USA TODAY International Edition
Access allows Feinstein to weave details into tales
INDIANAPOLIS – The first 48 hours or so have always been stressful.
As flights from Minneapolis to Chicago and then to Indianapolis wound John Feinstein through a time change and countless interviews early this month, he was watching Amazon and Twitter for early reviews. There was a tweet from Rory McIlroy.
“Great read,” it said. “Made me feel like I was in BOTH team rooms.”
And that was the highest compliment Feinstein could have asked for about his new book, The
First Major. This is book No. 35 for Feinstein, who has written fiction, children’s stories and sports classics such as A Good
Walk Spoiled, and A Season on the Brink, which covered Bob Knight’s 1985-86 season at Indiana University.
What made A Season on the Brink special, Feinstein will say, is the access he was granted by Knight. That’s the same thing he had at the 2016 Ryder Cup. Guys such as McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Davis Love — to name a few — let him inside.
So he did what he’s long done to tell these behind-the-scenes stories. He listened, observed. Did some interviews. But mostly, he disappeared.
“That’s exactly what you want him to say,” Feinstein said. “I was supposed to be inside.”
Feinstein sat down this month with
The Indianapolis Star for a question and answer session covering The First Major and A Season on the Brink.
Best-seller course work
Q: What do you want readers to know about your new book?
A: This is a book I’ve wanted to do since 1993, when I was researching A
Good Walk Spoiled. I went to the Ryder Cup at the Belfry that year. It was the first time I’d been, but it’s not like any other golf event.
You don’t see players behaving the way they behave at the Ryder Cup anywhere else … the emotion is just unique in the sport of golf.
I was lucky to be doing this book. It was a perfect storm because the Americans had to win. Europe was a little bit weaker because they had six rookies on their team. What I was luckiest about was the cooperation of the players.
The players let me take the reader inside the team. As with Knight, I was grateful for the access.
Q: Where did that access come from? Did you already know guys?
A: I’d known Davis Love since that 1993 Ryder Cup. I knew (Phil) Mickelson for years. And I always had a great relationship with McIlroy. I consider him a close friend. That’s why he tweeted, you know, he’s my friend.
Q: During these first couple days, are you watching Twitter for what guys say? Reading reviews? Is it nerve-racking?
A: Always. The only one I think I wasn’t nervous for was A Season on the
Brink, because I had no expectations. All I wanted was to do well enough that I could do a second book.
Q: You set a high bar.
A: Well, yeah. There’s something to that. Because after that, you get a little spoiled. It’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, I wrote a book, it’s going to be No. 1 on The New York
Times Best Sellers.’ Well, no. Most of the time it’s not.
And you’re being paid more, so the publisher has higher expectations. My advance on A Season on the Brink was $17,500. I had earned past the advance like, as it published, basically. After that, you’re getting paid more, so the publisher wants more from each book.
Revealing light on Knight
Q: When you go out and talk to people — the media, readers or whoever it might be — do they still associate you with A Season on the Brink?
A: Very often. Very often. There are three books, actually, that get mentioned. A Season on the Brink, Good Walk Spoiled and a book I wrote about the Army-Navy football rivalry called Civil
War, which was on The New York Times best-seller list. It wasn’t No. 1 or anything, but that was a book that was, I don’t want to call it a ‘cult book,’ but the people who read it, loved it.
A lot of people who read it, they’ll come up to me and tell me they love it. Because it’s about the kids who play for Army and Navy, who I think are very special. My wife sometimes calls that book our fourth child, because I’m still close to most of the guys who I dealt with when I wrote that book.
Q: So I’ve read about your early career at The Washington Post. There was an assignment where you spent some time kind of embedded with Bob Knight and the Olympic team. How did you jump from there to authoring — to A Season on the Brink?
A: I went out to do a magazine piece. I had written a piece … in Sporting News on Knight’s coaching protégés, and why his assistants were able to make the conversion to head coaches so well.
Knight had read the piece, and he dropped me a note. He said, ‘I really enjoyed the story. Any time I can help you out, let me know.’
So I got assigned this magazine piece on Knight as the Olympic coach. I called Kit Klingelhoffer, who was the (sports information director). I think he’s still there. He’s been there forever. But, he said, ‘Well, let me check with Coach Knight.’
He called back the next day and said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you were on the list?’
I said, ‘What list?’
‘The list of guys he’ll talk to. Coach said to come on out.’
So I went out, spent a couple days with him. He’s a great interview, always has been. I wrote the piece and then covered the Olympic team that summer. And the next year, of course, is the year everything went kablooey, climaxing with the chair throw. I was in Bloomington for a couple days right before the chair throw.
He threw the chair, it was a Saturday afternoon. I was writing a piece for Sunday’s paper. I had to tear up what I’d written and start all over again. I wrote in the piece that throwing the chair was crazy and what was he thinking?
But I said that on a scale of crimes being committed in college athletics, on a scale of 1-10, it was probably a 3. He called me, said, ‘Hey, everybody’s killing me, and I really appreciate you telling both sides.’
I told him, ‘Bob, I was able to tell both sides because you gave me so much time and access while I was out there.’ Which was true.
He invited me to a dinner he used to put together every year at the Final Four. It was former assistants, current assistants. … When I hung up the phone, I remember thinking, ‘He’s inviting me to his inner circle. I wondered if I could do it for a year, because I thought there’d be a book in it if I could.’
Indiana was coming off a sub-.500 year in the Big Ten. Knight had recruited junior college players for the first time. He was toying with zone defense for the first time. Feinstein knew it was going to be a big season.
So in a hotel room with Coach Knight and Mike Krzyzewski, Feinstein pitched his idea.
(Knight) said, ‘Have you ever written a book?’
I said, ‘No.’
He said, ‘Do you have a publisher?’ I said, ‘Well, I didn’t think there was much point in getting a publisher unless you were willing to do it.’
He said, ‘That’s smart thinking. Sure. If you can get a publisher, come on out.’
I walked out of the room with Krzyzewski. He said, ‘Are you out of your (expletive) mind?’
I said, ‘What, I’ve been around him. I know what he’s like.’
Coach K said, ‘No you don’t. You’ve been around him for two days.’
I said, ‘Well, you played for him for four years.’
He said, ‘Well, I needed to go to college. I needed a job. … You have a job!’
I said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it anyway.’ When I’d been out there about a week, the first chapter of the book is about being in the locker room after he’d destroyed Daryl Thomas. I mean, destroyed the kid. That’s the first chapter of the book.
That night, I called Krzyzewski, and I said, ‘OK, now I know what you’re talking about.’ (laughs) But the other funny part is, five publishers rejected the idea. Q: Wait. Really?
A: Yeah. My parents were aghast, because I was working at The Washington
Post. It’s like, you’re taking a leave of absence from The Washington Post to go write about a basketball coach for $17,500?
I said, ‘I want to try it.’ And it worked out.
Q: So what else sticks out? I’m sure you’re full of stories from the whole process, but what are some of your most lasting memories from the process behind writing A Season on the Brink?
A: Well, with Knight, the trick was being as invisible as possible. And Steve Alford wrote his book a couple years later that, cleverly enough was titled, Playing
for Knight, and the chapter on his junior year was called “The Invisible Man.”
That was the highest compliment he could pay me, because I wanted to be there without being there, at all times. There were times I couldn’t do it, but I was basically part of the furniture after a while. That’s what you want to do.
Bob (Knight) and I certainly had our moments . ...
We were in Minneapolis. They lost at Iowa the night before. They got crushed. We almost crashed going down the runway. Knight was talking about how they’d never be any good until they got rid of Alford. We’re going down the runway, and we spin out. It was snowing. (We’re spinning) 360, and it’s dead silent on the plane.
Pilot comes on and says, ‘Folks, it’s a little slippery on the runway. We’re going to try this again.’
I’m a bad flier. And it’s a tiny plane, and it’s snowing sideways. So we go back, take off. The minute we take off, Knight starts blasting Alford again. Since he wasn’t going to die, he had to destroy him.
But the next morning, they were having breakfast, and no one was allowed to talk because everything was so bad because they lost to Iowa. Sid Hartman (journalist with the Minneapolis StarTribune), he was one of Knight’s guys. He was on the list.
He comes into breakfast, and the assistant coaches aren’t talking. Knight won’t even look up at Sid, and they’d been friends for who knows how long at that point. But finally, we’re coming out of breakfast and Sid figures I’m the best target, so he says to me, ‘What’re you going to do all day up here in the snow?’
‘Well, Sid, I’m going to do what I always do. I’ll follow Knight around.’
(Knight) wheels around on me and says, ‘Don’t you ever (expletive) call me Knight again. Remember how he got fired, it’s because a kid said, ‘Hey, what’s up Knight?’ Well, I knew that story was true right away because I’ve seen it.’
He said, ‘Don’t you ever call me Knight. You can call me coach, call me Bob, but don’t call me that. You’re 28 years old, where the hell do you get off with this?’
I’d figured out by then, it was February so I’d been around a while, don’t fight with him in front of his coaches. Because he has to win. If you talk to him in private, he’ll be reasonable. But if I had said, ‘Hey, it’s not my fault you guys got killed last night,’ or something, it would have escalated.
So instead, I just said, ‘Hey, I’ll see you at practice.’
Feinstein then went for a walk to cool off. He was upset. Out on a snowy sidewalk, he said to himself: ‘We’re always on the brink of something.’ And that’s how he came up with the name.
I guess I owe Sid thanks for that.