TOM's Talks | John Feinstein

the Brink. During the early weeks of the NBA hiatus, I found myself reading one of John's books about college basketball in the Patriot League, The Last Amateurs, and that was from twenty years ago. In addition, John has been put in out daily anecdotes from his long career on social media. That's what prompted me to reach out to John. Here's our conversation. Welcome to another edition of Tom's Talks

and a great treat. Today we're joined by the author John Feinstein, authored thirty five books, longtime columnists in Washington with The Post and John a great treat. How are you doing during this most unusual time? Well, Tom, first of all, thanks for having me. Overall, we're doing very well. Although it's raining here and looks like it's going to rain all day, which my nine year old daughter will

be very unhappy about. But I have a new young adult mystery coming out in What's Today The Two Weeks. I started writing them about fifteen years ago. They're all in sports settings. Obviously, interestingly, most of them are set in Philadelphia and involved kids from Philadelphia. And the reason for that is Philly's my favorite sports town. And I'm not saying that because I'm on with you. I've written that for years. I love the Pileester more than any

arena in college basketball. I love the fact that Washington fans, who are the greatest front runners in history, look down at Philly fans, who are actually sports fans. They support their teams win or lose. So this book is set in Philadelphia. It's called Game Changers. It involves a couple of sixth graders, both playing basketball, one on the boys team at school, one on the girls team, and they're good friends. They run into different issues. It's the second

in the series. The first one was a soccer setting and the girl was being denied the chance to play on the boys team, which still does happen in twenty twenty on occasion, as we know. And nonfiction, I'm working on a book about race in Sports, which I actually started about eight months ago, right at the start of this year. I've always thought that race is the elephant in the room in sports and in our society, and

we've certainly seen that since May twenty fifth. I had no idea that tragedy was going to occur when I started the book, but the pandemic has sort of set my recording back a little bit. But I've been able to, you know, do zoom interviews with people in phone interviews, and I hope to get back out sometime in the not too distant future to continue the reporting because I think for me it's a very important book. Absolutely, I want to get back into the children's books at a moment.

But let's pick up on that, and I guess the line would be, what's a takeaway? But in the fact that you're still writing the book on race and sports's what's a theme? Like? What spurred that idea for you? And what should we know as we get ready for this book to be published down the road. Well, that's a good question. What what spurred me really was being around sports and race since the seventh grade, when I was the only white guy on an all black back

then we said black junior high school basketball team. And I learned then from my teammates how different their lives were from mine, because I wasn't walking in their shoes. And I've sort of tracked that throughout my reporting career, but a couple of things really spurred it. You might remember when Donovan McNabb came here to Washington, there was an incident where Mike Shanahan yanked him late from a

game in Detroit midway through that season. He'd taken every snap and Rex Grossman came in fumbled on the first play and that Donoican Sue picked the ball up, ran into the end zone. Game over. But Shanahan, rather than saying, you know, I had a gut feeling about Rex or Donovan wasn't playing very well, which he wasn't that day, came out with this weird thing about, well, I didn't know if Donovan was in good enough shape to run back to back plays. It's an eleven year NFL veteran.

Then the next day he said, well, I didn't know if Donovan knew our two minute drill well enough. And then the following week there was an anonymous story one of those infamous anonymous Stories of Today's World on the ESPN that Mike and Kyle Shanahan had to cut their playbook in half for Donovan when he got there guy quarterback the team into the Super Bowl. I don't think I had that wrong. And I went on television the next day and I attacked the Shanahans and I said

that this was racial coding. That's what the words I used. And we're going back to the sixties and seventies, when the stereotype was that Blacks weren't smart enough to play quarterback, weren't the leaders to play quarterback, weren't in shape a lot of the time. I mean it was so anyway, long story short, I was attacked in the local media and by some of the national media, and it stuck with me that here we are in twenty ten at the time, and people are still trying to stereotype African

American quarterbacks. You remember the Rush Limbaugh incident back in two thousand and three right there in Philly, And so that stuck with me. And then when I was I did a book on playing quarterback in the NFL three years ago, and one of the guys I worked with was Doug Williams, who, as you know, was the first African American to win a Super Bowl as a quarterback.

And when the draft happened that year, a couple of days later, I said to Doug, if the Shaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes were white, where would they have gone in the draft. Doug is one of the bright guys I've ever met in sports. People miss it sometimes because it's got a big Southern accent and we stereotype that too. And he looked at me and he said, before Trubisky. And I said, Trubisky went second, and he said exactly.

And then, of course, the next year was the whole Lamar Jackson fin where all the experts wanted to move him to wide receiver or running back, and we know how that worked out. Four white guys drafted in the top ten that year. Lamar didn't go to the last pick of the first round. And what it took an African American general manager, as he knew, some him to take him. So all of that stuck in my head. I've known John Thompson, the great Georgetown coach, for years.

We've discussed this issue, and I always wanted to do the book, and I finally found a publisher. Five publishers turned down this idea, which I take as a good sign because five publishers turned down Season on the Brink. So I finally found a publisher willing to pay me to do the book, and I've been working on it ever since. Now. I don't know. I mean, I know a little bit about the book industry. My late departed brother was an editor in New York for a number

of houses. But John Feinstein doesn't have the same publisher for each and every one of his books. Well, no, although I have had publishers long term. My first book was published by McMillan. My advanced Season on the Brink was seventeen thousand, five hundred dollars. After the success of Season on the Brink, there was, I'm happy to say, a bidding war for my second book, and as it turned out, Random House came in with the highest bid. I knew the editor who was bidding on the book,

so I was happy to go there. I stayed there for a while. There was a change at the top of Random House, so I moved a little Brown, stayed a little Brown for I don't know fifteen books, and then ended up at Double Day for a while, and now I'm back with Little Brown, with the guy who was my editor for years and years there. So it

actually worked out very well. But writers do move around because, especially nowadays, because publishers are just scared to death to spend money on anything that isn't Danielle Steele or John Grisham, and even Daniel Steele and John Grisham are making less in this climate. But it's not as if I can't get a contract. It's just that in the old days, for example, I'll stop in a minute. But when I wanted to do Civil War, which was my book on the Army Navy rivalry, my editor was very skeptical. My

agent was very skeptical. There was no one famous in the book. Army and Navy don't compete for national championships anymore. And I just said, look, I want to do it, and they said, look, we trust you. Go ahead and do it. Nowadays, no matter what the book is, the editor has to go to the sales staff and get the sales staffs approval. And the sales staff always said, once comps comparable books, so they can look it up

and see how they sold. Well. What I always say is a Salespeople don't know what makes a good story number one and number two. If they've been looking for comps for Season on the Brink or a good walk spoiled, those books never would have been published. That's right. But that's what it's like today. Well, I'll say this on behalf of so many of us, that your brand is like a good wine, no matter what the vintage. You pull it off the shelf and you know you're going

to get a good read. You're so good at telling stories like that Army Navy book that you spoke of. You know you're able to spend time with these young people, and you know, part of the reason we're visiting is this summer I was reading The Last Amateurs and that stories from twenty years ago about the Patriot, and clearly as a basketball book, so I'm interested, but I'm reading about kids that went to Bucknell, and whether I pick it up four days later or whatever, it's still interesting.

So I mean that in the most complimentary ways, and you're able to visit that you're telling human stories and that, in part is what makes it compelling. Well, Tom, I appreciate that. And The Last Amateurs is another book that my editor and my agent didn't want me to do and it ended up on the best seller list, and as you said, I think it still holds up pretty well today, and it was great fun to do, to

say the least. I mean a lot of times, this book that I'm working on, the Black Athletes in Sports book, isn't for fun. It's because I think it's important. But sometimes I do a book because I think it'll be fun. My last nonfiction book, The Back Roads to March, was basically me going to all every mid major I could think of and picking my spots and writing about kids who play for the love of the game. Cliche though it might be, and that was pure joy that that

book was just pure joy from start to finish. I loved every second of it. Other books are are more work, but I always try to think is this a story? Because you're right, I think of myself as a storyteller. And I was talking to some people recently and they were talking about how to promote something I've been working on, and well, should we focus on basketball or should we

focus on golf? And I should you don't focus on a sport because what I do is I try to tell stories about people who happen to be in sports, and it doesn't matter whether they're basketball players or coaches, golfers, tennis players, baseball players, football players. I've written about all of them at some point, and my approach always I learned this from Bob Woodward when I worked for him

on the metro staff at the Washington Post. He once sent me that I was a night police reporter and I wrote a three paragraph story one night about a car crash in northeast Washington, and I came in the next morning. Nobody died. That's why it was only three paragraphs. Unfortunately, that's the way news is. But I came in the next morning and he said to me there might be a really good story there. And I said, what do

you mean. He said, why don't you go to the hospital talk to the three people in the accident and find out exactly what was going on in their lives at three o'clock this morning. So I did. In those days, you could just walk into a hospital and say I'm looking for John Feinstein and they'd say he's in room

six ten. And I did, and as it turned out, the couple that had been hit when the other car crossed the median they were holding hands in praying because they just found out a few hours earlier that she was pregnant with their first child. He worked a night shift, and they were driving to Baltimore to let their parents

know that they were going to be grandparents. And the guy who hit them was a Howard University law student who had been pulling an all nighter to study for an exam and was driving home to take a shower and get a couple hours sleep before the test at eight am, and fell asleep at the wheel. Story ended up on page one, And what Bob said to me after that was, you don't have to be rich and famous, John to have a story to tell. And I've sort

of carried that with me forever. Whether it was a Civil War, the Last Amateurs, my book on PGA tour Q School, my book on minor league baseball, all these guys have stories to tell. And I think, honestly, the most boring person on the PGA tourist Tiger Woods, except when he's playing golf, because he's the greatest golfer of all time. I'll due respect to Jack Nicholas, but when he gets outside the ropes and starts spewing cliches. I have no interest. I want to watch him play golf.

I don't want to hear him talk because he's not going to say anything. We'll have more of my conversation with John Feinstein after this. In this time of social distancing, Nova Care Rehabilitation is offering physical therapy from the comfort and safety of your home. Through their new tel a Rehab program. Novacare will virtually bring their services to you so you may heal, build strength, and get back to

the things you love. Tell a rehab let you easily connect with one of Novacare's licensed therapists through web based technology that is hippo compliant. For more information, visit novacare dot com. Now back to my chat with John Feinstein. You've touched on like ten things I want to speak to you about, including the Post and Woodward and Ben

Bradley and all that. But you said recently on Twitter that you know, and you've done so much with NPR and radio and all these television appear, the Golf Channel, all that stuff, but your most favorite thing is the books. And I know why because I mean the other you have deadline, certainly, but you have you know, people telling you and like you said, they're trying to form this opinion with the books. It's your idea. It's organic. You're

chasing down these stories. You probably certainly back in the day, we're able to, as you say, just drive around the back roads. Is that part of the appeal and uncovering and telling these people's stories. Yeah, you know. I when I was first at the post, my reputation was as somebody who always wrote too long. I was good on deadline, I could write fast. But I covered a Davis Cup final in nineteen eighty one, which was decided in the

final match John McEnroe versus Louis. No, it wasn't Saint Louis. It was Cincinnati. That was the famous vel under match that you're referencing. But mcinroe played Jose Louis Clerk for the Davis Cup one in five sets. It was great stuff and McEnroe and Clark belling at each other. And I called the desk. It was a Sunday, and I said how much space have I gotten? And the editor, a very good guy named George Minett, said twenty four inches,

which was pretty standard for game story. And I said, George, I can't write this in twenty four inches. There's no way, it's too dramatic. I said, I need at least forty and he said, that's fine, go ahead and write forty. We'll use the best twenty four. And that was kind of the story of my newspaper career and still is

to this day. But the best thing about writing books was A. I had no space limitations and b I really had the time to earn the trust of the people I was writing about and to be able to go. When I went to do Season on the Brink, I had lunch with Woodward, who's been a mentor of mine as you can tell, for most of forty years, and Bob said, when you get back, if you've done your job, you should be able to write from inside Bob Knight's head.

You should be able to say to the reader, I know what he was thinking at this moment when he said this, or did this, or took this particular action in practice or a game, whatever. And I've always kind of used that as a watchword for my reporting, and it worked out pretty well in Season on the Brink, as you know, and I've tried to do that, and to me, the thing I love about the books. The other thing what Ward said to me was your goal when you write a book should be to know more

about the subject than anybody on earth. You won't, but the closer you come, the better the book will be. And that's the books have given me the opportunity to really try to climb inside the minds of a lot of people in sports, some very famous and some not famous. One thing that in your role as a newspaperman and a calumnist, and it reminds me of the late Phil Jasner, who covered the Sixers for so wonderful yep, great man

for the Philadelphia Daily means. I used to joke that, you know, I followed I followed the Sixers through Phil so during the summer. But Phil had and this was clever and it was smart. But after a player was available, even a coach, he would then pull them aside. No, he was getting like one little thing for his story.

It was a separate, one on one. And the reason I bring it up is because you're afforded this opportunity, certainly as an author in the books, as you say, with the luxury of time, and to make the relationship. In my role, I'm the seventy six Ers play by play announcer and players are made available and we all go to the scrum, if you will. But for the

most part, I'm trying to give them space. I get to know players quite frankly more when their players when their careers are done and they see me in a hallway and they're like, ah, and then we relive all the times and I kind of ord that I did. But as a writer, and even today, like somebody will make a request of the PR department and then they get to sit down with the guy I'm doing. Get me wrong, I get the one on one every now

and then. But you guys, really and that's to become best friends with Davis Love and you mentioned Doug Williams. That's almost like a little There are certain advantages, certainly of being with the team, but that's something as a writer that you guys have been able to employ over the years. Correct. Yeah, absolutely, you know. I never ask a question in a press conference for two reasons. One because if I do, if it's a good question and it gets good answer, I'm sharing it with the room

and I'm selfish. And also, I know, especially at this point in my career, when I've been around for a while, I can probably get to the guy alone in the hallway, like you said, after he comes off the podium, and ask that question one on one and get the answer and have the answer be exclusive to me. Now, obviously in the books it's different because I have long sitdowns

with people you mentioned Davis loved. When I started working on A Good Walk Spoiled, I had just done a tennis book, and tennis players are the least accessible athletes in the world, partly because of the rules in tennis where we can't go in locker rooms or even player lounges most of the time, but also because they become stars so young and they're taught you don't need the

print media. I still remember talking to Bill Shelton, the late Bill Shelton, who was Andre Agassi's agent, and I was Agasy at that point in his life, was a rising young star and never did anything with the media other than required post match press conferences. And I said, with all money Andrea is making from selling product to the public, doesn't he owe the public more than ten

minute post match press conferences. And Bill Shelton said to me, we reached the public through our commercials, and I think that's the approach. That's the approach Tiger Woods has certainly taken through the years. He had the reputation as being the boy next door right through the commercials until we found out different. So it can be a struggle. But with the books, as I said, I get to sit

down with guys for a great at great length. When I first Davis Love was my first interview on A Good Walk Spoiled and I was coming off the tennis book where everything was a tooth pull, and we were about two hours into the interview and I said to him, how you sat on time? And David said, well, you said you were writing a book. So I just blocked off the whole afternoon and I said, oh my god, I've died and gone to heaven. And that's the way Good Walk Spoiled was. Most of the players were just

unbelievably cooperative. It's not the same now the agents are more involved. It's tough. When I did my book on the Ryder Cup a few years ago, the first major some of the well, the best example is Ricky Fowler, who's a great kit terrific hit. His agent is three of the worst people I've ever met, not one three, and he kept telling me Ricky has never done an interview longer than thirty minutes and he's not going to start now. And I kept saying, Sam, there's a first

for everything. You know why, and because that's the way it is, you know, because he was the agent, he was in control. Right when I finally got to sit down with Ricky thirty five minutes in, Sam walked over, put out his hand and said, well, thanks John and Ricky God blessed him. Looked at him and said, Sam, I'm fine. You know, but when I did a good walk spoiled. I didn't deal with agents. I just went in the locker room, introduced myself to guys. Some of

them were basketball fans, which helped and set up interviews. Nowadays, you often have to go through an agent. And again, I've been around long enough, you get it done. Jordan's speech agent took a while set me up. We sat down and Jordan, who's such a terrific young man, at the end of the first interview, of that first interview, I said to him, I said, you know, I'm gonna want to circle back to you because it's a year out from the Rider Cup that I'm doing these interviews

and he said. He said, yeah, fine, just take my cell number so you don't have to deal with Jay. God blessed Jordan's speed. But I have been lucky, and you're right about the interviews. I think that that interview rooms are a pox. I mean, when I covered college football and basketball as a young reporter at the Post, you go to practice every day, You walk in the locker room before practice, talk to guys, talk to him

after practice, watch practice. Nowadays, you need a court order to do any of that, And I feel sorry for the younger generation covering college sports in particular nowadays. I when I was doing my book on Mike Schevsky, Dean Smith, and Jim Valvano, I was down at Dude because sorry the legends, Yes, thank you. I was down at Dude for several days to spend some time with Shashevsky. And I walked into practice one day and found the only unlocked door because the door wouldn't lock, and I walked in.

I took about four steps and eight managers jumped me. You can't come in here, and I said, just as coach k it's fine, and they turned and Mike said, yeah, it's fine. Although he said he was tempted to tell the managers to carry me out just for fun. But that's the way it is nowadays. And uh, you know, people often criticize younger reporters for not having the access that guys like me had coming up. It's not their fault. It's it's not their fault. It's just the way it

is today. And as the readers and the consumers, we're kind of the ones that suffered because you're not exactly You spend your life watching TV or and hearing sound bites, right because you guys coached up to talk. You know, the Crash Davis speech nine touch points and one of them is from your alma mater. When Kyrie was with Cleveland, he'd had an association with Chris Collins, who was the assistant coach that recruited him to Duke, and of courts

Doug who was there all the time. And so I started talking to and of course I'm interviewing him, and I one half a question. I got the rap sign from the Cleveland and Kyrie's like, I'm fine, And it was so awkward and abrupt it kind of ended the deal. And I should have just ran through the stop sign and kept going, But I want to go back to the tennis deal because I remember when you kind of discovered that about the access, and it wasn't always that way.

I spent time with the Austrian so again, one of my first stops was in Charleston, and in Charleston, South Carolina, and they had a tour stop recently with tennis, but at the time it was people on the way up and legends people on the way down. So the legends were like Roy Emerson and I said a with John Alexander and Marty Reason and all of those guys were so accessible and just regular guys. And Arthur or Ash is one of my all time heroes. And then on

the flip side, you mentioned Agassi. He was playing and at the time it was like fifteen on the USTs tour and that was where they had to garner the points and eventually try to get on the tour. And he was playing at a local club in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and I was a television reporter and I was going to shoot some video but really it didn't matter who you shot. I was going to do a live shot at six o'clock, but the guy who ran the club, Dave Berryman. He was a coach at the college.

Charleston said, Hey, Tom, you need to get out of here now. And it was like eleven in the morning. We're TV guys, we show up at three. I went out there and he had I guess he had the rat tail and I've never seen a ball hit like that before. And then I said, hey, would you stick around and do a live shot? And so he was probably staying somewhere on those grounds at that complex, and he came back and did a live shot with me

all those years later. And part of how I got into TV was, you know, Chicago never really had a tour stop. There would be, but the TV thing was I interviewed Tracy Austin in front of this local television guy and I got an internship and off I went. But back to Chicago. Niles, Illinois had like a club. The tournaments were held at racket clubs. This is in the seventies and then I think it was like the tam O Shanner and my dad from the tennis club with all of his buddies, they all went and for me,

it was a big slip. It was like one hundred miles away and it was a night Tom Ocker won the tournament. It was a bunch of matches and they had set up bleachers on the subsequent courts and made made a center court. And at one point I left and just to go to the bathroom. And it turns out it was in the men's locker room and who had just finished his mask? But John Nukam was sitting there and he was having a Canna Budweiser. And I

was like the autograph guy. Not to say I didn't get an autograph, but I'd more rather visit with the player and you know, get into a I love. Well, that's what happened. And I was probably like thirteen or whatever, and my dad had a circle back and like, does everything all right? And then he saw that I was visiting with and he's like he came back and told but he's fun. He's yeah, well, And that was a

different era. Bud Collins, who was my tennis reporting mentor and who I dedicated co dedicated my tennis book to hard courts. Um tells stories about in the sixties when he was the first print reporter to cross over and do television, when the what was in the US Pro event at Longwood outside Boston was televised by the local PBS channel, and Bud did it alone, and he tell told stories about, you know, just sitting around having a beer with the players after they played, and traveling with

them and always having access to them. When tennis became a big money sport. After it it went uh, you know, the pros were allowed back into the into the major championships which they were banned from for many years, and it became a big money sport. And McEnroe and Connors and you mentioned nucom who was part of that too, and Gijamo Vilas and Rod Labor who won the won

the Grand Slam in nineteen sixty nine. When it became a big money sport, the agents took over, and tennis, unfortunately is like the NC Double A. There's no real leadership. There's no commissioner who makes rules and says you will do it this way, and so the agents run the sport. And the agents basically convinced tournament directors to close locker rooms to the media, to close player lounges to the media. I mean, I remember once It's Stratton Mountain, Vermont, walking

into the player lounge with McEnroe. We were going to sit down after he played a match and talk. John was always great with me. I still one of my favorite athletes. And we're walking in and the guard stops us and says, no, he can't come in here, he's media. And John said, no, it's okay, he's with me, and the guard said it doesn't matter, he can't come in here.

And John being John, looked at the guy and said, why don't you go find Jim Westhall, who was the tournament director, and ask him if he wants me to play the final tomorrow, because if my friend can't come in here right now, I'm just gonna go home. So it's your call. And of course the guy back down. But that's the way tennis was. Everything was a battle

to get access. In the contrast of Davis Love was a French player named Henri Lakhan who was not a bad guy and a good player, French Open finalists one year. But when I was doing when I'm doing a book and I don't know someone, I will introduce myself. I will say, you know, this is the book I'm writing. And almost always the first question is how much time do you need? And you learn after a while you lie, you don't say two hours. So with the tennis players,

I would say twenty thirty minutes. So I said to La Khan, twenty thirty minutes. He screamed, what no one has ever spoken to me for that long? And you know, like with Ricky Fowler and his agent Sam McNaughton, And that's the way it was covering tennis, and still that way covering tennis unfortunately. And you know, Roger Federer, I think my sense, because I don't really know him, is a bright, wonderful guy. But has anybody ever written anything

really in depth about him. People light about the fact that he's got four kids, He's won twenty majors, he's always gracious in defeat. But I don't feel as if I really know Roger Federer. I don't feel as if I really know Raphael only Dollar, Novak Djokovic, and they might be the three greatest players of all time. And with the exception of Tiger Woods, everybody in golf is

an open book. And I don't mean that as a pun but and that's why tennis really one of the reason why tennis is essentially a dead sport in this country. People pay attention during Wimbledon people pay attention during the US Open. They don't pay attention during Australia because it's in the middle of the night, And they don't play that much attention during Paris because the matches are so damn long. The other reason is because we haven't had

a great American player since Andy Roddick. But it goes back beyond that to the fact that the media has basically been ignored by the agents who run the sport. I'll keep it just for two more questions, and I think it's so good. I could go on and on. But Army Navy and again, it's been hosted in Philadelphia for years. Typically the seventy sixers are on the road for you know, the obvious reasons marking sports complex. But the one year we've had two lockouts and now a

pandemic in my tenure. But ninety eight we had a lockout. I was able to go to the game and it was at the bed. It was the year that the stands collapsed. Yeah right, yeah, But what an experience like I honestly, this is one of the single best sports events I've ever been to and just the you know what it is, tell us about that, why is it special. The two academies that pop, the circumstance, the tricks they play, just the passion. It's awesome. Tell me more, Well, the

passion is very important. But the reason I find the game unique. And people ask me all the time, if you could only go to one sporting event every year, what would it be, And they Wimbledon, the Masters, the World Series, Super Bowl Finals, Final four. My ANSWER's Army Navy. And the reason is the young men who play in the game. You have to be extraordinary to go to one of those military academies. And when I did a

Civil War I went through days with the cadets. I went through days with the midshipman to find out what their lives were like. To live that life as a midshipman or a cadet academically and militarily, and then be asked to compete against Division one opponents in football is amazing that they can do that. I still remember Bob Sutton, who was Armies coach when I was doing the book, saying it was players, Look, fellas, I know that for you, unlike other D one athletes, the easiest part of your

day is practice. For other D one athletes, the hardest part of their day is practice, but the guys we're playing against don't care about that. So you have to come to practice every single day ready to give everything you have left because they're up at five thirty six every morning, and they do have to actually go to class,

and they get military assignments during the school year. And I've been fortunate to know many of the guys who play at Army and Navy well because in addition to doing the book, I did radio color on the Navy Radio Network for fourteen years and now I do stuff with the Army Radio Network. I think that makes me

one of a kind in that sense. I'm also, I believe, the only person who has ever had access to both the Army and Navy locker rooms before and during an Army Navy game who wasn't President of the United States. And I kind of like that. But these guys, they're special people. Forget their football ability, there's special people, but and they do bring such passion and when you're in that stadium and you've been there, well, you know, we've talked.

The national anthem is a big topic right now. Obviously I have never you know, I've been you and I have both heard the national anthem played before sporting events a million times, and you sort of sort of comes

right past you. Most of the time. Today is different, of course, But when they play the national anthem at the Army Navy game and you look to your right and you see four thousand cadets go snap their hands into salute position, you look to your left and you see four thousand and shipmen snap their hands into salute position, and you realize that all eight thousand of these kids have volunteered to die for our country if necessary. You're not a hero if you die for your country. Because

you die for your country. You're a hero because you're willing to die for your country. And all eight thousand of them have already done that by going to those two A academies. And if you don't get a chill seeing those salutes during the anthem, something's wrong. And then after the game when they play the Alma Maters. It's funny because my wife, I'm always on the field after the game and I stand with the teams during the Alma Maters, and my wife will always send me a

text and it says, are you crying yet? And when it's over, I'll text back and I'll say, Okay, I'm I've stopped crying, so now I can text you that. And when I did the games on a Navy radio network, when they played the Alma Maters, I would always say to my partner, Bob Soci, who's now the voice of the New England Patriots, don't ask me a question right after the Alma Maters end because I'm not going to

be able to answer. It gets me every single time, Todlin, and it's it's it's an extraordinary event in itself, but when you understand who those kids are and what they're going to be asked to do a few months from now, the seniors, it just makes the event. I've covered it now in one form or another every year since nineteen ninety and it never fails to give me chills. That's awesome. One thing about the competition, and based on everything you just said, this doesn't really matter, but I had gone

to every Eagles home game that year. I had a pass. Ray Rhodes was the coach. The Eagles actually weren't that good, but it was NFL football and just one real other like aside. But at the VET you said, where I sat like George Young would be right by. I'm like, oh my god, it's the generalmenter of the Giants. But anyway, so, having watched all that competition, when I went to the Army Navy game, and there'd be like a gap off tackle in the NFL, that thing's closed. And that's like

a one yard game. In the Army Navy game, that was a fullback dive for like a fifty eight yard touchdown. Okay, the slow it's a little slower, but now it's certainly slower than the NFL. But I do get upset when people imply, like when Trump was at the game if years ago and said, well, the quality of football isn't very good, but it's still Army Navy, And I was like, what the hell do you know about college football? Gabies beaten Notre Dame four times in the last twelve years.

That should never happen. Army won three straight bowl games against very good D one teams. And are there a lot of NFL players on the team on the field. No, partly because they won't get the chance, but there are also there are some very good football players who've worked their butts off to be as good as they are. And Jim Candeloup, who was the Army captain in the year I did the book, said to me one time, if you can't play for Notre Dame, the next best

thing is to play against Notre Dame. And you won't you Dick for Meal. The old Eagles coach, of course, did the game on television for a couple of years, and he said, the Army Navy game is the only game where you'll see all twenty two players down down on the opening kickoff because they go after each other so hard. So obviously what you were watching in the NFL or anything close to it, but it was still pretty damn good football. Absolutely, And now I bring up

a season on the brink. I was just looking at it the other day. I have all your books, but I paid probably a total of about forty two bucks because I go to all Powells and all these books around. Don't be offended, but interesting. I was going over the introduction the other day, and you had a then fifty eight year old Al McGuire write the introduction and Bloom, another New Yorker and of course a great coach at Marquette,

the seventy seven NCAA champion. But he talked about what I fear for Bob is that some referee or somebody an administrator will take him down based on past history, which is ironically exactly he foretold the future. So that, but being in assembly Hall and being at those practices, I imagine there were times it was incredibly awkward that you saw that intense and how he treated people. Just speak to that and sees it on the break what it did for your career, I mean, what a incredible thing.

I watched Indiana basketball. I grew up in Illinois the whole seventy sixth season, the entire season before in nineteen eighty one an assembly hall, I went and watched Isaiah. I was a college student in the Mideast regional before they came to Philadelphia, so I was a cute I had just finished college and a little bit of college bath. I devoured this book and like three days, tell me we're about that whole experience. Well, a couple of things.

First of all, they played Indiana play Saint Joseph's in that regional final in eighty one in an assembly hall, Jimmy Lynham's team that upset to Paul. But about al for a second, al it was always the smartest guy in the room, never felt the need to tell you he was the smartest guy in the room, unlike a lot of guys who aren't and still tell you they

are right. We both met a lot of those. But I remember Al did four Gang Game on NBC the year I was doing the book, and every time he would come to town, Bob would organize dinner because he looked up to and he would he would his assistance and some friends and I would be there. And the last time Out came to town, he turned to Bob and me during dinner and he said, you know, this is kind of bittersweet for me. And we both said why, and he said, well, because once this book comes out

you're never going to speak to each other again. I didn't turn out quite that way, but we didn't speak to each other for eight years. And we both looked at him, said, well, what are you talking about? And he said, well, there's no way Bob's gonna like this book because John's too honest, and sure enough, yeah, he was right. Bob didn't speak to me for eight years after the book came out. He claimed it was because I left profanity in the book. I don't think that

was it. But because you know, saying Bob Knight used his profanity, he's like saying his son's gonna rise in the East tomorrow. But the other funny thing is I'm asked all the time, how did you get Knight to give you the access? And it's really a fairly simple story. I'd known him. I covered as Olympic team in eighty four and in eighty five. I actually was in Indiana the week he threw the chair. I wasn't there for the chair throw. I was there for the Illinois game

on Thursday night. I spent three full days with him, gave me total access for three days. Then he throws the chair after I'd gone home. So when I wrote the story the next day, I said in the story, look, there's no excuse for throwing a chair. Clearly it was unacceptable, but on a scale of one to ten, among the crimes being committed in college athletics today, it's probably about a three. And Night called me and he thanked me for telling both sides because it was like an eight

in story. And I said, well, Bob, I was able to tell both sides because you gave me so much access. And I really appreciate it, and he invited me to a dinner at the Final Four that he had in those days, again with coaches and buddies and pals. And that was when the Final Four was still civilized and was played in the late afternoon, so there was time to go to dinner after the games. And so I had this idea. I said, he's inviting me into his inner circle. What if I could get him to let

me do that for a year. I was twenty eight years old. I'd never written a book, but it sounded like a really good idea to me. So I went to the dinner and after dinner, I said, if you got a minute to talk? He said, sure, come on back to the room. He was rooming with the Great Pete Newell, his mentor, and Shishevsky was there because they were doing a clinic together the next day and they needed to discuss what they were going to do. So

Mike and Bob talked. I waited. I talked to Coach Newell, and finally I proposed the idea to him and he said, have you ever written a book? I said no, and he said, do you have a publisher? I said, Bob, it didn't make much sense to me to get a publisher until you said it was okay. And he said, well that was smart. And he said, yeah, if you can find a publisher. And as I mentioned before, five publishers rejected the book. But if you can find a publisher, sure,

come on out. It was that simple, Mike and I walked out the door. The minute the door closed, he at me and he said, are you out of your blanking mind? I said, what, I've been around him. I know what it's like. He said, no, you don't. You've been around him for a couple of days. You've never spent a whole winter with him. Well, you played for him for four years. He said, I needed to go to college. You've been to college. I said, you worked for him. He said I did. I needed a job.

You have a job. And I said, well, I'm gonna try to do it anyway. And of course I did. And at the end of the first week, after he had destroyed Darryl Thomas in the locker room, one of the I still have the tape of that, and I can't use the word that he used twenty three times in three minutes. Pretty sure I know what you're talking about. Yeah, and and and so I called Mike that night and it wasn't awkward, Tom, it was cringe worthy. I would stand in the corner of the locker room like this,

Oh God. Sometimes not all the time, but I called Mike and I said, Okay, now I know what you're talking about, because I mean that's where the title the book from season on the Brink, because we were on the brink of something insane virtually every day, right, And yes, the book did change my career. Just put it mildly, that's right. It was awesome. One last thing because you know you mentioned whatever your lunches and dinners, but the Red Hour back book trying to talent Washington, NBC Tuesdays.

And I have so many regrets. But one is I never sat down with Wooden or even met John Wooden, and I grew up a Notre Dame fan. And the other is and you weren't getting around Red. You know, I was never at the Garden, but you weren't getting around Red at that time that what is now the TD Garden. But there were a few times we were close. But you spend so much time with Red Hour back I mean, really one of the icons all the time.

Of pro basketball. That was a tremendous book. And I know you had to be kind of invited into that circle if you will, to be there, But what was that experience, like, well, you're right about being invited because Red was very close to Bob Knight and Dan Shaughnessy, my friend from Boston, the Globe columnists, I'm sure you know, wanted to do a biography of Red, and when he approached Red, Red said, yeah, I'll do it, just don't do to me what that blank blank did to Bob Knight,

because I didn't know Redd at that point. This was early nineties, and of course Dan couldn't wait to call me and tell me what Redd had said. So I was under the assumption that Red hated my guts and we were doing it. We accidentally got thrown into a green room together at a local Washington, DC TV station, and Red was was very convivial. When I walked over, I said, Coach John Feinstein, it's so nice to meet you.

And we sat down and he said, so, how's your buddy doing, And I said, I said, my buddy said yeah, Bob Knight, And I said, well, coach, we're not exactly buddies. Anymore he and Red said, yeah, he hates you, and I said, yeah, he does, but he doesn't hate you. He loves you. And Red said, well that's because I never wrote a book on him. And it struck me

that Red was being nice to me. And I knew from Jack Avance, who was then the athletic director at George Washington, which is where Red went to school, about these Chinese lunches every Tuesday, and I thought, boy, that could be a cool column if I could go to lunch. So I called Jack and Jack said, called Morgan Wooten, the great high school coach who was close friends with Red. Get him to ask for you. So Morgan did call me back and said Red says, come ahead. So I

went to the lunch. I wrote the column, and then I was invited to come to lunch on a weekly basis, and I never missed. And the other guys in the lunch because Red would sit there and tell stories, and the other guys at the lunch kept saying to me, you got to write a book on this. These stories have to be recorded for posterity. Well, I didn't want Red to think that I was coming to lunch because

I was looking for a book. So I kept not asking, so finally one day turning me at lunch and he said, are we going to do a book or not typical Red? And I said, well, if you want to, and he said, yeah, let's do it. It'll be fun. And it was great fun. It was called let me tell you his Story, because

that's why Red started most of his stories. And I remember thinking, I've said this to people for many years that when I think of my career, I realized that I get paid to do things that other people would pay to do. And as I was sitting there listening to tell Red tell stories, it hit me very hard that that was in fact true. How many people would pay god knows how much to just sit for an hour with Red, hour back and listen to him tell story? Right? And I did it for months and wrote a book

and got paid, which is ridiculous, it was. And the other part of that book was Red called Bob night and said, look, I'd really like you to talk to John for the book, and Bob would do anything for Red. So we were on the phone together, Bob and I for two hours, and at the end of the two hours, I said, Bob, I know you did this for Red, but I want you to know how much I appreciate you're doing it. And he said, no, John, I should thank you. And I said, why should you thank me?

And he said, because it's impossible to do Red a favor, and you let me do a favor for him. So he got it. It was very cool, right, And Red didn't get fried Chinese food. He got steamed. I'm impressed with that, Like, how could anybody you know owned a Chinese restaurant for a while in Boston. Yeah, he did. He I mean to say that he loved Chinese food is like saying I love to eat right well, I around my house, I say, let me tell you a story, and the kids and my wife growing like, oh my god.

I loved this so much. And honestly, I mean, if there's a chance, like sometime down the road, I'll give you a few I'll give you eight months, but I would love to have you back and talk about you know, your Mount Rushmore, the Jimmy Murray's, the Red Smiths of the Fords, of writing, what it's like to write a column, and your current book. So John, thank you so much. We appreciate it. Best of luck, and you've been great through all these years and we appreciate your time. Tom

My pleasure. Feel free to call anytime and thanks for having me all right, John, thank you. Thanks for listening to Tom's talks with me Tom McGinnis on the seventy six Ers Podcast Network. Check for new episodes every weekend