Many in the sports media world are mourning Thursday’s passing of legendary writer John Feinstein, who authored many bestselling books and was a beloved TV commentator also.
But what much of the sports world might not know — including several in the swimming community — is that Feinstein spent many years as a competitive swimmer.
In fact, it was a swimming injury that ultimately planted the seed for his incredible writing career, according to the Washington Post.
Growing up in New York City, Feinstein helped his high school team win the New York City championship, and then embarked upon a collegiate career at Duke.
It was there where his future path was changed because of injury.
During his freshman year, Feinstein suffered a foot injury that ended up cutting his collegiate swimming career short.
When that happened, Feinstein turned to journalism.
He joined the school newspaper at Duke, eventually becoming sports editor and contributing articles to the Washington Post.
After doing an internship with the Post, he was hired initially as a police reporter in the news department, where he worked under editor Bob Woodward, one of the men who broke the famous Watergate scandal.
Feinstein eventually moved to the sports department, and his journey to sports writing fame took off from there.
However, even in his later years, Feinstein still was active in swimming.
According to his profile on U.S. Masters Swimming, Feinstein competed in short and long course events up until he was 56-year old.
His last competitive meet, according to the profile, came in 2011 when he swam the 100 freestyle, the 100 butterfly and 50 butterfly events in the 55 to 59 age group at the Patriot Masters Sprint Classic in Virginia.
Feinstein ended up finishing first in the 100 fly with a time of 1:08.57. He was second in the 100 free (1:04.09) and fourth in the 50 fly (29.97).
One of Feinstein’s best-selling novels was released in 2012 and based on swimming.
The fictional novel, “Rush for the Gold: Mystery at the Olympics,” focused on a teen swimming sensation named Susan Carol who has her best friend Stevie at the Olympics covering her as a teen reporter.
The story focuses on the lengths others such as agents and sponsors will go to make sure Carol wins gold.
Many of the great ones come from Swimming.
That same book he named the coach Ed Brennan. Same Ed Brennan of UTampa fame who Feinstein credited as saving his life in giving him the love of the sport while both were in New York.
Not sure why you took down my previous comment, it was harmless enough and illustrative of John’s good character. Anyway, here’s another anecdote to show what a fun, quick-witted guy John was, and also what a good sport he was:
At one point in his forties he swam a 400 SCM free at a master meet. In the next lane was a younger woman who was visibly (four or five months) pregnant. She ended up beating him. John’s teammates on the Ancient Mariners, naturally enough, were merciless in their ribbing of him. John’s response was to wail, “But it wasn’t faaaaair — it was two against one!”
Sometimes stuff just gets stuck in the spam filter for now good reason.
Thank you for putting it back up.
Thank you for this post. If you haven’t read any of John’s books, please do. He makes you feel you are on the court, golf course, or pool with him as he tells the story. One of the best sports writers of all time. RIP John.
I knew John personally, though masters swimming, and he was everything people are saying he was. (Most obituaries feature tributes of some sort, but as we all know, many are misleading.) Let me offer one anecdote to show who John really was.
John was the rare kind of guy who would attack the high and mighty and go out of his way to be nice to people who couldn’t help him in any way. When his father (who’d been the director of the Kennedy Center in DC) got remarried after John’s mother died, there was a conservative Supreme Court Justice in attendance. (Scalia? I can’t remember.) Anyway, after the Justice delivered his toast, it was John’s turn, so he… Read more »