One on One

October 24, 2011
Sports take a backseat to covering sports in this feisty, full-contact memoir. Sportswriter Feinstein (A Season on the Brink) recounts his exploits gathering material for his bestselling sports epics, from his celebrated sagas of college basketball seasons to insider tell-alls on pro tennis, golf, and the Army-Navy football rivalry. In his account of the sportswriter’s game, everything comes down to access; there are innumerable scenes in which he chases down media-shy athletes and coaches, dodges interfering PR flacks, breaks through defensive lines of security guards to the locker room, and even faces down Czech KGB goons during the Cold War to interview the mother of a defected hockey player. Feinstein kept his scorecards and settles them with swipes at everyone from meddling editors and obstructionist league officials to legendary Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight—great access, obnoxious behavior—and the allegedly odious Tiger Woods (“Here’s hoping, seriously, that at some point in his life he can find joy in something other than stepping on people’s necks and filling his pockets”). The sports themselves usually get eclipsed by Feinstein’s relentless access seeking, but his punchy, evocative prose and irreverent jabs at superstars make for lively play-by-play. Photos.

November 1, 2011
The sports journalist and author of sports-related mysteries chats candidly about his first 10 nonfiction books, beginning with A Season on the Brink (1986), and chases down some of their principal characters for a reunion. The former basketball coach at the University of Indiana, Bob Knight, dominates this book, even as he dominated the first. Feinstein (The Rivalry: Mystery at the Army-Navy Game, 2010, etc.) devotes most of the first 150 pages to Knight, who pops up for return visits throughout, then reappears for a valediction. The author concedes that Knight has some virtues (among them--his former players remain loyal) but believes those virtues are drowned by the torrents of arrogance and entitlement that surge from Knight's personality. By contrast, Feinstein writes fondly about his experiences covering the ACC, especially the relationships he developed with coaches Mike Krzyzewski, Dean Smith and the late Jim Valvano. He then segues into tennis, writing about such icons as Jimmy Connors (whom no one seemed to like), John McEnroe and--a favorite--Ivan Lendl, who was standoffish until Feinstein encountered some problems with state security in Czechoslovakia. He moves on to baseball and golf, where he writes about interviews with Palmer and Nicklaus, his friendship with David Duval and the massive personal failings of Tiger Woods, who will not find any comfort in these pages. The author bestows his greatest affection on the players he met while writing about the Army-Navy game and on those from the Patriot League basketball teams whose stories he told in The Last Amateurs (2000). At times, Feinstein reveals his own ego issues, often quoting people who praise him. Engaging stories from a storyteller who doesn't just know his subject--he loves it.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 1, 2011

Sports author Feinstein has been writing long enough that he can craft a memoir about the greats he's met, from coaches Bob Knight and Jim Valvano to athletes Jack Nicklaus, Ivan Lendl, and Mary Carillo. Lots of sports fans out there, and with 4.1 million copies of Feinstein's books out there, too, this should be big.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2011
Feinstein burst onto the national scene with A Season on the Brink (1986), an up-close look at Indiana University basketball and its controversial coach, Bobby Knight. It became a New York Times best-seller, and, since then, Feinstein has written 28 more books, most of them also best-sellers, on topics ranging from tennis and golf to college football. Here he recounts the stories behind the books, following up on his relationships with some of the most memorable characters in them. The bombastic Knight is the 600-pound elephant in Feinstein's professional life. Knight took offense at his portrayal in Brink, and Bobby neither forgives nor forgets. But there are many more people who have remained close to Feinstein. He has a particular fondness for the men and boys he met while writing A Civil War (1996), about the Army-Navy football rivalry. Feinstein is arguably the best sports journalist regularly producing book-length work. One doesn't even have to have an interest in a particular sport to marvel at his insight into the people who play it or coach it. This is a nice addendum to the oeuvre for Feinstein fans. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: As a look back at Feinstein's career, this may not attract the same audience as new work, but the author is a genuine superstar among sportswrtiters, and everything he does draws a crowd.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)