Feinstein, John 1956-

Personal

Surname pronounced "Fine-steen"; born July 28, 1956, in New York, NY; son of Martin (an opera director) and Berwile (a college professor) Feinstein; married; wife's name Mary Clare; children: Daniel. Education: Duke University, B.A., 1977 (one source says 1978). Politics: Democrat. Religion: Jewish.

Addresses

Home—Potomac, MD; Shelter Island, NY.

Career

Washington Post, Washington, DC, sportswriter, 1977-88, 1992—; special contributor to Sports Illustrated, 1988-90; sportswriter for National Sports Daily, 1990-91; contributor to America Online, 2000—, Golf Digest, 2003—, and Golf World, 2003—. Commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition, 1988—, Sporting News Radio, 1992—, and ESPN. Visiting professor of journalism at Duke University.

Member

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

Awards, Honors

Awards from U.S. Basketball Writer's Association, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985; Best Sports Stories Award, National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, 1982, 1985, 1986; DC Writer of the Year award, 1985; Best Event Coverage Award, Associated Press Sports Editors, 1985.

Writings

NONFICTION

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.

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.

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.

Next Man Up: A Year behind the Lines in Today's NFL, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 2005.

Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 2006.

Tales from Q School: Inside Golf's Fifth Major, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 2007.

Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 2008.

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

FICTION

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

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

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

Vanishing Act, Knopf (New York, NY), 2006.

Cover-up: Mystery at the Super Bowl, Knopf (New York, NY), 2007.

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, performed by the author.

Sidelights

John Feinstein is an award-winning sportswriter whose work has appeared in such publications as the Washington Post and Sports Illustrated. Feinstein has also penned several nonfiction works that present a behind-the-scenes look at professional and college sports, including Tales from Q School: Inside Golf's Fifth Major and Next Man Up: A Year behind the Lines in Today's NFL. In addition, he has created a series of well-received mystery novels featuring a pair of teenaged reporters.

Feinstein gained national attention with his best-seller A Season on the Brink: A Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers. The book recounts Indiana University's 1985-86 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 (NCAA) basketball tournament. Feinstein wrote the book after enjoying unusually close access to coach Bobby Knight and Knight's team's practices, meetings, and game-time huddles over the course of 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 17,000 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-Constitution that "Feinstein offers an insider's perspective that brings the reader to an appreciation of both the genius and the madness of" Knight.

Feinstein has written a number of other books on college hoops. A Season Inside: One Year in College Basketball details the 1987-88 basketball season, during which Feinstein attended 104 games. He recounts the highs and lows of the year 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 ultimately won the 1988 NCAA 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." Forever's Team is perhaps Feinstein's most personal work: it concerns the 1978-79 basketball team from Duke University, his alma mater. In Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four, the author presents a look at one of America's premier sporting events. "The anecdotes are entertaining, and the insights into the tournament's logistics fascinating," wrote Booklist contributor Wes Lukowsky.

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 not-so-famous players, their families, and their agents. More 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 Professional Golfers' Association (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 stated 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 player was able to return to his promising status of their pre-fight careers.

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 reveals parts 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. Caddy for Life "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 Tales from Q School, Feinstein chronicles the action at the PGA 2005 qualifying tournaments, where more than 1,000 aspiring pros vied for only thirty available spots on the tour. Reviewing the work in Booklist, Bill Ott called Feinstein's account "compelling," adding, "The subject is made to order for his slices-of-life approach."

Feinstein turned his attention to the National Football League (NFL) for Next Man Up, "one of the most compelling portraits of NFL life ever written," observed Charles Hirshberg in Sports Illustrated. Granted complete access to the Baltimore Ravens' players and personnel, Feinstein provides an in-depth look at the team's 2004 season, focusing not only on game strategy but also on the intense pressures that drove the managers, coaches, and players. According to a contributor in Publishers Weekly, the author "persuasively argues that pro football is the most dramatic American sport," and Ott stated: "Football has never seemed as personal as it does here, in one of Feinstein's most involving books." Professional baseball is the subject of Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember, in which Feinstein follows Tom Glavine of the New York Mets and Mike Mussina of the New York Yankees through the 2007 season. According to Lukowsky, here the author "guides readers into a world with which fans have only surface familiarity, revealing in the process multiple substrata of nuance and meaning."

In addition to his nonfiction work, Feinstein has also penned several mysteries. His first, 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 right-wing extremist and a radical feminist who may have had the governor killed so that his female lieutenant-governor would come 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 combined his love of mystery novels and his expertise in sportswriting in his first novel for teens, Last Shot: A Final Four Mystery. Teen writers Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson, both aspiring journalists, have won an award in a sportswriting competition and are allowed to cover the NCAA Final Four game along with 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," Ott pointed out in Booklist. "This story … breaks new ground for teens, focusing primarily on the influential role of media in promoting college basketball," praised Gerry Larson, who reviewed Last Shot for School Library Journal. According to a critic in Kirkus Reviews, "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 his experience as a commentator for National Public Radio, Feinstein performed the audiobook version of Last Shot himself.

Stevie and Susan Carol make a return appearance in Vanishing Act, a mystery set at the U.S. Open tennis championship in New York City. While covering the event, the thirteen-year-old reporters investigate the disappearance of Nadia Symanova, a beautiful Russian star, and learn that Susan Carol's uncle may be involved in the kidnapping. Critics noted that Vanishing Act would appeal to a variety of readers; Gillian Engberg, writing in Booklist, remarked that "sports fans will be fascinated by the insider's view of the tournament," and School Library Journal contributor D. Maria LaRocco observed that "the mystery maintains a genuine level of suspense throughout the story."

In Cover-up: Mystery at the Super Bowl, Feinstein's third work featuring the intrepid teen reporters, Stevie and Susan Carol uncover a scandal on the eve of the big game. While Susan serves as the co-anchor of Kid-Sports, a cable television show, Stevie writes human interest stories for the Herald; they join forces to unravel a conspiracy hiding the fact that several players failed a steroid test. Leah Krippner praised the novel in School Library Journal, stating that "the teens are well crafted and the villains are extraordinary," Booklist reviewer Betty Carter commented of Cover-up that "Feinstein's ease with the sports milieu create[s] a glamorous background" for his tale.

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 1, 1987, Kim Gagne, review of A Season on the Brink.

Booklist, March 15, 1992, Mary Carroll, review of Running Mates, p. 1340; April 1, 1993, Wes Lukowsky, review of Play Ball: The Life and Troubled Times of Major League Baseball, p. 1386; May 15, 1995, Bill Ott, review of A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour, p. 1626; November 1, 1995, Wes Lukowsky, review of Winter Games, p. 457; October 1, 1996, Bill Ott, review of The Best American Sports Writing 1996, p. 316; November 15, 1996, Wes Lukowsky, review of A Civil War, Army vs. Navy: A Year inside College Football's Purest Rivalry, p. 565; November 15, 1997, Wes Lukowsky, review of A March to Madness: The View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference, p. 522; September 1, 1998, Bill Ott, review of A March to Madness, p. 55; March 1, 1999, Bill Ott, review of The Majors: In Pursuit of Golf's Holy Grail, p. 1100; September 15, 2000, Wes Lukowsky, review of The Last Amateurs: Playing for Glory and Honor in Division I, Basketball's Least-Known League, p. 186; July, 2002, Wes Lukowsky, review of The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever, p. 1794; May 1, 2003, Bill Ott, review of Open: Inside the Ropes at Bethpage Black, p. 1506; April 15, 2004, Gilbert Taylor, review of Caddy for Life: The Bruce Edwards Story, p. 1402; February 1, 2005, Bill Ott, review of Last Shot: A Final Four Mystery, p. 954; October 15, 2005, Bill Ott, review of Next Man Up: A Year behind the Lines in the NFL, p. 4; January 1, 2006, Wes Lukowsky, review of Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four, p. 21; September 1, 2006, Gillian Engberg, review of Vanishing Act, p. 115; April 15, 2007, Bill Ott, review of Tales from Q School: Inside Golf's Fifth Major, p. 4; September 1, 2007, Bill Ott, review of Cover-up: Mystery at the Super Bowl, p. 131; May 1, 2008, Wes Lukowsky, review of Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember, p. 5.

Business Week, April 5, 1993, David Greising, review of Play Ball: The Life and Troubled Times of Major League Baseball, p. 8.

Christian Science Monitor, August 23, 1991, Gregory M. Lamb, review of Hard Courts: Real Life on the Professional Tennis Tours, p. 12; April 23, 1993, Charles Fountain, review of Play Ball, p. 11; October 4, 1995, Keith Henderson, review of A Good Walk Spoiled, p. 15; December 6, 1996, Ross Atkin, review of A Civil War, Army vs. Navy, p. 13.

Commentary, September, 1993, Jay P. Lefkowitz, review of Play Ball, p. 61.

Economist, February 15, 1997, review of The Best American Sports Writing 1996, p. 15.

Globe & Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), April 10, 1999, review of The Majors, p. D11.

Horn Book, September-October, 2007, Betty Carter, review of Cover-up, p. 574.

Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 1997, review of A March to Madness, p. 1683; March 15, 1999, review of The Majors, p. 426; September 15, 2002, review of The Punch, p. 1363; January 1, 2005, review of Last Shot, p. 51.

Kliatt, September, 1997, review of A Good Walk Spoiled, p. 7.

Library Journal, May 1, 1993, Albert Spencer, review of Play Ball, p. 92; May 15, 1995, Terry Madden, review of A Good Walk Spoiled, p. 76; November 1, 1995, Rex E. Klett, review of Winter Games, p. 109; October 1, 1996, review of A Civil War, Army vs. Navy, p. 87; January, 1998, William O. Scheeren, review of A March to Madness, p. 109; April 15, 1999, Peter Ward, review of The Majors, p. 105; November 1, 2002, Jim Burns, review of The Punch, p. 97; April 15, 2004, Larry R. Little, review of Caddy for Life, p. 93.

Library Media Connection, April-May, 2005, Ruth Cox Clark, review of Last Shot, p. 77.

New York Times, August 25, 1991, Julie Cart, review of Hard Courts; December 22, 1991, Michael Kornfeld, review of Hard Courts; February 11, 1996, Charley Rosen, review of Winter Games; December 24, 1997, Richard Bernstein, review of A March to Madness; December 12, 2000, Michiko Kakutani, review of The Last Amateurs, p. B7.

New York Times Book Review, May 10, 1992, Marilyn Stasio, review of Running Mates, p. 23; April 4, 1993, Roger Noll, review of Play Ball, p. 24; June 11, 1995, Michael Bamberger, review of A Good Walk Spoiled; February 11, 1996, Charley Rosen, review of Winter Games, p. 22; November 3, 1996, Michael Lichtenstein, review of A Civil War, Army vs. Navy, p. 18; March 22, 1998, David Davis, review of A March to Madness, p. 16; February 28, 1999, review of A Marchto Madness, p. 24; May 2, 1999, Dave Anderson, review of The Majors, p. 16.

People, June 19, 1995, Tony Chiu, review of A Good Walk Spoiled, p. 36; March 16, 1998, Alex Tresniowski, review of A March to Madness, p. 34.

Publishers Weekly, March 2, 1992, review of Running Mates, p. 52; April 24, 1995, review of A Good Walk Spoiled, p. 52; September 25, 1995, review of Winter Games, p. 46; September 16, 1996, review of A Civil War, Army vs. Navy, p. 61; October 14, 1996, review of The Best American Sports Writing 1996, p. 78; December 1, 1997, review of A March to Madness, p. 38; March 22, 1998, David Davis, review of A March to Madness, p. 16; March 29, 1999, review of The Majors, p. 76; October 23, 2000, review of The Last Amateurs, p. 71; April 28, 2003, review of Open, p. 60; April 5, 2004, review of Caddy for Life, p. 58; April 19, 2004, Daisy Maryles, "Remembering the Caddy," p. 18; January 24, 2005, review of Last Shot, p. 244; August 15, 2005, review of Next Man Up, p. 53; January 9, 2006, review of Last Dance, p. 50; August 7, 2006, review of Vanishing Act, p. 59.

School Library Journal, January, 1992, Dino Vretos, review of Hard Courts, p. 145; August, 1993, Judy Sokoll, review of Play Ball, p. 206; January, 2005, Gerry Larson, review of Last Shot, p. 128; October, 2006, D. Maria LaRocco, review of Vanishing Act, p. 154; December, 2007, Leah Krippner, review of Cover-up, p. 126.

Sporting News, July 3, 1995, Steve Gietschier, review of A Good Walk Spoiled, p. 7; November 18, 1996, Steve Gietschier, review of A Civil War, Army vs. Navy, p. 8.

Sports Illustrated, October 14, 1991, Ron Fimrite, review of Hard Courts, p. 8; February 23, 1998, Charles Hirshberg, review of A March to Madness, p. A27; March 22, 1999, Walter Bingham, review of The Majors, p. R26; November 13, 2000, Charles Hirshberg, review of The Last Amateur, p. R16; November 14, 2005, Charles Hirshberg, "Stress Management: John Feinstein's Season with the Baltimore Ravens Gives an Intimate Look at the Pressure of NFL Life," p. Z4.

Time, September 2, 1991, John Skow, review of Hard Courts, p. 69.

Voice of Youth Advocates, April, 1998, review of Winter Games, p. 41.

Wall Street Journal, April 23, 1993, Frederick C. Klein, review of Play Ball, p. A12; July 26, 1995, Frederick C. Klein, A Good Walk Spoiled, p. A10; April 9, 1999, review of The Majors, p. W10; November 10, 2000, Larry Platt, review of The Last Amateurs, p. W8.

Washington Monthly, December, 2000, David Plotz, review of The Last Amateurs, p. 52.

Washington Post, November 28, 1988, Robert D. Novak, review of A Season Inside.

ONLINE

National Public Radio Web site,http://www.npr.org/ (November 1, 2008) "John Feinstein."

Random House Web site,http://www.randomhouse.com/ (November 1, 2008) interview with Feinstein.