John Feinstein


John Feinstein was an American sportswriter, author, and sports commentator. A long-time sports reporter at the Washington Post, he also wrote numerous books and was particularly known for A Season on the Brink, published in 1986, which chronicled a season with Bob Knight's Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball team.

Early life and education

Feinstein was born to a Jewish family in New York City on July 28, 1955. His father was the General Manager of the Washington National Opera from 1980 to 1995 as well as the first executive director of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He attended Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School and Duke University, where he was a sports reporter for the Duke Chronicle and graduated in 1977.

Career

Feinstein joined the Washington Post in 1977 and was a full-time reporter there until 1991. He was also a columnist for Sporting News and Golf Digest. His last column, about Michigan State men's basketball coach Tom Izzo, was published in the Washington Post on the day of his death, March 13, 2025; he had completed it the day before. He received the Curt Gowdy Award for print media of the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013, and was a voter in the AP Top 25 poll for men's college basketball for more than 20 years.
In broadcasting, he was a commentator on ESPN, where he appeared regularly on The Sports Reporters, on the Golf Channel, at United States Naval Academy football games, and on radio shows and podcasts including The Sports Junkies, The Tony Kornheiser Show, and The Jim Rome Show. On March 8, 2012, he joined SiriusXM's Mad Dog Sports Radio channel, teaming up with Bruce Murray for the sports talk show Beyond the Brink. He left by fall 2012 to host his own show on the new CBS Sports Radio, which began 24/7 all sports talk on January 2, 2013. In November 2014, he told an interviewer that CBS had fired him from the show.
Feinstein returned to Duke University in the early 1990s as a visiting professor of sports journalism, and at the time of his death was a writer in residence at Longwood University.
Feinstein wrote more than 40 books, of which the best known is A Season on the Brink, chronicles the 1985–86 season of the Indiana University basketball team under coach Bobby Knight; Feinstein took a leave of absence from the Washington Post to embed himself with the team. An ESPN film adaptation, starring Brian Dennehy as Knight, first aired on March 10, 2002, with a version censored for profanity being simulcast on ESPN2. It was released to DVD later in 2002. After publishing Caddy for Life: The Bruce Edwards Story, about the life and final days of Tom Watson's caddy, Bruce Edwards, who was diagnosed with ALS, Feinstein and long-time friend Terry Hanson engaged the William Morris Agency and commissioned a screenplay in conjunction with Matt Damon's and Ben Affleck's production company, LivePlanet. The documentary Caddy for Life was produced in 2010 for the Golf Channel. He also wrote sports novels for young adults.

Personal life and death

Feinstein was first married to Mary Clare Gibbons; following their divorce, he married Christine Bauch in 2010. He had two children from his first marriage and one from his second.
Feinstein died from an apparent heart attack at his brother's home in McLean, Virginia, on March 13, 2025, at the age of 69.

Works

Nonfiction

Stand-alone

  • Foul Trouble
  • Backfield Boys: A Football Mystery in Black and White
  • ''The Prodigy''

    The Benchwarmers Series

  1. Benchwarmers
  2. Game Changers
  3. ''Mixed Doubles''

    ''The Sports Beat''

A sports-mystery series for young adults in which main characters Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson are reporting on major sporting events.
  1. Last Shot: Mystery at the Final Four . Winner of the 2006 Edgar Award in the Best Young Adult category.
  2. Vanishing Act: Mystery at the US Open
  3. Cover Up: Mystery at the Super Bowl
  4. Change-Up: Mystery at the World Series
  5. The Rivalry: Mystery at the Army-Navy Game
  6. ''Rush for the Gold: Mystery at the Olympics''