John Feinstein, sports writer and author of ‘A Season on the Brink,’ dies at 69

WASHINGTON — John Feinstein, one of the country’s foremost sports writers and the author of numerous bestselling books, including the groundbreaking “A Season on the Brink” about college basketball coach Bob Knight, died unexpectedly Thursday. Feinstein was 69.

He died of natural causes at his brother’s home in McLean, Virginia, according to Robert Feinstein, who said he discovered John’s body.

John Feinstein was a full-time reporter for The Washington Post from 1977 to 1991, a commentator for outlets such as ESPN — where he made regular appearances on The Sports Reporters — and the Golf Channel, and a voter for more than 20 years in the AP Top 25 men’s college basketball poll. He remained with the Post as a contributing columnist, and he also hosted satellite radio programs on SiriusXM.

“He was very passionate about things,” Robert Feinstein said in a telephone interview. “People either loved him or hated him — and equally strongly.”

John Feinstein — always a storyteller, whether via the written word or when chatting with other journalists in an arena’s media room or press box — was working until the time of his death. He was in the Washington area this week to cover the Atlantic 10 Tournament ahead of March Madness, and he filed a column for the Post about Michigan State coach Tom Izzo that appeared online Thursday.

“He was strong with his opinions,” Izzo said Thursday, “but very interesting to talk to.”

Feinstein was comfortable writing fiction and nonfiction, and took on an array of sports, including golf and tennis, but he was known most for his connection to college basketball because of A Season on the Brink. He took a leave of absence from the Post in 1985 to embed with Knight’s Indiana team.

Knight’s reputation for having a hot temper was well-established by then, and Feinstein relayed behind-the-scenes evidence in a way that was uncommon in sports writing at the time. Feinstein also effectively portrayed the personal relationships Knight had with his players, which alternated between warm and abusive.

“I can’t possibly overstate how important Knight was in my life,” Feinstein wrote in the Post after the coach’s death in 2023.

“Not once did Knight back away from the access, even during some difficult moments for his team,” Feinstein wrote. “Although he didn’t speak to me for eight years after the book’s publication — upset, of all things, with seeing profanity in the book — he eventually decided to ‘forgive’ me, and we had a distant though cordial relationship for the rest of his life.”

Praise for Feinstein’s work — and the sort of access and skilled reporting that were its hallmarks — was all over social media on Thursday, including from others in the business of writing or speaking about college basketball.

And, of course, the news reverberated around college basketball as its season approaches its crescendo. Feinstein seemed to know every coach in the sport — and they all seemed to know him.

Marquette coach Shaka Smart learned about Feinstein’s death from a reporter at Madison Square Garden after the Golden Eagles beat Xavier in the Big East Tournament.

“Oh, wow,” Smart said. “I’ve known him for a long time. He’s one of the best sports writers ever. I got to know him as a writer before I got to know him as a person, reading some of his stuff when I was in high school. He cared about the teams and he cared about the players and he cared about the coaches — which is not as common these days.”

Feinstein wrote more than 40 books, including “A Good Walk Spoiled” (1995), about professional golf, and “A Civil War” (1996), about the Army-Navy football game. After that book’s publication, he worked for many years as a radio commentator for Navy football.

“The Ancient Eight,” about Ivy League football, was published last year. Feinstein also wrote sports novels aimed at younger readers.

Feinstein graduated from Duke University and later taught there. He began teaching — and was a writer-in-residence — at Longwood University in Virginia during this school year.

Barry Svrluga, a Washington Post columnist who said he took Feinstein’s sports journalism course as a senior at Duke, recalled the experience Thursday.

“He got whoever he could to talk to the class — Gary Williams on a game day when Maryland was in town, Billy Packer, Bud Collins. Bob Woodward called in,” Svrluga said. “And you could just tell that part of his reporting prowess — how he got into locker rooms and front offices and onto the range and in clubhouses at PGA Tour events — is because he could really develop relationships, and people just liked to talk to him. Part of that had to be because he didn’t pander. You knew exactly where he stood. And that gained respect.”

Another Post colleague, Dan Steinberg, Feinstein’s editor in recent years, said: “He would tell me, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m going downtown to meet Steve Kerr for lunch today,’ or ‘Oh, yeah, Jim Larrañaga called me a few months ago and asked me how we could fix basketball.’ He loved sports, adored them, watched them constantly even when he wasn’t writing about them, had an opinion about everything and everyone. … He loved Wimbledon, swimming, the Olympics, college basketball, the Naval Academy, West Point, the Mets, and people who returned his calls.”

In addition to Robert, John Feinstein is survived by his wife, Christine, daughters Brigid and Jayne, and son Danny, as well as a sister, Margaret.