John Feinstein, an indefatigable sportswriter for The Washington Submit and the writer of greater than 40 books, together with the very best sellers “A Season on the Brink” (1986) and “A Good Stroll Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour” (1995), died on Thursday at his brother’s residence in McLean, Va. He was 69.
His brother, Robert, mentioned the trigger was in all probability a coronary heart assault.
Mr. Feinstein’s final column, about Michigan State males’s basketball coach, Tom Izzo, appeared in The Submit on Thursday.
Mr. Feinstein turned certainly one of America’s best-known sportswriters after “A Season on the Brink,” which targeted on the 1985-86 Indiana College basketball crew led by the mercurial coach Bobby Knight, turned a greatest vendor. The e book gave readers the type of journalistic entry to Mr. Knight, an excellent tactician however a sophisticated character, that sports activities books normally didn’t supply.
Though Mr. Knight didn’t converse to Mr. Feinstein for eight years after the e book’s publication — offended about all of the profanity that spilled from his mouth and onto its pages — Mr. Feinstein praised the coach after his loss of life in 2023 for enhancing his profession.
In a column for The Submit, Mr. Feinstein wrote that the open door Mr. Knight gave him made “A Season on the Brink” an infinite success, “which has allowed me to select and select e book subjects for the previous 38 years.”
“Not as soon as did Knight again away from the entry,” he added, “even throughout some troublesome moments for his crew.”
The e book was tailored right into a tv film in 2002, starring Brian Dennehy as Mr. Knight.
With astonishing velocity, Mr. Feinstein wrote and reported books on basketball, baseball, tennis, soccer, golf and the Olympics. He was particularly well-known for his insightful portraits of athletes and coaches.
His most up-to-date books embody two revealed final yr: “5 Banners: Contained in the Duke Dynasty” (he graduated from Duke College in 1977) and “The Historical Eight: School Soccer’s Ivy League and the Recreation They Play At present.” He additionally wrote novels for younger readers; his “Final Shot: A Remaining 4 Thriller,” gained an Edgar Award from the Thriller Writers of America for greatest young-adult e book in 2006.
And he contributed commentary to NPR, ESPN and the Golf Channel.
At his loss of life, he had been engaged on a e book about what makes a profitable coach.
His household knew about his work ethic from a younger age.
“He was a cuckoo head — critically,” Robert Feinstein mentioned in a telephone interview. “He would watch Met video games and maintain a field rating of each sport he watched — and he did that perpetually.”
John Feinstein was born on July 28, 1955, in Manhattan. His father, Martin, was the chief director of performing arts on the Kennedy Middle and normal director of the Washington Opera. His mom, Bernice (Richman) Feinstein, was a music professor at George Washington College.
In highschool, John was on a champion swimming crew. And whereas attending Duke, he wrote about sports activities — initially fencing and wrestling — for The Chronicle, a each day pupil newspaper, and finally contributed freelance articles to The Washington Submit. He recalled having the thought for “A Season on the Brink” years earlier than Mr. Knight let him comply with the Hoosiers.
“Whereas I used to be in faculty, as a result of I used to be an ex-jock, I frolicked with a whole lot of basketball gamers, although Duke wasn’t any good again then,” he mentioned in an interview with the College of Maryland Philip Merrill School of Journalism. “I knew the inside workings most individuals didn’t know. It gave me the concept that a e book about what’s actually happening behind the scenes can be nice.”
After graduating with a bachelor’s diploma in historical past in 1977, Mr. Feinstein joined The Submit as a summer season intern within the sports activities division; over his first two years, he labored as an evening police reporter, then coated the police and the courts earlier than returning to sports activities to cowl the College of Maryland’s soccer and basketball groups.
“He was a problem, he was feisty, and he had a whole lot of good concepts,” George Solomon, The Submit’s former sports activities editor, mentioned in an interview. “One time he threatened to kill my night time editor, Mark Asher, if he modified one phrase of his story. Asher, after all, minimize the final paragraph.”
Mr. Solomon mentioned he obtained a name from Mr. Knight after the publication of “A Season on The Brink.”
“Knight says, ‘Why did you rent that man?’” he recalled. “I mentioned, ‘I can’t provide you with a solution.’”
For the remainder of his profession, Mr. Feinstein juggled writing books together with his work at The Submit, first as a reporter after which as a columnist.
His different books included “A Season Inside: One 12 months in School Basketball” (1988); “Onerous Courts: Actual Life on the Skilled Tennis Tour” (1991); “Residing on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Groups, One Season to Bear in mind” (2008), which targeted on the pitchers Tom Glavine of the Mets and Mike Mussina of the Yankees; and “The First Main: The Inside Story of the Ryder Cup” (2016).
His e book on skilled golf, “A Good Stroll Spoiled,” taking its title from a line by Mark Twain, profiled a few dozen gamers over 15 months on the PGA Tour.
Esther Newberg, Mr. Feinstein’s former agent, mentioned in an interview that his almost ceaseless work took a bodily toll on him.
“He had gout and diabetes,” she mentioned. “He hated to fly and would drive to locations just like the Remaining 4 from D.C. if it had been in Indianapolis, which didn’t assist his unhealthy consuming habits.
“However he was a reporter on deadline. He couldn’t assist himself.”
Along with his brother, Mr. Feinstein is survived by his spouse, Christine (Bausch) Feinstein, and their daughter, Jane Feinstein; a son, Danny, and a daughter, Brigid Feinstein, from his marriage to Mary Givens, which resulted in divorce; and a sister, Margaret Feinstein.
In 2004, Mr. Feinstein collaborated with Pink Auerbach, the cigar-wielding architect of the Boston Celtics, on “Let Me Inform You a Story: A Lifetime within the Recreation” (2004). The e book was an outgrowth of Mr. Auerbach’s storytelling at luncheons with buddies at a restaurant in Washington, which Mr. Feinstein joined as an everyday.
In a column in 1999 recounting an early lunch, Mr. Feinstein recalled Mr. Auerbach speaking about his greatest transactions, which landed him superstars like Invoice Russell, Kevin McHale, Larry Chicken and Robert Parish.
“Like Russell and Chicken, McHale and Parish had Corridor of Fame careers and had their numbers retired by the Celtics,” Mr. Feinstein wrote. “After all, Auerbach has a retired quantity, too: No. 2. ‘Somebody requested me why I wasn’t No. 1,’ Auerbach says. ‘I instructed him, in Boston, Cardinal Cushing was at all times No. 1. I took 2.’
“Everybody laughs. The test is delivered to Auerbach. He lights his cigar — as soon as it was to announce a victory, now it’s to announce that lunch is over — waves the cigar and says, ‘Let me inform you a narrative concerning the cardinal. …’”
