This will nicely book end his earlier book about Duke Basketball, Forever’s Team.
John Feinstein has been around Duke Basketball for a long time. He came to prominence with the Duke Chronicle when the Blue Devils were at an historic low point and, like all Duke fans, was thrilled by the joy ride that was 1977-78. He captured the essence of it in his book, Forever’s Team.
He’s an interesting character. On the one hand, he’s deeply loyal to his friends. He never got over Duke passing over Tom Mickle when Joe Alleva was promoted to A.D. in 1998 after Tom Butters retired. He grew to greatly admire Navy football and worked on the Navy broadcast crew (he might still). At one point when he thought Navy was being shafted he unleashed some profanity on the radio. He’s truly ride or die.
On the other hand, he’s sort of the classic crusty old newspaper guy who says exactly what he thinks. We called him once to ask him to verify something he had said in a book that we were commenting on and he did so, bluntly, honestly and hilariously. If you’re reading this, John, sorry again for bothering you on Thanksgiving Day, but thanks for a great memory.
Above all, he has always had a distinctive voice and a strong personality and it comes through, whether in a phone call, a book, broadcasts with Navy or in his Washington Post column. Feinstein is, always has been and cannot help being Feinstein. The man has a gift.
His new book is called Five Banners. It’s a look at Duke Basketball’s epic run under Mike Krzyzewski and it’s not a good read.
It’s a great read.
We had the chance to check it out over the summer and it’s wonderful. He’s had a long relationship with Coach K and you see that here, with decades of insights, anecdotes and things that make perfect sense once you hear them. Basically, you can connect some dots.
It’s a fun read for anyone but especially so for Duke fans. It’s available now for pre-order on Amazon and is out officially on the 15th of this month.
Highly recommended.
