About me

This is my first blog. It is a birth, and like any birth, it could end up badly. Or well. We shall have to see. I've started it because a friend of mine said that I should, and because after 29 years as a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, I took a buyout last year and have some time on my hands. Soon (March 25) I shall head to Los Angeles for the World Figure Skating championships, which will give me something to blog about (figure skating fans, I'm told, love blogs; and generally are starved for reliable information about their sport). Beyond that, I intend to write about the sports world in general, since over the years I've covered just about every sport you can name (try me); and have some expertise that may as well be put to use. (How 'bout that Netherlands baseball team! Who knew?)
But I'll also write about other things that interest me. I live in Boston, but was raised in Chicago. I share season tickets to the Red Sox. I keep bees, roses, and a vegetable garden. I have covered 14 Olympic Games, specializing in gymnastics and figure skating. I played hockey (goalie) at Princeton, class of '73, and was originally hired as a hockey writer. I'm probably best known for my coverage of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team ("Miracle"), and am still friends with several members of that wonderful group. But it's less well known that my first assigned story for Sports Illustrated was in 1978 on a 16 year old kid who was playing in Sault Ste. Marie named Wayne Gretzky. I covered his entire career, did a Sportsman of the Year piece on him, covered his move to LA, then to New York, covered his retirement, and most recently did a story on Wayne's first year coaching at Phoenix. So we're old friends.
I've also written four books, one of which, My Sergei, with Ekaterina Gordeeva, was a NY Times bestseller. But I am equally proud of Eleven Seconds, a book I did in 1997 with Travis Roy, who as a freshman at Boston University broke his neck in the first 11 seconds of his first shift as a college hockey player, an injury which left Travis a quadriplegic. I promise you, you have never met any individual with more courage, and to this day he gives motivational speeches to schools in and around New England that are universally praised.
So there's lots of perspective to draw on. I also have a 16-year-old son to keep it real for me, and a 24 year old son who's joined the real world of advertising in LA. So I'm grounded on both coasts. Tune in from time to time. We'll try to have some fun with it.