Kansas City golf legend Tom Watson remembers heart, integrity of late journalist
When John Feinstein’s extraordinary first book, “A Season on the Brink,” came out in 1986, I was starting grad school in journalism at the University of Missouri.
I remember feeling awed, inspired and daunted by Feinstein’s ability to navigate and animate a season behind the scenes in the ever-volatile Bobby Knight’s Indiana University basketball program.
And like many sportswriters of the last couple generations, I’d only come to appreciate him more over the years.
“As a writer, I found him to be straight-forward, thorough and rich in details,” The Star’s Blair Kerkhoff said. “When you finished a Feinstein book you weren’t left wondering, ‘What else?’”
He added, “To me, he’s the greatest sports author of our time.”
One of my favorites: “A Civil War,” about a year inside the Army-Navy rivalry; I like it even better since he told me in an email exchange a few years ago that it was “still the book of which I’m most proud.”
But I also always was struck by seeing him in action over the years, particularly with the U.S. Basketball Writers Association.
Even as one of the most well-known and influential sports journalists of our era, John was a blunt advocate of NCAA Tournament floor seating access so even smaller outlets could enhance their coverage — to take the audience where it doesn’t get to go, as he so often did himself.
And he was an impassioned, at times extreme, interrogator of NCAA officials, particularly when it came to matters of academic integrity.
No wonder there’s been such an outpouring of admiration from media members since the 69-year-old Feinstein died on March 13 from what the family called natural causes.
But something else about Feinstein has resounded since then.
It’s one thing for those of us in the profession who marvel at the work, including the attached ethic, to be moved by his legacy.
It’s another, though, for many of the subjects of his probing work — save the late Knight — to feel the same way.
“He was like our mothers — he had a sixth sense for detecting the truth,” said Prairie Village’s Bill Hancock, the longtime Final Four director. “And truth always came first with John. He was a great friend.”
The day after Feinstein died, Kansas City golfing legend Tom Watson posted this on X:
“One of our sports world’s finest writers, John Feinstein, sadly left us today. His innate ability to describe the inner workings and complexities of the players, teams, and coaches about which he wrote, left us readers and fans with much greater understanding of his subjects. He was always an enjoyable read, and we will sorely miss him.”
When I spoke with Watson on the phone Tuesday, the day of a memorial service for Feinstein, he pointed to Feinstein’s trustworthiness and ability to manage his way behind the scenes to “the root” of things.
Add what Watson called his “big heart,” and you get this:
“The inside stories that John could bring to life and give the reader … a kaleidoscope of the people who he was writing about,” said Watson, whose eight major championships remain sixth in golf history.
Watson was one of the focal points of Feinstein’s 1995 book, “A Good Walk Spoiled” and an essential element of his 2001 book, “Caddy For Life: The Bruce Edwards Story.”
Indicative of how Feinstein worked, Watson noted how Feinstein approached Edwards in what he recalled as the mid-1980s at the Memorial Tournament in Ohio.
“He figured who best to give an inside story than my caddy,” Watson said. “And he spent three hours with him on the putting green, and that’s how he first started really understanding what the tour is all about.”
It became something more, though, too.
Through that longtime relationship and writing Caddy for Life about Edwards, who died from ALS in 2004, Feinstein became dedicated to fighting the insidious disease — including donating half the profits of the book that became one of his 23 to land on The New York Times bestseller list.
With Watson, Feinstein co-founded The Bruce Edwards Foundation to raise funds for ALS research at Johns Hopkins University’s Packard Center. Including through golf tournaments stocked with college basketball coaches and others enlisted by Feinstein, the foundation has raised more than $5 million over the years.
“We in the ALS community are extremely grateful for what he did,” said Watson, who along with Royals’ great George Brett has been dedicated to the cause because of their friendships with victims of ALS.
Just like those of us in the journalism community and anyone else in his vast sphere of influence.
Steve Wieberg, the longtime USA Today national college writer and former USBWA president, said he never knew a reporter “who knew more people across the sports spectrum, on a first-name basis.”
“He’s a Mount Rushmore guy,” he added, “without a doubt.”