New York – Circle of the Life of John Vincenin Spread the news of his death Thursday.
First, John’s brother, Bob, was transferred along the sad news to Gary Williams, former legendary Maryland coach. He met for the first time in 1978, when Williams was a 30 -year -old coach at the American University and Vincent was a young basketball writer in the Washington Post. Williams and Vinctein remained soon over the years.
Then Williams called a coach, La Sla, Fran Denfi. Williams felt invited to the game, but he felt that Dunphy needed to know him. Dunphy helps in organizing the charitable breakfast of the coaches against cancer, which is an annual contract in Philadelphia in Palestra in the morning after the selection on Sunday, and Feinstein was booked as a guest speaker for this year.
Dunphy receives a Williams invitation at a time when he is not only preparing for the ATLANTIC 10 championship match in Washington, DC, but also to address the possible final day in his 33 -year training career. Denfi, 76, announced his recent retirement, and Thursday’s match against St. Joseph will be his last night. After talking to Williams, Dunphy made some of his calls, and told those who felt they needed to know. One of them went to the writer of the “hoops”, Weiss. Denfi wanted to hear the news from him.
Weiss, who sits the foundation line at Madison Square Park, answered the call during the first half of the game between St. John and Betler. He got up, slipped from the row of the press, and ran into the bowls of the square. Weiss first met Vincents at NCAA Regionals 1977, when Weiss was the writer of a young column in Philadelphia Daily News and Vincenin was great in Duke. The two became great as close friends, and they saw the land rotating quickly, from Products to the wide range.
“He was greater than life,” said Weiss.
Fenctein, the American sports writer in research, who died on Thursday, was great enough to fill 45 books, thousands of columns and endless hours on radio and television, and large enough to send ripples of phone calls and memories via the sports scene on Thursday.
But very large to fit any simple drawing.
“He was loved at the highest level and hatred at the highest level,” said Mike Krzezvski on the phone. “He also knew that, and he was fine. He was of its kind.”
A product of contradictions, really. Those who knew Vinchantin say he may have been very smart so that he is not a sports writer. His father, Martin Vincenin, was the first executive director of the Kennedy Center and hoped that his son would go to Harvard. Fenctein thought of going to Yale, but instead went to Duke as a member of the swimming team. After breaking the ankle, he joined the school newspaper, and he accidentally began to become one of the most abundant professions in the history of the press.
When Vincenin began in the Washington Post after graduation, he first worked as a night police reporter, where he met an editor who saw an endless talent and would become a long teacher. This was the editor, Bob Woodward. Financhetten covered the courts in Prince George County, but soon moved to the post -sport section in 1979, which covers football in Maryland and basketball.
John Vincenin was a giant. This was not anywhere more than university basketball, and perhaps the most tight main sport for all of them. He had opinions. These opinions are important.
“In my life, the man was,” said Jim Boyheim on Thursday. “Some people write things that have been seen, but they have nothing behind. He has been seen in everything, but at least those opinions were rooted in something. He believed what he said, even if you did not agree to it.”
For a coach with 48 of the NCAA Vocational Championship and Five Five Flames, Boeheim carried difficult rap music for parts of his career in the Hall of Fame. Some of the very good Orange teams returned to the house very early in March, and did not target Feinstein, which never had shyness. He wrote at some point that Boeheim was the worst NCAA coach in university basketball.
The worst.
Boeheim holds a grudge in the way you expect from a coach who was running the same defense for 47 years. When the two finally took out, Boyheim tied with Vincenin, saying: “Come on, John. I cannot be The worst“They cleared the air and slept to be friendly at a later time.
Each coach of a certain age seems to have a copy of the same story. The same applies to NCAA officials, conference officials, colleagues and other media members. The thing about John Vincenin is that he was right. John Akraz, a university basketball writer for a long time, laid it on Thursday: “The man was an absolute natural power. He was very frightening, even among his friends.”
Many of this aura arose from the “Season on the Edge of the Abyss”, the 1986 photo of Pop Knight and Indiana Hosesers. Taking into account the endless tradition in the four decades since then, the book has been original at the time. As a fly on the Hoosiers season in 1985 to 86, Vincents attended every practice, every speech and every game, at home and away, in a year that was released with the NCAA exit from the first round. Upon approval of access, Knight depicts a book that shows IU as a model program that did not cheat and puts players in the classroom. Instead, an intense human story revealed, revealing a story that reveals the real life of the players and the different Knight levels of disbelief and genius.
The book was in the Persia show, and the book was apparent. Knight, it is incredible that Feinstein did not drop his protection quotes or reduce his most volatile moments, in the attack. Throughout the next season, every opportunity was seized to launch the shots at Finstein, as it went to the extent that he was called “the worst prostitute I have ever seen.” Meanwhile, Finnchekin set a tour of the books that traveled in complete harmony with the Indiana table, where he went to every city played by Hoseirus. The more interesting the book of the book, the higher its sales.
The “season on the edge of the abyss” ended as one of the best -selling sports books in all ages.
Now, it was seen through the lens of the death of Vincentin, not the success of the book that stands out. It is the story behind it.
Vincentein was only 30 years old when he formulated what could be considered one of the best non -fictional American works in his generation. He got unsafe access to Knight as a secondary result of his relationship with KrZyzewski. Duke’s coach Fenstein knew his days as a student in Durham. KrZyzewski, who played with Knight in West Point and later replaced Knight as a major army coach, he always wanted in Fenstein because he understood him.
“We were truly close friends because he never treated me like someone who was writing about him,” said Cruzzkki. “I always thought it was great. One of the great writers. Really smart. His ability to remember the facts and events was incredible. It was easy to admit early that he was exceptional.”
For this reason KrZyzewski established Feinstein with Knight.
For this reason, Knight was angry with KrZyZEWSKI, too, when the book was published.
While this relationship was fixed, Knight and Feinstein have never been repeated. The two did not talk about a decade. In the end, there was an opportunity to meet in Hawaii, and they had a conversation, but what was done.
The “season on the edge of the abyss” changed the Venchetein profession, professional and financial, and setting the course for a writer who does not produce pages, but instead pumping volumes. Among the works that followed, there was another “spoiled march”, another classic, this type that puts it for a long collection of golf books. Feinstein style was smart while seemed to be effortless, the type of copy that raises the confidence of other writers. It produced a catalog that extended the American sport, politics and behavior.
But again, there are these contradictions. What was always more unique in the Venchetein profession was that he kept parts of it rooted as no one expects. Philadelphia Big 5 loved and has been working for years as a semi -Waltra victory writer. He loved basketball in the small school and wrote an entire book (“The Last Huateurs”) around a season in the Patriot League, a slightly followed conference consisting of Bucknell, Colgate, Holy Cross and other schools that did not take place without a sports grant until 1998. He spent years as a radio commentary for marine football.
From afar, it was difficult not to wonder why.
KrZyzewski presented the theory. He was very successful in his career, and he asked to work with indisputable confidence in his views and writing, perhaps Vincents did not know how to appear, in his depths, there was already some humility there. So, instead of saying that, do this by showing it. Putting his weight as it may carry more.
“I am not sure that his critics realized he did it,” said Kerzzsky.
In this, his last season, Fenctein, born in 1955 on the western side of Manhattan, was calling for televised home games at the University of Longood in Varmville, Virginia, where he also taught the press.
The last column ran in the Washington Post Thursday morning. It was a reference to Tom Iso refusing to change some of his ways in these new days.
“He called me the other night,” said Michigan state coach from Indianapolis on Thursday. “Frankly, I thought we were only the bulls. I didn’t even know that he was writing a column. I just answered his call because I wanted to hear what he said.”
(Photo by Nathaniel S. Pateer/NBAE via Getty Images)
