and
Speaker 1: ask that question one on one and get the answer
Speaker 1: and have the answer be exclusive to me. Now, obviously
Speaker 1: in the books it's different because I have long sitdowns
Speaker 1: with people you mentioned Davis loved. When I started working
Speaker 1: on A Good Walk Spoiled, I had just done a
Speaker 1: tennis book, and tennis players are the least accessible athletes
Speaker 1: in the world, partly because of the rules in tennis
Speaker 1: where we can't go in locker rooms or even player
Speaker 1: lounges most of the time, but also because they become
Speaker 1: stars so young and they're taught you don't need the
Speaker 1: print media. I still remember talking to Bill Shelton, the
Speaker 1: late Bill Shelton, who was Andre Agassi's agent, and I
Speaker 1: was Agasy at that point in his life, was a
Speaker 1: rising young star and never did anything with the media
Speaker 1: other than required post match press conferences. And I said,
Speaker 1: with all money Andrea is making from selling product to
Speaker 1: the public, doesn't he owe the public more than ten
Speaker 1: minute post match press conferences. And Bill Shelton said to me,
Speaker 1: we reached the public through our commercials, and I think
Speaker 1: that's the approach. That's the approach Tiger Woods has certainly
Speaker 1: taken through the years. He had the reputation as being
Speaker 1: the boy next door right through the commercials until we
Speaker 1: found out different. So it can be a struggle. But
Speaker 1: with the books, as I said, I get to sit
Speaker 1: down with guys for a great at great length. When
Speaker 1: I first Davis Love was my first interview on A
Speaker 1: Good Walk Spoiled and I was coming off the tennis
Speaker 1: book where everything was a tooth pull, and we were
Speaker 1: about two hours into the interview and I said to him,
Speaker 1: how you sat on time? And David said, well, you
Speaker 1: said you were writing a book. So I just blocked
Speaker 1: off the whole afternoon and I said, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I've died and gone to heaven. And that's the way
Speaker 1: Good Walk Spoiled was. Most of the players were just
Speaker 1: unbelievably cooperative. It's not the same now the agents are
Speaker 1: more involved. It's tough. When I did my book on
Speaker 1: the Ryder Cup a few years ago, the first major
Speaker 1: some of the well, the best example is Ricky Fowler,
Speaker 1: who's a great kit terrific hit. His agent is three
Speaker 1: of the worst people I've ever met, not one three,
Speaker 1: and he kept telling me Ricky has never done an
Speaker 1: interview longer than thirty minutes and he's not going to
Speaker 1: start now. And I kept saying, Sam, there's a first
Speaker 1: for everything. You know why, and because that's the way
Speaker 1: it is, you know, because he was the agent, he
Speaker 1: was in control. Right when I finally got to sit
Speaker 1: down with Ricky thirty five minutes in, Sam walked over,
Speaker 1: put out his hand and said, well, thanks John and
Speaker 1: Ricky God blessed him. Looked at him and said, Sam,
Speaker 1: I'm fine. You know, but when I did a good
Speaker 1: walk spoiled. I didn't deal with agents. I just went
Speaker 1: in the locker room, introduced myself to guys. Some of
Speaker 1: them were basketball fans, which helped and set up interviews. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: you often have to go through an agent. And again,
Speaker 1: I've been around long enough, you get it done. Jordan's
Speaker 1: speech agent took a while set me up. We sat
Speaker 1: down and Jordan, who's such a terrific young man, at
Speaker 1: the end of the first interview, of that first interview,
Speaker 1: I said to him, I said, you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: want to circle back to you because it's a year
Speaker 1: out from the Rider Cup that I'm doing these interviews
Speaker 1: and he said. He said, yeah, fine, just take my
Speaker 1: cell number so you don't have to deal with Jay.
Speaker 1: God blessed Jordan's speed. But I have been lucky, and
Speaker 1: you're right about the interviews. I think that that interview
Speaker 1: rooms are a pox. I mean, when I covered college
Speaker 1: football and basketball as a young reporter at the Post,
Speaker 1: you go to practice every day, You walk in the
Speaker 1: locker room before practice, talk to guys, talk to him
Speaker 1: after practice, watch practice. Nowadays, you need a court order
Speaker 1: to do any of that, And I feel sorry for
Speaker 1: the younger generation covering college sports in particular nowadays. I
Speaker 1: when I was doing my book on Mike Schevsky, Dean Smith,
Speaker 1: and Jim Valvano, I was down at Dude because sorry
Speaker 1: the legends, Yes, thank you. I was down at Dude
Speaker 1: for several days to spend some time with Shashevsky. And
Speaker 1: I walked into practice one day and found the only
Speaker 1: unlocked door because the door wouldn't lock, and I walked in.
Speaker 1: I took about four steps and eight managers jumped me.
Speaker 1: You can't come in here, and I said, just as
Speaker 1: coach k it's fine, and they turned and Mike said, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fine. Although he said he was tempted to tell
Speaker 1: the managers to carry me out just for fun. But
Speaker 1: that's the way it is nowadays. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: people often criticize younger reporters for not having the access
Speaker 1: that guys like me had coming up. It's not their fault.
Speaker 1: It's it's not their fault. It's just the way it
Speaker 1: is today. And as the readers and the consumers, we're
Speaker 1: kind of the ones that suffered because you're not exactly
Speaker 1: You spend your life watching TV or and hearing sound bites,
Speaker 1: right because you guys coached up to talk. You know,
Speaker 1: the Crash Davis speech nine touch points and one of
Speaker 1: them is from your alma mater. When Kyrie was with Cleveland,
Speaker 1: he'd had an association with Chris Collins, who was the
Speaker 1: assistant coach that recruited him to Duke, and of courts
Speaker 1: Doug who was there all the time. And so I
Speaker 1: started talking to and of course I'm interviewing him, and
Speaker 1: I one half a question. I got the rap sign
Speaker 1: from the Cleveland and Kyrie's like, I'm fine, And it
Speaker 1: was so awkward and abrupt it kind of ended the deal.
Speaker 1: And I should have just ran through the stop sign
Speaker 1: and kept going, But I want to go back to
Speaker 1: the tennis deal because I remember when you kind of
Speaker 1: discovered that about the access, and it wasn't always that way.
Speaker 1: I spent time with the Austrian so again, one of
Speaker 1: my first stops was in Charleston, and in Charleston, South Carolina,
Speaker 1: and they had a tour stop recently with tennis, but
Speaker 1: at the time it was people on the way up
Speaker 1: and legends people on the way down. So the legends
Speaker 1: were like Roy Emerson and I said a with John
Speaker 1: Alexander and Marty Reason and all of those guys were
Speaker 1: so accessible and just regular guys. And Arthur or Ash
Speaker 1: is one of my all time heroes. And then on
Speaker 1: the flip side, you mentioned Agassi. He was playing and
Speaker 1: at the time it was like fifteen on the USTs
Speaker 1: tour and that was where they had to garner the
Speaker 1: points and eventually try to get on the tour. And
Speaker 1: he was playing at a local club in Mount Pleasant,
Speaker 1: South Carolina, and I was a television reporter and I
Speaker 1: was going to shoot some video but really it didn't
Speaker 1: matter who you shot. I was going to do a
Speaker 1: live shot at six o'clock, but the guy who ran
Speaker 1: the club, Dave Berryman. He was a coach at the college.
Speaker 1: Charleston said, Hey, Tom, you need to get out of
Speaker 1: here now. And it was like eleven in the morning.
Speaker 1: We're TV guys, we show up at three. I went
Speaker 1: out there and he had I guess he had the
Speaker 1: rat tail and I've never seen a ball hit like
Speaker 1: that before. And then I said, hey, would you stick
Speaker 1: around and do a live shot? And so he was
Speaker 1: probably staying somewhere on those grounds at that complex, and
Speaker 1: he came back and did a live shot with me
Speaker 1: all those years later. And part of how I got
Speaker 1: into TV was, you know, Chicago never really had a
Speaker 1: tour stop. There would be, but the TV thing was
Speaker 1: I interviewed Tracy Austin in front of this local television
Speaker 1: guy and I got an internship and off I went.
Speaker 1: But back to Chicago. Niles, Illinois had like a club.
Speaker 1: The tournaments were held at racket clubs. This is in
Speaker 1: the seventies and then I think it was like the
Speaker 1: tam O Shanner and my dad from the tennis club
Speaker 1: with all of his buddies, they all went and for me,
Speaker 1: it was a big slip. It was like one hundred
Speaker 1: miles away and it was a night Tom Ocker won
Speaker 1: the tournament. It was a bunch of matches and they
Speaker 1: had set up bleachers on the subsequent courts and made
Speaker 1: made a center court. And at one point I left
Speaker 1: and just to go to the bathroom. And it turns
Speaker 1: out it was in the men's locker room and who
Speaker 1: had just finished his mask? But John Nukam was sitting
Speaker 1: there and he was having a Canna Budweiser. And I
Speaker 1: was like the autograph guy. Not to say I didn't
Speaker 1: get an autograph, but I'd more rather visit with the
Speaker 1: player and you know, get into a I love. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what happened. And I was probably like thirteen or whatever,
Speaker 1: and my dad had a circle back and like, does
Speaker 1: everything all right? And then he saw that I was
Speaker 1: visiting with and he's like he came back and told
Speaker 1: but he's fun. He's yeah, well, And that was a
Speaker 1: different era. Bud Collins, who was my tennis reporting mentor
Speaker 1: and who I dedicated co dedicated my tennis book to
Speaker 1: hard courts. Um tells stories about in the sixties when
Speaker 1: he was the first print reporter to cross over and
Speaker 1: do television, when the what was in the US Pro
Speaker 1: event at Longwood outside Boston was televised by the local
Speaker 1: PBS channel, and Bud did it alone, and he tell
Speaker 1: told stories about, you know, just sitting around having a
Speaker 1: beer with the players after they played, and traveling with
Speaker 1: them and always having access to them. When tennis became
Speaker 1: a big money sport. After it it went uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the pros were allowed back into the into the major
Speaker 1: championships which they were banned from for many years, and
Speaker 1: it became a big money sport. And McEnroe and Connors
Speaker 1: and you mentioned nucom who was part of that too,
Speaker 1: and Gijamo Vilas and Rod Labor who won the won
Speaker 1: the Grand Slam in nineteen sixty nine. When it became
Speaker 1: a big money sport, the agents took over, and tennis,
Speaker 1: unfortunately is like the NC Double A. There's no real leadership.
Speaker 1: There's no commissioner who makes rules and says you will
Speaker 1: do it this way, and so the agents run the sport.
Speaker 1: And the agents basically convinced tournament directors to close locker
Speaker 1: rooms to the media, to close player lounges to the media.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember once It's Stratton Mountain, Vermont, walking
Speaker 1: into the player lounge with McEnroe. We were going to
Speaker 1: sit down after he played a match and talk. John
Speaker 1: was always great with me. I still one of my
Speaker 1: favorite athletes. And we're walking in and the guard stops
Speaker 1: us and says, no, he can't come in here, he's media.
Speaker 1: And John said, no, it's okay, he's with me, and
Speaker 1: the guard said it doesn't matter, he can't come in here.
Speaker 1: And John being John, looked at the guy and said,
Speaker 1: why don't you go find Jim Westhall, who was the
Speaker 1: tournament director, and ask him if he wants me to
Speaker 1: play the final tomorrow, because if my friend can't come
Speaker 1: in here right now, I'm just gonna go home. So
Speaker 1: it's your call. And of course the guy back down.
Speaker 1: But that's the way tennis was. Everything was a battle
Speaker 1: to get access. In the contrast of Davis Love was
Speaker 1: a French player named Henri Lakhan who was not a
Speaker 1: bad guy and a good player, French Open finalists one year.
Speaker 1: But when I was doing when I'm doing a book
Speaker 1: and I don't know someone, I will introduce myself. I
Speaker 1: will say, you know, this is the book I'm writing.
Speaker 1: And almost always the first question is how much time
Speaker 1: do you need? And you learn after a while you lie,
Speaker 1: you don't say two hours. So with the tennis players,
Speaker 1: I would say twenty thirty minutes. So I said to
Speaker 1: La Khan, twenty thirty minutes. He screamed, what no one
Speaker 1: has ever spoken to me for that long? And you know,
Speaker 1: like with Ricky Fowler and his agent Sam McNaughton, And
Speaker 1: that's the way it was covering tennis, and still that
Speaker 1: way covering tennis unfortunately. And you know, Roger Federer, I
Speaker 1: think my sense, because I don't really know him, is
Speaker 1: a bright, wonderful guy. But has anybody ever written anything
Speaker 1: really in depth about him. People light about the fact
Speaker 1: that he's got four kids, He's won twenty majors, he's
Speaker 1: always gracious in defeat. But I don't feel as if
Speaker 1: I really know Roger Federer. I don't feel as if
Speaker 1: I really know Raphael only Dollar, Novak Djokovic, and they
Speaker 1: might be the three greatest players of all time. And
Speaker 1: with the exception of Tiger Woods, everybody in golf is
Speaker 1: an open book. And I don't mean that as a
Speaker 1: pun but and that's why tennis really one of the
Speaker 1: reason why tennis is essentially a dead sport in this country.
Speaker 1: People pay attention during Wimbledon people pay attention during the
Speaker 1: US Open. They don't pay attention during Australia because it's
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, And they don't play
Speaker 1: that much attention during Paris because the matches are so
Speaker 1: damn long. The other reason is because we haven't had
Speaker 1: a great American player since Andy Roddick. But it goes
Speaker 1: back beyond that to the fact that the media has
Speaker 1: basically been ignored by the agents who run the sport.
Speaker 1: I'll keep it just for two more questions, and I
Speaker 1: think it's so good. I could go on and on.
Speaker 1: But Army Navy and again, it's been hosted in Philadelphia
Speaker 1: for years. Typically the seventy sixers are on the road
Speaker 1: for you know, the obvious reasons marking sports complex. But
Speaker 1: the one year we've had two lockouts and now a
Speaker 1: pandemic in my tenure. But ninety eight we had a lockout.
Speaker 1: I was able to go to the game and it
Speaker 1: was at the bed. It was the year that the
Speaker 1: stands collapsed. Yeah right, yeah, But what an experience like
Speaker 1: I honestly, this is one of the single best sports
Speaker 1: events I've ever been to and just the you know
Speaker 1: what it is, tell us about that, why is it special.
Speaker 1: The two academies that pop, the circumstance, the tricks they play,
Speaker 1: just the passion. It's awesome. Tell me more, Well, the
Speaker 1: passion is very important. But the reason I find the
Speaker 1: game unique. And people ask me all the time, if
Speaker 1: you could only go to one sporting event every year,
Speaker 1: what would it be, And they Wimbledon, the Masters, the
Speaker 1: World Series, Super Bowl Finals, Final four. My ANSWER's Army Navy.
Speaker 1: And the reason is the young men who play in
Speaker 1: the game. You have to be extraordinary to go to
Speaker 1: one of those military academies. And when I did a
Speaker 1: Civil War I went through days with the cadets. I
Speaker 1: went through days with the midshipman to find out what
Speaker 1: their lives were like. To live that life as a
Speaker 1: midshipman or a cadet academically and militarily, and then be
Speaker 1: asked to compete against Division one opponents in football is
Speaker 1: amazing that they can do that. I still remember Bob Sutton,
Speaker 1: who was Armies coach when I was doing the book,
Speaker 1: saying it was players, Look, fellas, I know that for you,
Speaker 1: unlike other D one athletes, the easiest part of your
Speaker 1: day is practice. For other D one athletes, the hardest
Speaker 1: part of their day is practice, but the guys we're
Speaker 1: playing against don't care about that. So you have to
Speaker 1: come to practice every single day ready to give everything
Speaker 1: you have left because they're up at five thirty six
Speaker 1: every morning, and they do have to actually go to class,
Speaker 1: and they get military assignments during the school year. And
Speaker 1: I've been fortunate to know many of the guys who
Speaker 1: play at Army and Navy well because in addition to
Speaker 1: doing the book, I did radio color on the Navy
Speaker 1: Radio Network for fourteen years and now I do stuff
Speaker 1: with the Army Radio Network. I think that makes me
Speaker 1: one of a kind in that sense. I'm also, I believe,
Speaker 1: the only person who has ever had access to both
Speaker 1: the Army and Navy locker rooms before and during an
Speaker 1: Army Navy game who wasn't President of the United States.
Speaker 1: And I kind of like that. But these guys, they're
Speaker 1: special people. Forget their football ability, there's special people, but
Speaker 1: and they do bring such passion and when you're in
Speaker 1: that stadium and you've been there, well, you know, we've talked.
Speaker 1: The national anthem is a big topic right now. Obviously
Speaker 1: I have never you know, I've been you and I
Speaker 1: have both heard the national anthem played before sporting events
Speaker 1: a million times, and you sort of sort of comes
Speaker 1: right past you. Most of the time. Today is different,
Speaker 1: of course, But when they play the national anthem at
Speaker 1: the Army Navy game and you look to your right
Speaker 1: and you see four thousand cadets go snap their hands
Speaker 1: into salute position, you look to your left and you
Speaker 1: see four thousand and shipmen snap their hands into salute position,
Speaker 1: and you realize that all eight thousand of these kids
Speaker 1: have volunteered to die for our country if necessary. You're
Speaker 1: not a hero if you die for your country. Because
Speaker 1: you die for your country. You're a hero because you're
Speaker 1: willing to die for your country. And all eight thousand
Speaker 1: of them have already done that by going to those
Speaker 1: two A academies. And if you don't get a chill
Speaker 1: seeing those salutes during the anthem, something's wrong. And then
Speaker 1: after the game when they play the Alma Maters. It's
Speaker 1: funny because my wife, I'm always on the field after
Speaker 1: the game and I stand with the teams during the
Speaker 1: Alma Maters, and my wife will always send me a
Speaker 1: text and it says, are you crying yet? And when
Speaker 1: it's over, I'll text back and I'll say, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: I've stopped crying, so now I can text you that.
Speaker 1: And when I did the games on a Navy radio network,
Speaker 1: when they played the Alma Maters, I would always say
Speaker 1: to my partner, Bob Soci, who's now the voice of
Speaker 1: the New England Patriots, don't ask me a question right
Speaker 1: after the Alma Maters end because I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be able to answer. It gets me every single time, Todlin,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's an extraordinary event in itself, but
Speaker 1: when you understand who those kids are and what they're
Speaker 1: going to be asked to do a few months from now,
Speaker 1: the seniors, it just makes the event. I've covered it
Speaker 1: now in one form or another every year since nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety and it never fails to give me chills. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: One thing about the competition, and based on everything you
Speaker 1: just said, this doesn't really matter, but I had gone
Speaker 1: to every Eagles home game that year. I had a pass.
Speaker 1: Ray Rhodes was the coach. The Eagles actually weren't that good,
Speaker 1: but it was NFL football and just one real other
Speaker 1: like aside. But at the VET you said, where I
Speaker 1: sat like George Young would be right by. I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's the generalmenter of the Giants. But anyway, so,
Speaker 1: having watched all that competition, when I went to the
Speaker 1: Army Navy game, and there'd be like a gap off
Speaker 1: tackle in the NFL, that thing's closed. And that's like
Speaker 1: a one yard game. In the Army Navy game, that
Speaker 1: was a fullback dive for like a fifty eight yard touchdown. Okay,
Speaker 1: the slow it's a little slower, but now it's certainly
Speaker 1: slower than the NFL. But I do get upset when
Speaker 1: people imply, like when Trump was at the game if
Speaker 1: years ago and said, well, the quality of football isn't
Speaker 1: very good, but it's still Army Navy, And I was like,
Speaker 1: what the hell do you know about college football? Gabies
Speaker 1: beaten Notre Dame four times in the last twelve years.
Speaker 1: That should never happen. Army won three straight bowl games
Speaker 1: against very good D one teams. And are there a
Speaker 1: lot of NFL players on the team on the field. No,
Speaker 1: partly because they won't get the chance, but there are
Speaker 1: also there are some very good football players who've worked
Speaker 1: their butts off to be as good as they are.
Speaker 1: And Jim Candeloup, who was the Army captain in the
Speaker 1: year I did the book, said to me one time,
Speaker 1: if you can't play for Notre Dame, the next best
Speaker 1: thing is to play against Notre Dame. And you won't
Speaker 1: you Dick for Meal. The old Eagles coach, of course,
Speaker 1: did the game on television for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: and he said, the Army Navy game is the only
Speaker 1: game where you'll see all twenty two players down down
Speaker 1: on the opening kickoff because they go after each other
Speaker 1: so hard. So obviously what you were watching in the
Speaker 1: NFL or anything close to it, but it was still
Speaker 1: pretty damn good football. Absolutely, And now I bring up
Speaker 1: a season on the brink. I was just looking at
Speaker 1: it the other day. I have all your books, but
Speaker 1: I paid probably a total of about forty two bucks
Speaker 1: because I go to all Powells and all these books around.
Speaker 1: Don't be offended, but interesting. I was going over the
Speaker 1: introduction the other day, and you had a then fifty
Speaker 1: eight year old Al McGuire write the introduction and Bloom,
Speaker 1: another New Yorker and of course a great coach at Marquette,
Speaker 1: the seventy seven NCAA champion. But he talked about what
Speaker 1: I fear for Bob is that some referee or somebody
Speaker 1: an administrator will take him down based on past history,
Speaker 1: which is ironically exactly he foretold the future. So that,
Speaker 1: but being in assembly Hall and being at those practices,
Speaker 1: I imagine there were times it was incredibly awkward that
Speaker 1: you saw that intense and how he treated people. Just
Speaker 1: speak to that and sees it on the break what
Speaker 1: it did for your career, I mean, what a incredible thing.
Speaker 1: I watched Indiana basketball. I grew up in Illinois the
Speaker 1: whole seventy sixth season, the entire season before in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one an assembly hall, I went and watched Isaiah.
Speaker 1: I was a college student in the Mideast regional before
Speaker 1: they came to Philadelphia, so I was a cute I
Speaker 1: had just finished college and a little bit of college bath.
Speaker 1: I devoured this book and like three days, tell me
Speaker 1: we're about that whole experience. Well, a couple of things.
Speaker 1: First of all, they played Indiana play Saint Joseph's in
Speaker 1: that regional final in eighty one in an assembly hall,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Lynham's team that upset to Paul. But about al
Speaker 1: for a second, al it was always the smartest guy
Speaker 1: in the room, never felt the need to tell you
Speaker 1: he was the smartest guy in the room, unlike a
Speaker 1: lot of guys who aren't and still tell you they
Speaker 1: are right. We both met a lot of those. But
Speaker 1: I remember Al did four Gang Game on NBC the
Speaker 1: year I was doing the book, and every time he
Speaker 1: would come to town, Bob would organize dinner because he
Speaker 1: looked up to and he would he would his assistance
Speaker 1: and some friends and I would be there. And the
Speaker 1: last time Out came to town, he turned to Bob
Speaker 1: and me during dinner and he said, you know, this
Speaker 1: is kind of bittersweet for me. And we both said why,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, because once this book comes out
Speaker 1: you're never going to speak to each other again. I
Speaker 1: didn't turn out quite that way, but we didn't speak
Speaker 1: to each other for eight years. And we both looked
Speaker 1: at him, said, well, what are you talking about? And
Speaker 1: he said, well, there's no way Bob's gonna like this
Speaker 1: book because John's too honest, and sure enough, yeah, he
Speaker 1: was right. Bob didn't speak to me for eight years
Speaker 1: after the book came out. He claimed it was because
Speaker 1: I left profanity in the book. I don't think that
Speaker 1: was it. But because you know, saying Bob Knight used
Speaker 1: his profanity, he's like saying his son's gonna rise in
Speaker 1: the East tomorrow. But the other funny thing is I'm
Speaker 1: asked all the time, how did you get Knight to
Speaker 1: give you the access? And it's really a fairly simple story.
Speaker 1: I'd known him. I covered as Olympic team in eighty
Speaker 1: four and in eighty five. I actually was in Indiana
Speaker 1: the week he threw the chair. I wasn't there for
Speaker 1: the chair throw. I was there for the Illinois game
Speaker 1: on Thursday night. I spent three full days with him,
Speaker 1: gave me total access for three days. Then he throws
Speaker 1: the chair after I'd gone home. So when I wrote
Speaker 1: the story the next day, I said in the story, look,
Speaker 1: there's no excuse for throwing a chair. Clearly it was unacceptable,
Speaker 1: but on a scale of one to ten, among the
Speaker 1: crimes being committed in college athletics today, it's probably about
Speaker 1: a three. And Night called me and he thanked me
Speaker 1: for telling both sides because it was like an eight
Speaker 1: in story. And I said, well, Bob, I was able
Speaker 1: to tell both sides because you gave me so much access.
Speaker 1: And I really appreciate it, and he invited me to
Speaker 1: a dinner at the Final Four that he had in
Speaker 1: those days, again with coaches and buddies and pals. And
Speaker 1: that was when the Final Four was still civilized and
Speaker 1: was played in the late afternoon, so there was time
Speaker 1: to go to dinner after the games. And so I
Speaker 1: had this idea. I said, he's inviting me into his
Speaker 1: inner circle. What if I could get him to let
Speaker 1: me do that for a year. I was twenty eight
Speaker 1: years old. I'd never written a book, but it sounded
Speaker 1: like a really good idea to me. So I went
Speaker 1: to the dinner and after dinner, I said, if you
Speaker 1: got a minute to talk? He said, sure, come on
Speaker 1: back to the room. He was rooming with the Great
Speaker 1: Pete Newell, his mentor, and Shishevsky was there because they
Speaker 1: were doing a clinic together the next day and they
Speaker 1: needed to discuss what they were going to do. So
Speaker 1: Mike and Bob talked. I waited. I talked to Coach Newell,
Speaker 1: and finally I proposed the idea to him and he said,
Speaker 1: have you ever written a book? I said no, and
Speaker 1: he said, do you have a publisher? I said, Bob,
Speaker 1: it didn't make much sense to me to get a
Speaker 1: publisher until you said it was okay. And he said,
Speaker 1: well that was smart. And he said, yeah, if you
Speaker 1: can find a publisher. And as I mentioned before, five
Speaker 1: publishers rejected the book. But if you can find a publisher, sure,
Speaker 1: come on out. It was that simple, Mike and I
Speaker 1: walked out the door. The minute the door closed, he
Speaker 1: at me and he said, are you out of your
Speaker 1: blanking mind? I said, what, I've been around him. I
Speaker 1: know what it's like. He said, no, you don't. You've
Speaker 1: been around him for a couple of days. You've never
Speaker 1: spent a whole winter with him. Well, you played for
Speaker 1: him for four years. He said, I needed to go
Speaker 1: to college. You've been to college. I said, you worked
Speaker 1: for him. He said I did. I needed a job.
Speaker 1: You have a job. And I said, well, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try to do it anyway. And of course I did.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the first week, after he
Speaker 1: had destroyed Darryl Thomas in the locker room, one of
Speaker 1: the I still have the tape of that, and I
Speaker 1: can't use the word that he used twenty three times
Speaker 1: in three minutes. Pretty sure I know what you're talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and so I called Mike that night and
Speaker 1: it wasn't awkward, Tom, it was cringe worthy. I would
Speaker 1: stand in the corner of the locker room like this,
Speaker 1: Oh God. Sometimes not all the time, but I called
Speaker 1: Mike and I said, Okay, now I know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about, because I mean that's where the title the
Speaker 1: book from season on the Brink, because we were on
Speaker 1: the brink of something insane virtually every day, right, And yes,
Speaker 1: the book did change my career. Just put it mildly,
Speaker 1: that's right. It was awesome. One last thing because you
Speaker 1: know you mentioned whatever your lunches and dinners, but the
Speaker 1: Red Hour back book trying to talent Washington, NBC Tuesdays.
Speaker 1: And I have so many regrets. But one is I
Speaker 1: never sat down with Wooden or even met John Wooden,
Speaker 1: and I grew up a Notre Dame fan. And the
Speaker 1: other is and you weren't getting around Red. You know,
Speaker 1: I was never at the Garden, but you weren't getting
Speaker 1: around Red at that time that what is now the
Speaker 1: TD Garden. But there were a few times we were close.
Speaker 1: But you spend so much time with Red Hour back
Speaker 1: I mean, really one of the icons all the time.
Speaker 1: Of pro basketball. That was a tremendous book. And I
Speaker 1: know you had to be kind of invited into that
Speaker 1: circle if you will, to be there, But what was
Speaker 1: that experience, like, well, you're right about being invited because
Speaker 1: Red was very close to Bob Knight and Dan Shaughnessy,
Speaker 1: my friend from Boston, the Globe columnists, I'm sure you know,
Speaker 1: wanted to do a biography of Red, and when he
Speaker 1: approached Red, Red said, yeah, I'll do it, just don't
Speaker 1: do to me what that blank blank did to Bob Knight,
Speaker 1: because I didn't know Redd at that point. This was
Speaker 1: early nineties, and of course Dan couldn't wait to call
Speaker 1: me and tell me what Redd had said. So I
Speaker 1: was under the assumption that Red hated my guts and
Speaker 1: we were doing it. We accidentally got thrown into a
Speaker 1: green room together at a local Washington, DC TV station,
Speaker 1: and Red was was very convivial. When I walked over,
Speaker 1: I said, Coach John Feinstein, it's so nice to meet you.
Speaker 1: And we sat down and he said, so, how's your
Speaker 1: buddy doing, And I said, I said, my buddy said yeah,
Speaker 1: Bob Knight, And I said, well, coach, we're not exactly buddies.
Speaker 1: Anymore he and Red said, yeah, he hates you, and
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, he does, but he doesn't hate you.
Speaker 1: He loves you. And Red said, well that's because I
Speaker 1: never wrote a book on him. And it struck me
Speaker 1: that Red was being nice to me. And I knew
Speaker 1: from Jack Avance, who was then the athletic director at
Speaker 1: George Washington, which is where Red went to school, about
Speaker 1: these Chinese lunches every Tuesday, and I thought, boy, that
Speaker 1: could be a cool column if I could go to lunch.
Speaker 1: So I called Jack and Jack said, called Morgan Wooten,
Speaker 1: the great high school coach who was close friends with Red.
Speaker 1: Get him to ask for you. So Morgan did call
Speaker 1: me back and said Red says, come ahead. So I
Speaker 1: went to the lunch. I wrote the column, and then
Speaker 1: I was invited to come to lunch on a weekly basis,
Speaker 1: and I never missed. And the other guys in the
Speaker 1: lunch because Red would sit there and tell stories, and
Speaker 1: the other guys at the lunch kept saying to me,
Speaker 1: you got to write a book on this. These stories
Speaker 1: have to be recorded for posterity. Well, I didn't want
Speaker 1: Red to think that I was coming to lunch because
Speaker 1: I was looking for a book. So I kept not asking,
Speaker 1: so finally one day turning me at lunch and he said,
Speaker 1: are we going to do a book or not typical Red?
Speaker 1: And I said, well, if you want to, and he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it. It'll be fun. And it was great fun.
Speaker 1: It was called let me tell you his Story, because
Speaker 1: that's why Red started most of his stories. And I
Speaker 1: remember thinking, I've said this to people for many years
Speaker 1: that when I think of my career, I realized that
Speaker 1: I get paid to do things that other people would
Speaker 1: pay to do. And as I was sitting there listening
Speaker 1: to tell Red tell stories, it hit me very hard
Speaker 1: that that was in fact true. How many people would
Speaker 1: pay god knows how much to just sit for an
Speaker 1: hour with Red, hour back and listen to him tell story? Right?
Speaker 1: And I did it for months and wrote a book
Speaker 1: and got paid, which is ridiculous, it was. And the
Speaker 1: other part of that book was Red called Bob night
Speaker 1: and said, look, I'd really like you to talk to
Speaker 1: John for the book, and Bob would do anything for Red.
Speaker 1: So we were on the phone together, Bob and I
Speaker 1: for two hours, and at the end of the two hours,
Speaker 1: I said, Bob, I know you did this for Red,
Speaker 1: but I want you to know how much I appreciate
Speaker 1: you're doing it. And he said, no, John, I should
Speaker 1: thank you. And I said, why should you thank me?
Speaker 1: And he said, because it's impossible to do Red a favor,
Speaker 1: and you let me do a favor for him. So
Speaker 1: he got it. It was very cool, right, And Red
Speaker 1: didn't get fried Chinese food. He got steamed. I'm impressed
Speaker 1: with that, Like, how could anybody you know owned a
Speaker 1: Chinese restaurant for a while in Boston. Yeah, he did.
Speaker 1: He I mean to say that he loved Chinese food
Speaker 1: is like saying I love to eat right well, I
Speaker 1: around my house, I say, let me tell you a story,
Speaker 1: and the kids and my wife growing like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: I loved this so much. And honestly, I mean, if
Speaker 1: there's a chance, like sometime down the road, I'll give
Speaker 1: you a few I'll give you eight months, but I
Speaker 1: would love to have you back and talk about you know,
Speaker 1: your Mount Rushmore, the Jimmy Murray's, the Red Smiths of
Speaker 1: the Fords, of writing, what it's like to write a column,
Speaker 1: and your current book. So John, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: We appreciate it. Best of luck, and you've been great
Speaker 1: through all these years and we appreciate your time. Tom
Speaker 1: My pleasure. Feel free to call anytime and thanks for
Speaker 1: having me all right, John, thank you. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to Tom's talks with me Tom McGinnis on the seventy
Speaker 1: six Ers Podcast Network. Check for new episodes every weekend