Foul Trouble

John Feinstein is an American author, sportswriter, and sportscaster who is well-known for penning sports-themed novels and articles that explore the behind-the-scenes challenges that athletes face. As a sportswriter, Feinstein was a regular columnist with The Washington Post, Sporting News, and Golf Digest, where he honed his storytelling skills and research experience. He also brought these skills to his fiction by crafting stories whose characters must navigate a variety of realistic challenges that arise from their status as imminent college athletes. The inclusion of real-life coaches and other well-known sports figures lends the book a sense of verisimilitude, and as a household name in the industry himself, Feinstein uses his personal knowledge of Tom Konchalski and other prominent names to create realistic characters with credible behavior and motivations. The evidence of his expertise also extends to the darker personalities in his stories, such as the unscrupulous recruiters and brand representatives. For this reason, Foul Trouble is designed to be a very real depiction of the pitfalls of the sports world.

In addition to his young adult fiction, Feinstein is well-known for his nonfiction accounts of key figures and teams from many different categories of athletics. His most popular work, A Season on the Brink, follows the 1985-86 season of the men’s basketball team at Indiana University, along with the coach, Bob Knight. Feinstein took a leave of absence from The Washington Post to shadow the team for six months, and this bold commitment allowed him to gather information and personal details that could only be found by fully immersing himself in the team’s day-to-day environment. Just like many of the characters in Foul Trouble, the real-world figure of Bob Knight sparked great controversy and was known for his volatile nature among both the press and his players. Feinstein’s unfettered access to Knight allowed him to portray the less appealing aspects of the man, thereby tempering the popular perception of Knight’s highly successful coaching abilities with a realistic picture of the trials that both Knight and his team faced. The book also inspired a new wave of similar authors to chronicle a single year of a specific team, and the popularity of A Season on the Brink also initiated several administrative changes to college basketball. Following the book’s publication, the NCAA created a rule that no single member of the press was allowed in the locker room unless the area was open to the press in general. This and other such rules inform the NCAA’s presence in Foul Trouble, which in turn adds to the novel’s realistic approach.