RIP John Feinstein

I got “Forever’s Team” off a cheap used book rack in some forgotten store when I was a poor copy desker and throughly enjoyed it.

“The Last Amateurs” is also a good read.

I’ve told this on here before, but I always loved this one story he told of his early career at the Washington Post. It was during the days when the NFL Draft was held during the daytime; Feinstein was in the sports department and huge Redskins fan Ben Bradlee walked in and asked the SE, “Who did we draft?”

And Feinstein answered, “Hey Ben, I didn’t know the Washington Post owned a football team!”

Bradlee responded that if Feinstein didn’t like it, he could take a hike.

RIP

 

And this was before Feinstein had hit it big.

 

RIP to a great one.

I wish guys who are my age would quit keeling over. It's kinda depressing.

 

Loved his stuff and he was great on Kornheiser. Prickly sort whose book One on One might have been the most ego filled thing I’ve ever read.

 

He was on Sports Reporters back in the day with Bob Ryan and Dick Schapp. Appointment viewing when I was younger. He was a guest on a national show at the start of Covid, when games were being canceled.

 

On my shelves:

Forever's Team
Season on the Brink
A Season Inside
One on One
A March to Madness
The Legends Club
The Last Amateurs
Last Dance
A Good Walk Spoiled
The Majors
Open
Caddy For Life
A Civil War
Next Man Up

Five Banners is on loan to my mother - a Duke alum. Funny backstory to that one is I couldn't find out in a B&N in Manhattan the last time I was there, yet it was finally available across the back ditch from my house at a B&N a few days after I got back.

Also read one of his novels because a good friend of mine who is a longtime educator decided that was a good read for his class.

Suffice it to say this is a gut punch. Might go back and get some more of these, though I don't know when I'd make the time to finish them.

RIP good sir and Thank You.

 

"A Civil War" is a classic.

The brother of one of my friend's wives is prominent in "The Last Amateurs."

"Living on the Black" is outstanding, as is "Where Nobody Knows Your Name," about life in the minors. Coincidentally, I just saw that on the shelf in the library this morning.

"A Season Inside" has a lot on a young George Mason coach named Rick Barnes, and my alma mater as well. Very good read.

"Back Roads to March" is great, so many stories about low- to mid-major teams.

One of my favorite authors. RIP to a giant.

 

One of my favorite authors, although I hadn't read a book of his in a while. Ironically, I haven't read "Brink"; I think "Forever's Team" was the first one of his I read and enjoyed that. I also read "A Good Walk Spoiled" and "The Majors," making me care about a sport (golf), I generally don't have much use for. And then I was elated when he wrote one ("Play Ball") on my favorite sport, baseball (and wasn't a bit disappointed by that). He just had this knack for move seamlessly through whatever environment was the subject of the book, and took you along for the ride. RIP.

Oh, yeah, and I'll always remember Feinstein for one of the best comebacks I ever heard. Bob Knight, as everyone knows, wasn't pleased with "Season on the Brink," and he was quoted as calling Feinstein "a pimp and a whore." When Feinstein got wind of the quote, he replied, "I wish he'd make up his mind so I knew how to dress."

 

So, tonight I thumbed through my copy of "Forever's Team" (my second copy; the first one, bought at a dollar store somewhere around 1991, lost its cover several moves ago). This passage from the introduction -- in which he writes about learning of former Duke coach Bill Foster's heart attack following a game coaching at South Carolina -- gave me chills:

"It had been eight months since my father suffered a heart attack and I was familiar with the trauma that accompanied one."

 

Nice job by Forde. And this passage really stands out (in a good way) ...

As a columnist, he cherished the freedom to both praise and condemn—and his condemnations could be vicious. He could be a savage critic of almost everyone in charge of college sports. He ripped coaches, athletic directors, conference commissioners and NCAA presidents.

Feinstein was president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association from 1991–92, but in some ways he never gave up the gavel. He cared deeply about the association and remained active in most of its affairs—whether asked to participate or not. He was an absolute bull as an advocate for media access and seating at the NCAA tournament.

Feinstein was such a vociferous critic of the NCAA on those issues that it was occasionally necessary for whoever was the president of the organization at the time to smooth things over with NCAA officials behind the scenes. Feinstein didn’t do diplomacy on that front. Anything that inhibited the ability to tell an accurate and compelling story was intolerable to him.