MIKE BURKE
Allegany Communications Sports
From the time I can remember, the Washington Post and the New York Times were in our Cumberland, Maryland home. Every Sunday morning after church our mother would pick them up at Keech’s Pharmacy. Then when my brother and I were old enough to drive, it became our responsibility to pick up both papers, as well as the Baltimore Sun, every day of the week, usually at The Book Center downtown, a practice that continued long after my brother and I even lived at the house.
On top of that, the Cumberland News and Evening and Sunday Times were delivered each day as well.
Growing up in our home, there was one steadfast rule for my brother and me: It didn’t matter what we read, but we WERE going to read something every day, and of all of the different things – books, magazines, newspapers – that we read, all three of us, including our mother, read the Washington Post sports section every day, because the writing in it has always been so good.
Even as a child, it was easy to be drawn to the Post sports section of the great Shirley Povich, and through the years it grew even stronger with great writers and reporters such as Leonard Shaprio, Dave Kindred, Ken Denlinger and Thomas Boswell, to be joined by the likes of Tony Kornheiser, David Remnick, Michael Wilbon, Christine Brennan, Sally Jenkins and John Feinstein, who died last Thursday at the age of 69.
Feinstein was a great sportswriter and a renowned author who made his name national with his groundbreaking book about Bobby Knight, “A Season on the Brink,” though for me, the personal favorites of his work – books, newspaper, magazine reporting – were about his fellow Duke alum, Charles G. “Lefty” Driesell, the Hall of Fame basketball coach, with whom Feinstein became antagonist and friend while Driesell was the head coach at the University of Maryland and Feinstein and Wilbon were covering the college beat for the Post.
Feinstein’s work always represented the quality of the Washington Post sports staff, which still exists and is why the current turmoil at the Post saddens so many of us because it is unfair to the entire editorial staff – Sports, national, international, Business, Metro, Style – that so many subscriptions are being canceled because of a change in editorial page direction.
By most accounts John Feinstein wasn’t the easiest person to work with, and perhaps that edge is why his work has always been so easy and necessary to read, as he authored 48 books, 23 of them New York Times bestsellers.
The narrative was always through his eyes, but that’s because he took you inside every topic and beside each subject as he was able to arrange access that no other reporter or writer could.
He really did know everyone, because he insisted that they know him so that he was able to tell the entire story. Which, at his core, is why it seems to me that Feinstein considered himself, first and foremost, a newspaper man. And, in fact, the bestselling author filed a newspaper column about Michigan State coach Tom Izzo to his newspaper the day before he died of an apparent heart attack.
I don’t know what, if anything, it means that Feinstein died just as March Madness was getting underway. I can’t say for certain if this was his favorite time or favorite sporting event of the year, because, as his books attest, he loved tennis, baseball, golf, football, and all sports. He could, and did, write about everything, including children’s mystery novels.
Still, he was scheduled to cover two college basketball tournaments for the Post over the weekend and annually produced Monday morning previews of each regional the morning after the NCAA Tournament field had been selected. Thus, when most of us think about John Feinstein, we think college basketball first.
Feinstein did not carry the prose of his Post colleague Thomas Boswell, nor did he need to. He reported in a straightforward, yet compelling manner that no other reporter has been able to match. He told every story with honesty without sacrificing his journalistic ethics for the access he worked so hard to receive. He never let the subject dictate the story and he never sold out. He feared nothing as a reporter, not the NCAA, not Bob Knight, not John Thompson (“Hoya Paranoia” was originally dubbed by Feinstein), not Lefty Driesell.
The first time I met John was November of 1982 at the Baltimore Civic Center when I covered the Maryland opener against Penn State for the Prince George’s Sentinel. It was Len Bias’ first game at Maryland and after the Terps had lost, 97-79, the reporters waited outside the Maryland dressing room to speak to Driesell.
“Go in and talk to them (the players), ‘cause I ain’t got nuthin’ to say,” Driesell growled when he finally appeared. “Only that if we cain’t play basketball any better than that, then we’re in deep trouble at the University of Merlin.”
I was standing next to Feinstein to Lefty’s left when the coach glared directly at him. “And there’s John over there,” Lefty said, “thinkin’ up somethin’ negative to write. I guarantee he’ll have somethin’ negative to write …”
To which Feinstein shot back, “No (kidding), Lefty. You just got blown out by a football and wrestling school. Not a lot of positives there.”
And with that, the Maryland coach stomped off. But the give and take between Feinstein and Lefty was something to behold after each Maryland game. They truly did love each other, but that never affected how John reported on Maryland or Lefty.
John Feinstein acquainted himself with kings and queens of the sports world. Oh, they knew him, and they worked with him, because he insisted on it.
But he was also very friendly and very helpful to the little people like me. It was my first time on the beat, and that first year, John Feinstein always made sure I was pointed in the right direction and was in the right place so that I could have the same access that he and the other reporters would have to report my story.
I could only wish.
John Feinstein was a hero to me, as he has been to so many more of us who love newspapers and books. He was a champion for the profession, for the written word and, most importantly, for the truth. He may well have been the last of a dying breed.
Neither March, nor the Washington Post, will ever be the same.
Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X @MikeBurkeMDT