John Feinstein - One on One: Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

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Copyright 2011 by John Feinstein

Cover design by Allison J. Warner. Cover photographs: helmet Guy Crittenden/Gerry Images; basketball and benches Image Source/Getty Images; golf club Stockbyte/Getty Images; baseball Thomas Northcut/Getty Images; tennis ball Roger T. Schmidt/Getty Images

Cover copyright 2012 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the authors intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the authors rights.

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First e-book edition: December 2011

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ISBN 978-0-316-19219-4

Renowned sportswriter John Feinstein returns to the subjects of his early books and shares his stories of running after athletes for interviews and trying to get access to locker rooms. In his trademark lively prose, Feinstein offers an insiders glimpse of what its like to cover sports ranging from golf (including Tiger Woods) to college basketball to the Army-Navy football game.

Molly Driscoll, Christian Science Monitor

Feinsteins gift is his ability to talk to people and to get them to talk to him. He long ago reached celebrity author status, but even before, Feinstein understood how to approach people and, even if they stood on opposite sides of a subject, he could volley with them. Its a book about Feinstein, who is himself a collection of colorful stories. He does what few writers can dotake readers to places they couldnt otherwise go. Its a fun trip.

Ron Green Jr., Charlotte Observer

Some of the most talented and temperamental athletes and coaches in the world have opened up to John Feinstein. The acclaimed sportswriters latest book details his conversations over the years with notoriously difficult coaches like Bobby Knight and star athletes like Tiger Woods and John McEnroe.

NPRs Fresh Air

Feinstein has a rare ability to take his readers inside the intense emotions of his subjects, sharing their hopes, dreams, and tragedies.

Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times

Feinsteins beat, as it turns out, isnt sports; its human nature.

Alex Tresniowski, People

John Feinstein has become sportswritings John Grisham.

David Kindred, Sporting News

Stripped down, One on One is a reporters road trip, an engaging journey full of elite athletes and coaches John Feinstein encountered while transforming himself from Washington Post political reporter to bestselling sports author. With his deft, dialogue-driven narrative and knack for describing an interviews atmospherics, Feinstein describes the genesis of each of his year-in-the-life books and the role the greats played in them. What to a lesser writer could become a boring exercise in point A to point B literary geometry is instead a revealing look beyond the limelights glare.

Ross Hemphill, Winnipeg Free Press

Reading Feinstein is to read far more than sports. Great sports books capture the spirit of an era and of a public enamored with the game. Great writers capture the essence of where sports fit in the life-size mural that is life. Feinstein has succeeded as a sport journalist by going behind the scenes of great athletes and coaches. Now he has granted readers the type of access he has been afforded. By holding a mirror to his work, he has made his own writing even better.

Stuart Shiffman, Bookreporter

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Tales from Q School

Last Dance

Next Man Up

Let Me Tell You a Story

Caddy for Life

Open

The Punch

The Last Amateurs

The Majors

A March to Madness

A Civil War

A Good Walk Spoiled

Play Ball

Hard Courts

Forevers Team

A Season Inside

A Season on the Brink

Last Shot (A Final Four Mystery)

The Rivalry: Mystery at the World Series

Vanishing Act: Mystery at the U.S. Open

Cover-up: Mystery at the Super Bowl

Change-up: Mystery at the World Series

Running Mates (A Mystery)

Winter Games (A Mystery)

This is for Jane Blythe Feinstein,
whose smile can light up any room.

T HIS IS NOT EXACTLY the book I thought I would write in 2011.

I always thought there might come a point in my life when I would go back and talk to all the people I encountered while researching A Season on the Brink twenty-five years ago. I knew exactly where the book would begin and where it would end. I would fill in the blanks in between by talking to the players and coaches I got to know so well in the winter of 198586 in Bloomington, Indiana.

But the more I thought about it the more I realized that a Boys of Summer book wasnt really what I wanted to do. What made that book uniquebesides Roger Kahns writingwas the bittersweet nature of the story line: young, powerful men twenty years later, stripped of that which made them powerful and dealing with the harsh realities of getting older.

Theres really very little thats bittersweet about the characters in Season on the Brink. Sure, Bob Knight got fired after twenty-nine years at Indiana, but who among us was surprised to see him self-destructand then blame everyone else for his own failings? Most of the other people in the book had gone on to lead successful lives: a handful in basketball, some in law or medicine, while others had gone home to family businesses. If there was one thing Knight always did well as a coach, it was prepare his players for Life After Basketball. The kids in A Season on the Brink, all in their forties now, were a bright group who would find their way in lifeprobably in ways that were difficult for the old Dodgers of Kahns book to accomplish. All are college graduates; most knew they probably werent going to play in the NBA. Only one actually did play in the NBASteve Alford, who played for four years before becoming a college coach.