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Episode 517: The Miracle of Writing a Book with Keith O’Brien
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"Those people who shaped the people are often more important than the subject, because they have insight into this young person that they were working with. It's crucial," says Keith O'Brien, bestselling author of Heartland: A Forgotten Place, an Impossible Dream, and the Miracle of Larry Bird.
Today we have Keith O’Brien, author of five books, including his latest book Heartland: A forgotten Place, an Impossible Dream, and the Miracle of Larry Bird. It’s published by Atria Books.
It’s a lean, propulsive biography framed as an origin story of Larry Bird before he went to the NBA to later become one of the ten best players in history.
Keith is the New York Times bestselling author of Outside Shot, Fly Girls, Paradise Falls, Charlie Hustle, which won the PEN America award for biography, and now Heartland. You can learn more about Keith at keithob.com and follow him on the ol’ IG @obrienstory. This book has been crushing it. His events have been overflowing. In this episode we talk about:
- The dispiriting change we’re seeing in sports journalism
- Finding the people who shaped the people
- Sitting under the prism of history
- Writing an origin story
- His favorite part of the job
- And how writing a book is like a miracle every time you finish
- Lost of great stuff to chew on …
Promotional support: The 2026 Power of Narrative Conference. Use narrative20 at checkout for 20% off your tuition. Visit combeyond.bu.edu.
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
Podcast Anniversary and Celebrations
00:00:00
Speaker
You're the birthday, you're the birthday, you're the birthday, boy or girl. If you know, you know. it's ah it's It's season three of The Simpsons, and yeah, the podcast turns 13 today. and We'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment. Need to start plugging this hard. The next live recording of the podcast will be Saturday, April 18th at 1 p.m.
00:00:26
Speaker
at Gratitude Brewing in Eugene, Oregon, with the mighty Lydia Yuknovich. We do this in partnership with the Northwest Review Association. and the world it should be a rocking event and if you're in eugene or the surrounding areas find the ah rsvp link in the show notes or on my various social platforms to reserve a free ticket it's like an eventbrite thing and we're doing rsvps you're like buying a free ticket uh but it's just to give us a head count because uh i suspect that this one will be ah bigger than normal and we want to give gratitude a heads up. They might need to hire an extra hand to hand out all those frothy
Reflecting on 13 Years of Podcasting
00:01:04
Speaker
beers. Hey, CNFers, last call.
00:01:07
Speaker
This podcast shares a promotional sponsorship with the 2026 Power of Narrative Conference taking place March 27th and 28th in lovely Boston, Massachusetts. This year's keynote speakers include Ken Burns, Patrick Radden-Keefe, that J.Crew model, Angela Patton, and Natalie Ray, Sarah Stillman, and Asma Khalid.
00:01:26
Speaker
There's a handful of CNF pod alums on the total roster, like Rana Nator and Louisa Thomas, so you're going to really want to take advantage. If you use the promo code NARRATIVE20 at checkout, you get 20% off your fee. That's some serious chatter.
00:01:39
Speaker
Visit combeyond.bu.edu to register. The slogan is as follows, repairing, restoring, reconnecting through true storytelling.
00:01:50
Speaker
I dig it. Well, I added the I dig it. People like to tell their story, you know, and people like to be heard. And in general, people like to talk about the high water marks in their life or sometimes the low water marks in their life.
00:02:14
Speaker
see what I've like I said before. It's the 13th birthday of the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where talk to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell, the art and craft of telling true stories. It was born on marched on March 20th, 2013. I was about to just go into some like really grody, gross birth metaphors. We're not going there. We're not we're not touching that imagery at all.
00:02:40
Speaker
And look at it now, 13. I think it's ready for the talk about the birds and the bees. Maybe its voice is changing, and perhaps it needs to learn how to shave that little shadow on the upper lip. For Christmas, when I turned 14, my dad got me this Panasonic electric razor to take care of the upper lip shadow. He thought it was funny. I didn't. I was embarrassed. What 14-year-old wants a an electric razor for Christmas?
00:03:05
Speaker
Not to brag, but I shave like once a month now.
Interview with Keith O'Brien on Larry Bird
00:03:08
Speaker
I'm Brendan O'Meara, your host for the show for 13 years and counting. Today we have Keith O'Brien, author of five books. including his latest book, Heartland, A Forgotten Place, An Impossible Dream, and the Miracle of, wait for it, Larry Bird.
00:03:25
Speaker
It's published by Atria Books. It's a lean, propulsive biography framed as an origin story of Larry Bird before he went on to the NBA to later become one of the ten best players in the history of the game, fundamentally changing the National Basketball Association.
00:03:44
Speaker
A little more about Keith in a second. Show notes and all sorts of junk can be found at brendanomero.com. You may also elect to subscribe to the wildly popular Substack Pitch Club, where I invite primarily writers to share a winning pitch or query and have them audio annotate their reasoning throughout. So you read a little, you listen a little, and you learn a lot.
00:04:05
Speaker
With issue 10 of Pitch Club, the most recent one as of this recording, I put the transcripts of each audio clip in its own little footnote. its own little patisserie of text. So if you can't listen for whatever reason, you can still read the insight. I aim to serve, even if it kills me. And Amaris Castillo, I believe i'm pronouncing her first name right, of Pointer Institute, she wrote a nice little feature over at pointer.org. Check it out.
00:04:34
Speaker
I'll link to it in newsletters and on Instagram, at Creative Nonfiction Podcast, if you want to check it out. It's a nice little feature to give a little press to Pitch Club. I had to pitch Pitch Club to Pointer.
00:04:45
Speaker
And I asked and a little shout out here, I guess, to Pete Croato, who put me in touch with the editor that he knew at Pointer. And I pitched Pitch Club to that that editor. And that editor assigned Amaris to write the story. i mean, you see, it's all pitching, man. It's all pitching. Keith is a New York Times bestselling author of Outside Shot, Fly Girls, Paradise Falls, Charlie Hustle, which won the PEN America Award for Biography, and now Heartland. You can learn more about Keith at keithobie.com
00:05:17
Speaker
and follow him on the old Graham at O'Brien story. This book has been crushing it out there. His events have been overflowing.
Larry Bird's Influence and Sports Journalism
00:05:29
Speaker
He's done events with like Chad Finn and Bob Ryan. He launched the book in Terre Haute, Indiana and all the people there where Larry Bird went to college and the economy that... I think it brings in something like $7 million dollars a year, the fact that like Larry Bird's, the myth around Larry Bird in that area of Indiana is fundamental to the economy of that region.
00:05:53
Speaker
And it's pretty cool. and where He went to Indiana State and ah made a name for himself the most... It being March Madness and all, I believe the the Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michigan State, Indiana State final is still like the highest rated or the largest viewership of any NCAA tournament game in history and likely will never be surpassed.
00:06:15
Speaker
So in this episode, we talk about the dispiriting change we're seeing in sports journalism. ah He wrote a great piece in The Atlantic for that that I'll link up as I see fit.
00:06:27
Speaker
ah Finding the people who shaped the people, sitting under the prism of history, writing an origin story, his favorite part of this job, and how writing a book is like a miracle every time you finish, no matter how many times you've done this. Lots of great stuff to chew on, and that's just the tip of the iceberg, man.
00:06:44
Speaker
Parting shot deals with the podcast's 13th birthday. I thought he'd do something like 13 lessons from 13 years, but I don't know. That seemed kind of silly. And what am I supposed to do next year and the year after?
00:06:55
Speaker
in any case, there will be birthday cake, okay? Here's Keith. Riff.
00:07:06
Speaker
Am I allowed to swear, the way? Oh, yes. Oh, okay. Are you just fucking insane? Just kind of a sloppy person. No, I'm still such a fuck up. I'm gonna be a fuck up probably for the rest of my life. This is gonna have to interest somebody somewhere other than me.
00:07:32
Speaker
But those first three nights, just amazing crowds in in Indiana. And the first night, we launched the book in Terre Haute, which is obviously the center of where things happen.
00:07:45
Speaker
We were at the convention center about, I don't know, 100 yards from the arena where Larry Bird played in college. And nine members of that Miracle Indiana State team and and the head coach, Bill Hodges, all came in for it.
00:08:00
Speaker
And we were on the stage in conversation. It was incredible. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. And having you Bill Hodges there and everything, I'm reminded, and and we'll probably pull on this thread a little later too, but when I i did my Prefontaine biography i um that came out last year, i was so surprised that one of Pre's coaches from high school was still alive. Phil Persian is distance coach from high school and he lives in Boise, Idaho. And And ah the fact that, ah you know, he's one of the guys who had his hands on the horse, who was very instrumental. and And the fact that he's still alive and still had like great memories and was so crucial to his development into. And similarly, Bill Hodges was so crucial to the to the recruiting of Bird and the cultivating of his talent getting him in the best position to succeed. It's it's just ah it's amazing that those voices are still here and you can give platform and give voice to them. I mean, it's it's incredible, right? It's one of the reasons why.
00:08:57
Speaker
I don't know about you, but I feel an urgency at times to projects that I'm working on, you know because listen, time is short for us all, ah but you know when you get into your 80s, it is especially short. Yeah, I was really lucky to get to interview Bill Hodges. um You know, hours and hours of interviews with Bill on the phone and in his home and outside of Charlotte, North Carolina.
00:09:23
Speaker
And, you know, interestingly, Larry Bird's high school mentor is also still alive, a man named Jim Jones. And I was able to interview him as well, among obviously many others. But yeah, those people...
00:09:37
Speaker
who shaped the people are often more
Challenges in Sports Interviews and Narratives
00:09:40
Speaker
important than the than the person. You know what i mean? The subject, you know, because they have insight into this young person that they were working with.
00:09:51
Speaker
it is It's crucial. Absolutely. Yeah, and I get you. I totally feel you on the that urgency. I know with, because, you know, Prefontaine died 50 years ago, and so he would have been, we would have just turned 75 this past ah ah this past ah January. So you really, all his peers are in their mid to late 70s. Anyone who might have been instrumental in his development, certainly in their 80s. So some people I called, and then like quite literally, like a month later, like one guy passed away. And I was like so grateful to be able to capture them. But yeah, you you run into this like, oh, my God, like if you have them lined up for an interview, you better get as much as you can out of that because there's no guarantee of that follow up that we so often crave.
00:10:35
Speaker
ah It's I mean, sadly, so true. and it And it actually happened with me on this project. There was a crucial issue.
00:10:47
Speaker
character, you know, small, smaller role, but, you know, one of those characters who sees and hears everything. The the team manager on the nineteen seventy eight seventy nine Indiana State team was a man named Rick Shaw.
00:11:01
Speaker
And ah Rick Shaw was, you know, he's relatively young. He's, you know, he's Larry's age. He's in his late 60s. But he sadly got sick last year, cancer. And, you know, i did three interviews with him. The last one was Rick was in the hospital, you know, and sadly, he did not he did not see live to see the book come out, which is devastating.
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's a big reality of doing a biography on these historic figures, especially, know, once the primes of their stories are in, like, say, the 70s and now cresting into the 80s, too. So, um yeah, but it's amazing what you were able to pull off with with Heartland, and we'll definitely get into that in more detail. But I figure a good on-ramp, well, actually kind of off already starting to ease on up to speed on the freeway. um But I'd love to get a sense, Keith, of some of the inspirations you turn to you know when you're looking to yeah just get some inspiration into the into the gas tank for your writing. you know I've been getting into trying to read more short fiction just as a means of how are these people economically telling a good story. It's especially good for like magazine writing. But I wonder for you, just what do you turn to for inspiration when you're when you might be a little bit stuck?
00:12:16
Speaker
ah You know, I do something similar. You know, i i I do like to read fiction when I'm writing nonfiction. When I'm not writing nonfiction, like when I'm in between projects or just reporting something, that's a time where I'll...
00:12:31
Speaker
read nonfiction. i used to read exclusively nonfiction, but you know I i you learned that like when I'm in the writing, it actually is helpful not to be reading something like that. And so I do like reading novels. I'm one of those people who returns to reading things that I know I like.
00:12:53
Speaker
You know, whether it's a book or even just ah a story, I'll return to reading that as ah as a way of inspiration, almost like ah a way of cleansing, cleansing the palates and reminding me, ah you know, of what I'm trying to do anyway.
00:13:13
Speaker
Yeah. What are some of those titles, ah be it a be it a magazine story or a book that you like to return to? Great question. You know, I have on my shelf at home the anthology of like the greatest sports writing of the 20th century that David Halberstam edited.
00:13:32
Speaker
i have the 100 Best Short Stories of the 20th Century. You know, I think about the stuff that David Halberstam did in particular. One book I bought years ago is ah is a book of his reporting from Vietnam.
00:13:47
Speaker
ah you know He's a young man. He's in this is the late 60s, early 70s. You know, he's at the top of his game and he's about to jump off into all those books he's going to write. And, you know, those stories are nice and short. And I'll turn to those on a regular basis.
00:14:07
Speaker
ah That's great. Yeah. And Glenn Stout, who's instrumental to the best American sports writing in um and now kind of, ah you know, in in the background of your best sports writing now. But he had that when I've spoken to him in the past, he has this thing like if you're kind of struggling getting into a story or something, and I think it's just a good exercise in general. Instead of picking up your phone, like pick up a volume of best American sports writing and just shotgun leads. Just look at look at the leads. How are they getting into these stories? And you shotgun kickers, too, but especially leads like and just get them into your bloodstream. And it's such a great exercise.
00:14:38
Speaker
That's great. I love that. I love Glenn. All of those tomes are amazing. But I like that term shotgunning leads. I'm going to I'm going to use that sometime. I know. It's a it's great. i I've been trying to put the put like a volume of that near where my phone typically is. So instead of when I'm tempted to pick up the phone, I'll just grab the book and be like, oh, this is a better way to spend one to two minutes or two to three minutes. um ah yeah Yeah, far more nourishing. Can we talk about how hard it is to write in the era of you know, ah you know the the phone sitting right there and your and your internet web browser sitting right there. You know, when you hit that snag, it's like you have to resist every temptation within your body to turn to your phone or open a different page on the web browser. it is It's it's a challenge. It's a challenge.
00:15:31
Speaker
Big time. The piece that you wrote for The Atlantic around the time that Charlie Hustle came out about sports journalism, like we'll miss it when it's gone. And we're seeing the erosion of of that to this day. And we are going to miss it when it's gone. And it just how do you evaluate just the sports journalism landscape, ah you know, just at the moment? But, ah you know, why how we're going to miss it, especially in this age of really the the sanitized docuseries.
00:15:59
Speaker
I mean, you're you're so right. And in the sanitized docuseries, by the way, ah you know where the subject has full editorial control over the product, is you know making work like I do, like you do, like others who come on this this podcast do a lot harder to do ah because everybody wants to have full control and nobody is willing to sit under the prism of of history anymore.
00:16:27
Speaker
You know, i'm I'm very worried about where we're headed in the sports journalism ecosystem. You know, we're living in a time where sports gambling has proliferated to levels that no one anticipated, even after they, you know, ah legalized gambling eight years ago. We live in a time of scandal after scandal.
00:16:54
Speaker
And we live in a time when People like me and you and others out there have less and less access to to the athletes themselves. And, you know, it was flawed before, you know, in this in the 70s. You know, at that time, the reporters had too much access. They were buddy-buddy with the athletes. They were, you know, going out and drinking with them at night, carousing with them. They were too close and we didn't know our heroes because they't they didn't tell us what we didn't want to know. But now we've swung in a completely other direction where there are just walls and fortresses around the locker rooms. And, you know, i understand it. You know, sports has become a multi multi billion dollar industry, one of our largest industries. People are drawn to sports because of the story, because of the story.
00:17:53
Speaker
You know, it's not about the box score. It's not about the final score. It is about the story. And, you know, if we get to a place where the best storytellers don't have the ability to tell the great stories because they don't have the access to do so you simply don't have the resources to do so or the the the people in the locker room to do so, then it's it's bad for us all.
00:18:22
Speaker
Yeah, and on on the one hand, I can almost understand why especially high-profile athletes wouldn't want to subject themselves to the scrutiny of a journalist to kind of root around in their lives and then and then tell the that story through that writer's point of view when now they have so many tools at their disposal. Yeah.
00:18:44
Speaker
to to control that narrative and their brand. it's like i can um i can empathize with it, but hopefully a wise viewer or a wise reader realizes they're not getting the whole story. And you know a story in the hands of someone like yourself, and you know Ian O'Connor, Miren Fader, Jeff Perlman, getting to things that might be a little uglier really illustrate the human condition and make them all the more relatable. And in the end, I feel more likable.
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. And I agree with you 100%. I think the discerning reader knows you know ah what they're getting. The discerning reader knows if what they're getting is a package story you know with the with the the corners rounded off or or the real story, good, bad, and ugly. On my book on Pete Rose, Charlie Hustle, you know Pete sat with me for 27 hours of recorded interviews.
00:19:46
Speaker
Wow. And i got to him not through his agent. I got to him through back channels, through his friends. you know I was doing reporting. i was in Cincinnati getting to know people, my hometown, building connections.
00:20:04
Speaker
I got the introduction and I was in. and it was only after his agent learned that I was in ah that I lost that access. I don't know why I lost that access, but it was only after the agent learned.
00:20:16
Speaker
And it is just a shame because... Listen, the P. Rose story is as ugly as a story gets, you know, for a modern athlete, let's just say. yeah um he's He's got it all.
00:20:29
Speaker
know, the good and the bad and the ugly, the lies, the scandal, everything. But you know I wanted to write that story straight down the middle. And you know yeah, I'm gonna write about all that. I'm gonna write about the highs and the lows, the glory moments on the field, the tragedies off of it, and and let people come to their own conclusion. And I think you know the you know the consensus clearly, you know based on the feedback I've gotten in the last two years is,
00:20:55
Speaker
It achieved its purpose. ah You know, ah pete Pete is better off for having that book having been done and for having participated with it, even if he wouldn't have liked everything that was in it. Because I get emails from people who say,
00:21:11
Speaker
you know, all these years, you know, I supported Pete Rose and I loved him and I thought i should be in the hall of fame. and Now I read your book and I not so sure I think so anymore, but I also got emails from people who said all these years I've hated Pete Rose and I didn't even want to read your book. And I thought he shouldn't be in the hall of fame, but I read your book anyway. And now I sort of think he should be in the hall of fame.
00:21:35
Speaker
I think all of it is, is, is better for, for the subjects himself. And also yeah getting to the point of the the agent kind of blocking your access, thankfully far later in the process than earlier in the process. So often with these prominent figures, though, like when they if they elect not to participate, they can start running interference. And that's well within their right. But that it also creates a major headache for you at the helm of this to try to get the good to get the good stuff. So like, how how have you navigated that where maybe the ah central figure is starting to run interference on the people that you would like to talk to?
00:22:13
Speaker
You know, it's all speculation here. i do believe it happened a little bit on Charlie Hustle. You know, when Pete shut down on me, I was still fairly early in the reporting, maybe only, you know, six months in. the there, it was a challenge after that at times. I will say on this book, on Heartland, while Larry Bird did not participate, you know, he didn't throw up any roadblocks. You know, i did interview, ah you know, his entire college team, you know, some of his closest friends.
00:22:54
Speaker
I mean, people who are texting him today, right now. so ah At least as far as I know, he himself didn't throw up any roadblocks. Yeah. And when you're you know approaching you know Larry Bird as a subject, is he your first outreach, your first email to say, like, this is what I intend to do?
00:23:14
Speaker
So he wasn't um because i was trying to do something a little bit different here.
Exploring Larry Bird's Early Years
00:23:20
Speaker
ah you know I was trying to tell an origin story of Larry Bird in the 1970s wrapped around this enduring miracle of his 1979 Indiana State team. Many listeners will know you know Indiana State and Larry Bird play Magic Johnson in Michigan State in that epic championship game in 1979. And because of how that game ends, you might think, well, to take the Indiana State angle is is less interesting.
00:23:52
Speaker
But I learned early on that there were some things that happened after that game, the Bird Magic game, unrelated to Bird and Magic, that are just so powerful and so incredible that that's really where it started for me. And so my first calls actually weren't to Larry or his agent But what but were two members of the Indiana State team, you know, guys I knew I could get to. Because I wanted to flesh it out a little bit and figure out, you know, can I write an origin story, you know, that really ends in 1979 and everything else is epilogue. And in order to do that, I needed to know the other characters a bit better. And so what I did first for a couple months actually was talk to the players on the team
00:24:43
Speaker
And it was only after I had a a critical mass of those players on board ah that I reached out to Larry's people. And a lot of those people on that team, they are they were you know great for their time, but a lot of them didn't you know become super famous players, obviously, like really none of them by and large. So finding those people can be kind of hard. So how do you find you know those the people that aren't super super famous so you can yeah start building up that roster?
00:25:16
Speaker
It's honestly my favorite part of the job. I love tracking people down. I love finding people. You know, that first call is sometimes a little weird. If you're introducing yourself, they don't know who the hell you are, what you're calling about.
00:25:31
Speaker
But I really love it. And here's why. and I know you've had this experience. People like to tell their story. you know, and people like to be heard. And in general, people like to talk about the high water marks in their life or sometimes the low water marks in their life. And so it's my favorite part of the job, of tracking people down and and calling them and asking them ah about ah a moment in time or a season in time or a time in their life from long, long ago.
00:26:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I had an experience with that with one particular guy who had, who had, ah you know, beaten Prefontaine in high school, who'd never been on the record with anybody in the intervening years of Prefontaine lore. And I just kind of tracked him down because he had this funny anecdote of having slapped Prefontaine on the ass and saying, like, show me something, Prefontaine, in a race. And then Steve just took off and kicked the shit out of him in that race. And it was just like, oh, cool. Can I find this guy? Is he still alive? Are these phone numbers I'm tracking down on Fast People Search or White Pages, like, are they going to work? But I tracked him down and he was like to your point of like wanting to tell the stories like no one had ever interviewed him ever. And he was just so tickled to like play some small part in like that Prefontaine story. And to me, it was a huge part and such a cool story that had never been really excavated before. And like that's where the real juice is, isn't it?
00:26:56
Speaker
It is. It is. And, you know, your story reminds me of a scene in my book. In that miracle season, 78, 79, Indiana State's going to go, you know, undefeated and just roll on. And it comes out of nowhere. You would think it wouldn't because it's Larry Bird, but nobody projected this team to be good. Yet the most important moment in that season comes late in a game in February 1979 after Bird is fouled out.
00:27:27
Speaker
He can't help them anymore. It's the only time he fouls out in his college career. He's on the bench. They're losing at New Mexico State. It's the largest crowd to ever attend a game in Las Cruces. They're about to take down Larry Bird and end the undefeated season. And there's a guy going to the line with three seconds left for the New Mexico State Aggies to shoot the front end of a one-on-one. His name is Greg Webb.
00:27:53
Speaker
Greg Webb makes the front end. The Aggies go up by three with three seconds to go. There's no three-point shot yet in college basketball. This game is over. Webb misses the shot. in Indiana State grabs the rebound, flings it up the court.
00:28:08
Speaker
Half court, buzzer beater. It goes in, goes overtime. I think we know where this is going. Anyway, I tracked down Greg Webb. And he was hard to find. As you know, it's harder to find people with ordinary names. You know, ah Gregory Webb in his 60s, and I don't even know where he lives, is a hard person to find. And it took a while, but I did track him down. And, you know, these days he's an assistant principal at a middle school in Oklahoma City. And he It's hard to call someone and talk about the lowest moment in their sporting life potentially.
00:28:48
Speaker
But when I found Greg, he was thrilled to talk because he told me this. He said, you know, Bird and Magic, get all this, you know, attention and credit for starting March Madness. He's like, I think I started March Madness.
00:29:05
Speaker
He said, you know, if I make that shot, Indiana State loses, you know, they drop down in the polls. Maybe they continue to lose because they were on this heater of a streak. Momentum is real in sports.
00:29:21
Speaker
And so he's like, I think I deserve some credit here. And it's an interesting theory to think about. Yeah, because then if they lose, then maybe their seed drops, then maybe they end up on the same side of the bracket as Michigan State. So if at the most, maybe they meet in the Elite Eight or the Final Four of that time, and they don't meet in the final, and it doesn't have the same pulse that it edit ultimately had.
00:29:44
Speaker
There were only 40 teams in the tournament back then. you know, and um took two teams from the Missouri Valley Conference, which is where Indiana State played. ah You know, if Indiana State loses five games, six games down the stretch after losing one, they could have missed the tournament. That's what it was like back then. You know, these days we wring our hands over a... 16 and 13 team, you know, that had some good wins against quality opponents and maybe they should be in. i mean, back in the day, you could go 23 and eight and not win your conference and miss the tournament. And that was that.
00:30:23
Speaker
And also, as you take on the subject of Larry Bird and this kind of like Larry Bird begins, like a Batman Begins or kind of origin story. i i love that framing of I love the framing of the book ah that it that it does essentially end 79 for the purposes of this narrative. um But when you're looking to to sell the book in proposal form or even just elevator pitch form and it's Larry Bird, you're going to be like, well, what new can be said? That's always the thing.
00:30:50
Speaker
yeah know What hasn't been said that that you can excavate? So what was the you know when you decide to take it on, you know what is the kind of sales pitch, if you will, to say something new about the Larry Bird story? Yeah.
00:31:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, anyone who's sold a book or tried to sell a book, you know that's the question that people ask. you know Why will this sell? What can you say that's new here? ah you know By the time I had a proposal ready, you know i knew ah that I had fresh material here about Larry Bird's childhood. and upbringing and early days in Terre Haute that you know had never seen the light of day before. um you know Anytime ah people have come to this story, they always do the bird magic thing, you know they the the bird magic narrative.
00:31:42
Speaker
And I ah totally understand as a storyteller why that's a compelling way to do it. But when you do it that way, you leave lots of great material on the cutting room floor of both men. And so, you know, I think among other things, notably in this book, ah there's a portrait of Larry Bird's father that we've never seen before. Larry Bird's father plays an important role in Larry's life as a father would do in any the life of any child, of any character, any protagonist.
00:32:14
Speaker
But in particular, because ah Larry's father is troubled and and will die tragically you know at a point in time where Larry is almost himself slipping away. So it was really important for me to develop Joey Bird as ah as a person.
00:32:34
Speaker
you know, on the pages of the book. And I and i did have material ah that I knew i would be able to do that. A person that where you give him more life than he's had before or someone who has been so defined by his death in the Larry Bird story, like giving him a few thousand words or like a chapter of ballast and understanding about him going away at war and coming back clearly with PTSD that affects the trajectory of his life. Like that's what you do so well with this story. And it's certainly one of those things where, yeah, like this is –
00:33:09
Speaker
a selling point in the in the in the bird or origin story that you could flesh out that story. Well, and, you know, in order to do that, too, I had to I had to unearth, you know, Joey Bird's military records. I really wanted to know is was that PTSD story true? You know, I think over the years as a journalist, you know, often You know, there are there are cases of what are known as stolen valor. You know, someone says, oh, I fought here and this happened to me. And now that's why this is happening to me now. And, ah you know, I'm not suggesting that I thought that was happening with larry Larry Bird's father. But I wanted to know, is that pts story PTSD story Is it possible? And so I did spend a good bit of time tracking down those military records. And initially when I got the World War II records, it was clear that maybe there was no foundation for that there. you know Larry Bird's father does serve in World War II, but he's not in a combat position. He's a he's like a mess man, below decks, you know serving food essentially. But when I got the batch of records on Korea, it was a different story. Joey Bird had served at the front in the winter of 1950-51 in North and South Korea, north of Seoul, a bloody and terrible winter where the US forces are having to retreat ah you know under pressure, you know dead bodies in the snow. it was rough. And then you know the other thing I did, and I know do this too when you do your work, you got to live in those newspaper archives.
Importance of Archives in Research
00:34:59
Speaker
and you got ah And some of these archives aren't digitized, right? They're just in those big fat books or they're in microfilm. And sometimes you have to go through those
00:35:09
Speaker
page by page because it was only in doing that that I found this incredible little nugget of a first person dispatch that Joey Bird wrote ah you know home ah from from Korea recounting that winter that ran on the front page of the Springs Valley Herald in French Lake, Indiana. That's a newspaper you'll only find in French Lick. It's a newspaper that is not digitized. you You literally have to spin through it hand by hand.
00:35:46
Speaker
take Take me to the feeling of finding that. How did you light up? It wasn't even microfilm. It was a giant book. It was like 1951, 1951, page by page. The actual newspaper weathered and yellowed in this big binder.
00:36:03
Speaker
um My first reaction was, my eyes must be deceiving me. This must have misread who wrote this. ah You know, I must have checked it four times.
00:36:15
Speaker
and then And then I, you know, then I started reading. ah Yeah, it was incredible. Yeah, yeah it's it's something else. And for anyone out there doing this kind of research with things so Google-able and searchable and newspapers.com being such an amazing resource, but if you can lean into the friction of the microfilm, these things that aren't digitized, in this day and age, you're going to find, you are going to find things that other people are unwilling to find, be it for resources or time or attention. But when you do, you are like leveling up to something that ah people just don't do anymore.
00:36:50
Speaker
Agreed. Yeah, you got to put in the time. There's no substitute for just living in the archives. Totally agree. Yeah. And ah and so, know, Bert is kind of floundering, you know, a little bit. You know, he's clearly showing an aptitude, but he's just as like comfortable, you know, just withdrawing from, say, Indiana and then maybe spending his time on the garbage truck working for the city. yeah So like it just take us to the the the headspace of Larry at this particular moment in his life.
00:37:24
Speaker
I think one thing to know before we get to that moment is that Larry didn't dream of you know playing college basketball. He didn't dream of playing in the NBA. That wasn't his goal. All he really dreamt about as a boy in French Lake Indiana in the early nineteen seventy s was maybe, maybe being as good as his older brother, Mark, who I've met on a couple of occasions. And Mark was known as, you know, the best shooter from 15 foot and in in French Lick in the 70s.
00:37:59
Speaker
He was a star on the Springs Valley High School team. And Larry just wanted to be as good as Mark. And that was it. And so when he gets to Indiana, and face his adversity there.
00:38:11
Speaker
He's willing to throw it away because, you know as he'll recount later, what's the point in doing it if it's not making me happy? It wasn't what he wanted anyway. ah You know, and and, you know, the adversity that Bird faces at Indiana, I think is, you know, multi-layered. You know, he he feels poor there. He feels alone there. He feels unseen there. That's a really good Hoosiers basketball team there. They don't care about this guy, Larry Bird, and they make it known to him that they don't care who he is. And for all those reasons, he goes home. And when he does go home,
00:38:49
Speaker
I think it's even darker than him getting the job on the garbage truck. I mean, that is like a ah a line that people know because it's so fantastic. It's so amazing. It's so ridiculous. But like he goes home, he enrolls in vocational school.
00:39:07
Speaker
He briefly plays on the basketball team there. Then he drops out from there. And then he gets the job at the street department where, among other things, he collects the trash. you know Then amid all of that, his father fully unravels a tragedy on the doorstep of the Byrd family. And then You know, by March 1975, Larry Bird is playing effectively pickup basketball in the industrial league in rural Indiana, teams sponsored by taverns and liquor stores, guys playing the league who have day jobs and wives and kids. I mean, it's over.
00:39:48
Speaker
It's I mean, it's this close to being over. Yeah, there's such and at the very end of part one, it's such like Goodwill hunting vibes like, yeah you know, birds working for the city. You know, he's like, waiting you know, wasting his talents that, you know, that bird is wasting his life at that point. And it it reminds me of that awesome scene in Goodwill hunting towards the end where like Ben Affleck tells him like.
00:40:10
Speaker
and Basically, like you think you know you need to get out of get out of town to like help you, but he like he's like, fuck You got to get out of town because ah cause of me, because you're sitting on that winning lottery ticket, and you're just spitting in our faces. and it really I really just felt that pulse at that moment.
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, I love that scene too. He's quit the team Larry has, the the vocational school team, Northwood Institute it was called. ah He's working on the trash truck. And these guys at Northwood Institute he used to play with are right there in town, you know, seeing him drive by on the truck and wondering why, you know, why You know, all of those guys would have killed to play
Key Figures in Larry Bird's Journey
00:40:54
Speaker
for Bobby Knight. They would have killed to to gotten a scholarship to go to Bloomington. Here they are just fighting to stay alive at Northwood Institute. And Byrd's walked away from that, too, riding the truck. It is incredibly cinematic, really.
00:41:11
Speaker
Yeah. And ah one of the epigraphs of the book, too, is a Jackie McMullins really ah espousing Bill Hodges for really why we know Larry Bird to this day. And like if it wasn't for him, we don't have Bird. How instrumental was Hodges to ah the origin story of Larry?
00:41:29
Speaker
I think Bill Hodges is is crucial. ah You know, Bill Hodges is a down on his luck journeyman assistant coach at Indiana State in the spring of 1975, newly hired there. He's on his third job in three years.
00:41:47
Speaker
His career is not moving in the right direction. And, you know, ah he takes a chance and goes down to French Lick searching for Larry.
00:41:58
Speaker
Now, to stop there and think about that for a second. In 2026, a talent like Larry, even in a place like French Lick, would have a team of people around him, handlers and agents, No one would be going looking for a kid like that today. He would be playing in showcases. He would be set up by his team, his handlers.
00:42:22
Speaker
Here's Bill Hodges literally driving the streets of French Lick looking for him. And he does find him. It's something inside Bill that connects with Larry. You know, Bill is from rural Indiana, just like Larry. He's bailed hay and grown up poor, just like Larry. He knows what it's like to be overlooked and slighted. He's stubborn, just like Larry. And You know, it is that connection between these two that really, I think, does pull Larry Bird back from the brink, coaxes him to enroll at Indiana State. And then, you know, once he's at Indiana State in the summer of 75, staring down the barrel of a full transfer year sitting out, Bill Hodges does things for Larry that Bobby Knight never did.
00:43:17
Speaker
He builds a sort of safe place for Larry. Initially, he allows him to stay in his basement of his house on Ohio Street in Terre Haute, charging him rent you know to cover their NCAA bases.
00:43:33
Speaker
He helps get Larry a job, puts money in his pocket, you know, through that job. You know, make sure he can make it through that year. And that year, by the way, was tough for Larry.
00:43:45
Speaker
You know, ah he nearly walks away again during that year because he was so frustrated that he could not play. Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of Hodges, too, you know, you write at one point that Hodges was turning 32 that March, three years younger than Bobby Knight, and the same age as Dave Bliss, who's an assistant with Bobby Knight, with almost nothing to show for all his years of sacrifices. And in that one sentence, I just relate to it as a writer, too. Like when you're starting to, you know, you're spinning your tires and then you're looking over someone who's like a peer who's not that much older than you or even younger. And they're like on this rocket ship and you're like, what the hell am I doing here? Like, why can't I get some of that traction? and I could really relate to that sentence. Right. You know, because, and, and Bill was, Bill was good at his job too.
00:44:31
Speaker
Uh, you know, he wasn't, uh, known necessarily as a great X's and O's coach at that time, but he was known as a great recruiter. You know, Bill was personable. Uh, he, he could connect With rural kids in particular, rural kids in Indiana, he knew the state well. If Bill could get into the living room, he could he could convince you to come there. And now I appreciate you pointing out that line. That ah that means a lot.
00:44:58
Speaker
And ah also in terms of the the cast of characters you're dealing with are the the two-headed monster of the McKees, who are like the PR department at Indiana State. And they are they are so instrumental in ah in building up the i building up Larry Bird as a draw. So just what was it like interacting with with them and how instrumental they were, too, to to Larry's development as an icon?
00:45:21
Speaker
I mean, i always feel like with with a book like this or like Charlie Hustle, ah you know, again, some of the most valuable sources aren't the stars.
00:45:33
Speaker
They aren't necessarily even the players. They're the people who are just there, you know, in the room doing the work. nobody works harder at a university than the sports information directors.
00:45:47
Speaker
You know, the people who are keeping the trains running on time, getting the team on the bus, getting the media set up, setting up the interview. i mean, they're they're behind the scenes making the sausage really. And so, yeah, I spent a lot of time talking with Ed McKee, who was the sports information director at Indiana State in the seventy s and his assistant Craig McKee, who was a student intern, same age as Larry, working for ed You know, their interviews were crucial. And Craig, who was again just a student, was cognizant of the at the time that what he was living through was historical.
00:46:30
Speaker
what he was living through mattered and might be significant and might be momentous later. And so he was actually taking notes, keeping effectively a journal of of that time, which he shared with me. And you know, too, like memory is great, but when you have a diary or a journal where someone is writing about it at the moment,
00:46:58
Speaker
ah That is a crystal clear memory you know that is just so valuable. Craig's wasn't even you know the only journal that I was able to utilize here, but I do love using diaries and journals if they ever exist.
00:47:14
Speaker
Yeah, those are like those are truly the gold. like I remember yeah Phil Pershing, that coach was telling you about, he still had in the three-ring binders the the distance training logs of all those teams. ah Pre's pages got torn out by somebody else who didn't respect him, but there was enough there, too, where there were workouts and certain notes, like it was raining or so or too snowy to train, but they would have their goal paces and their date paces for that day.
00:47:40
Speaker
And like, When you burrow into the context of those goal paces, can see with in that Prefontaine's case, you could see he's going for the national high school record in the two mile. It's just like but like once you know the context and you see it in the books and that they're gunning for it, it brings it to life in a way that, ah yeah, that few things can. So it's yeah, these things are invaluable. And it's just you're just so grateful that people hang on to these things and then they're willing to share them with you.
00:48:06
Speaker
Well, right, because then when you get a log like yours, you know you've got a date, you know that the workout was in the morning, and then you can go to the newspaper and figure out what was the weather in the morning that day. Oh, it was misty, okay.
00:48:23
Speaker
you know And you can now you can start to paint a more three-dimensional picture all off of one little data point, one little document. Yeah. And with the McKees, they had the headache, too, of dealing with Bird because he was not media friendly at the time. And ah ah just yeah ah for people who might not be aware of how reticent and introverted and sometimes outright rude Larry was, just, yeah, paint a picture for us for what he was like at that time.
00:48:52
Speaker
Well, so, you know, for the first couple of years he's at Indiana State, no one cares that he's there. You know, he's a great player playing for an insignificant team and no one cares.
00:49:03
Speaker
But, you know, in late no November 1977, Sports Illustrated puts him on the cover of the magazine, a huge deal in those days. There's no real story with that that cover. It's the college basketball preview issue. So Larry doesn't have to sit for a long interview or anything, but he does have to sit for a long photo session, which he hated. that...
00:49:28
Speaker
that cover that photograph and cover, and then Larry's performance after that in the first six weeks of the 77, 78 season forces you know Sports Illustrated's hand. Now they start sending you know some of their big writers to go to Terre Haute and tell his story.
00:49:46
Speaker
And it's the first ones to show up and it doesn't go well. And it won't go well for the next year and a half. You know, Larry doesn't want to talk about the past. He doesn't want to talk about his personal life. He doesn't want to talk about his family. He doesn't want to talk about his dad. And, you know, he doesn't want to talk about other things that's going on, namely, you know, that he's been married. He married his high school sweetheart, got divorced, that they had a daughter together, um that, you know, he's still, you know,
00:50:16
Speaker
You know, arguing over in court. He doesn't want any of that, you know, to be in the papers, in the magazine. But of course, you know, once the national spotlight is on him, because it is such a great story.
00:50:31
Speaker
you know, it's inevitable that it all comes
Impact of Media on Athlete Careers
00:50:35
Speaker
spilling out. And with each, you know, item that comes spilling out, Larry shuts down even more. And so he's at war with the press. The press is at war with the McKees. The McKees are at war with Larry. It's just, you know, a big boil boiling cauldron of of tension there underneath, you know, the the surface of this incredible underdog story.
00:51:02
Speaker
Yeah. And i I, you know, Prefontaine was on the cover as a freshman ah at the U of O on June 15th, 1970. And, ah you know, in in the book, you know, to Matt Harper, my editor and I were like, you really need to slow down and meditate on this and remind the reader of how important it was to get on the cover of Sports Illustrated, how you go from maybe a fringe sport to suddenly you're in the mainstream. And you do that particularly well, too, with Larry getting his cover shoot. So maybe just like paint that picture of just and it put it in context of how important that was at that time of sports journalism and college athletics.
00:51:40
Speaker
Right, yeah, great point. I mean, you know narratively speaking, it is important to know when to pull back and take a beat and you know expand on something just a little, even if it's just a paragraph, you know you know not to belabor it. I agree, thats Sports Illustrated is a moment where you need to do that because Sports Illustrated has lost all of its cultural relevance today. yeah I know it still exists, but not anything close to what it used to be. you know At the time in the 1970s and certainly by the 1980s, Sports Illustrated is like you know the Tonight Show and 60 Minutes and Nightline you know wrapped into one for sports.
00:52:27
Speaker
It was everything. ah So, ah you know, to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated for these guys, for Prefontaine, for Larry Bird, for Magic Johnson, for Pete Rose, that was something they aspired to do, they dreamed about doing, at least most of them did. Larry did not. Like I said, you did not want to go to that photo shoot.
00:52:52
Speaker
He did not want to be there that day. i you know interviewed everyone who was at that photo shoot, aside from Larry himself. And you know everybody said that Larry was just detached. He was just like floating away. He was just a guy who was there while they were all doing what they were trying to do. And in fact, Larry's detachment you know made the photographer's job harder. He struggled to get the shot he wanted because Larry couldn't seem to do or or didn't want to do what the photographer wanted.
00:53:25
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and so much of um ah maybe larry the difficult nature of Larry at that time, like he was, i mean, he was taking swings at fans in the stands. If they stormed the court, like he's connected with other fans, like physically it was fighting and, you know, like you say, he's difficult with the media. And ah in what ways just if he was a black player, i mean, he'd be ah eviscerated. He might not even have a career after this. So in what way did like Larry's whiteness really shield him from so much of that criticism?
00:53:57
Speaker
I mean, it was it was it was a huge deal. his His race did protect him. you know A black star in the 1970s wouldn't have gotten away with treating the press the way that Larry did.
00:54:11
Speaker
A black star in the 1970s wouldn't have gotten away with throwing punches at fans. Larry does it twice in 10 months. You know, he he absolutely cold cocks a fan at Rutgers on the floor in March 1978, you know, leaves this guy bloodied on the floor.
00:54:35
Speaker
There's varying accounts of this chaotic scene. Fans have stormed the court as Rutgers has eliminated Indiana State in the NIT. Some accounts suggest that the fan touched Larry or jumped on his back. Others say he just taunted him. What's clear is that you know Larry just strikes him straight in the face. The news is completely buried in the Indiana papers. The New York papers make a little thing of it. They do. But it immediately dies and is gone. The Indiana papers, it's like it doesn't happen at all. Never happened.
00:55:13
Speaker
And, you know, I talked to almost two dozen players who were on the floor that day. The black players in particular Rutgers told me, you know, that if they had done that, you know, that it would have been a massive story. You know, and here, you know, Larry Bird gets away with it and and then does it again, you know, 10 months later during a game in the stands at New Mexico State in Las Cruces. I do think that this the story is different.
00:55:45
Speaker
You know, if if Larry is a black player. Yeah. and ah early in the book writing the introduction actually you write yeah it's a narrative that's almost impossible to imagine today in an era when college basketball players jump from school to school leave through the portal in mid-march play for the highest bidder chase lucrative deals funded with i and live on campuses millionaires cash in check out and rarely stay in one place long enough to leave and And legacy at all and ah that that speaks to certainly the change that's happened over the last 50 years or so. But it also gets into a sense of some of the world building that you were able to accomplish here to try to take us back to an era ah before all of the stuff that we take for granted. So it just take us to, you know, the the work that you did to build the world that we inhabit in these 285 pages or so
00:56:34
Speaker
Yeah, good good question. i mean, so you know, that passage that you just read is from the the preface or the introduction of the book. You know, I think a preface or an introduction, whatever your first three pages are, is yeah everything.
00:56:52
Speaker
I will rewrite that 10 times, 12 times, whatever. There were completely alternative versions of that introduction that exists on my laptop somewhere.
00:57:06
Speaker
But it is important in those... the first few pages to build that world. And you know i wanted to ah you know stay in the 70s in this story, but also remind no people who are reading it now you know you know of the chaos we see outside our our our door, you know outside our windows, on our TV screens, on our on our Twitter page, on our Instagram. you know i think you know for me,
00:57:38
Speaker
Speaking now as a sports fan, i think the system we had before was flawed. you know It was wrong that the NCAA and major college programs could benefit and profit off the backs of amateur athletes for decades, give them nothing, churning them up and eating them up in the process.
00:57:57
Speaker
But this process, currently this system also seems flawed and and feels in need of guardrails and and transparency. And so i wanted to nod to that in the introduction, while remaining in the 70s. And I do think, you know, the bulk of this book really does take place really in Indiana, you know, ah you know, ah in rural gyms, in Terre Haute, you know, that's the world, you know, that I have hopefully built here.
00:58:30
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And that's always fun, too, in biography is, that you know, we sometimes associate world building with fantasy and stuff like that. But biography, there's so much world building building, too, because you're transporting to different eras, ah you know, hopefully from a few generations removed and then being able to inhabit those areas here, rural Indiana in the late 70s. and it it takes us to a different place. I think biography done well does that. yeah I think that's really, really fun. And that's kind of the fun ah of ah of biography is that world building element. i Yeah, i and I just enjoy that. And I love reading it like like what you've done here.
00:59:08
Speaker
I love world building too. And that really, I think, is a product of the work, to where living in the archives, living in the newspapers, digging up the documents, you know getting to know the characters you know beyond the interview if they're are still alive. i think all of that stuff that you're gathering gathering on the periphery you know helps you build that world.
00:59:36
Speaker
Yeah, seeing the the headlines on the front pages of those newspapers, be like, oh, this is what's going on too. And they're not immune to that. Like that's the same way that the headlines of today are affecting us in our like in our bloodstream as we try to go about our days and our work. It's like the same thing was happening for them in the 70s. Whatever might have been going on, post-Watergate and all this stuff, all that fallout. And yeah, so that's in their bloodstream too and definitely informs their character at that moment.
01:00:06
Speaker
It's a great point. And it made me think of something, you know, any anybody who writes a sports book ah with soul, social or cultural relevance and transcendence in the early twenty twenty s say years from now.
01:00:24
Speaker
We will be bringing in that world building stuff of, you know, the Trump administration and these turbulent times we're living in. I mean, all of that stuff will live in the background of a Caitlin Clark biography 20 years from now, or, you know, a Patrick Mahomes biography 20 years from now. and And I think that's what makes a biography with a bit more distance, more powerful than one written in the moment too.
01:00:56
Speaker
Yeah. and we're going to have to be like transcribing their Instagram reels. Cause that's probably as close as you're going to get to those athletes. I mean, seriously, right? It's going to be, I don't know what's going to happen.
01:01:09
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And and there's a great sentence towards the end. And this almost feels like a what you might put in the introduction to a book proposal, too. You know, he made 1979 last forever, at least off the court. And he changed the people who were part of that moment, giving them an afterlife, too. For better or for worse, no one who was there in 1979 would ever be able to outrun it. And I i really just that distillation right there, this book that made that time in the next book that makes 1979 come this immortal little little world. You know, I love that sentence. And I have a feeling that that was kind of what you're building to. And so in so many ways.
01:01:45
Speaker
Yeah, that thank you. and Yeah, you know that to me is the most powerful part of this book, the afterlife of this story. Again, we know what happens in that Bird Magic game in 1979. We know that Bird and Magic are going to go on to change and save you know and salvage the NBA. To me, what was unknown is that this moment in this miracle season, unrelated to Magic Johnson, just about Bird in Terre Haute, in Indiana State, really is like ah a large ah rock dropped in a pond and those ripples go out. And, you know, ah you we're talking here in the midst of this book tour. I, you know, just spent the last four four days in Indiana, great events there and people coming out. And I got to tell you, you know i knew this story was powerful, but you know people were almost emotional about it all these years later.
01:02:43
Speaker
Thrilled to have this story written. And I don't mean... necessarily the characters themselves, Bird and his teammates, although some of them were also very grateful and emotional. I mean, fans who came to the book events who wanted to tell me where they were when this thing happened or where they were when so-and-so hit that shot. And um that to me is is ah ah just the power of a moment. And it was one of the big reasons why I was compelled to write the book.
The Journey of Writing a Book
01:03:17
Speaker
And in the acknowledgments to your first sentence is that youre writing a book is like firing up a half court shot, even if you've practiced it. And even if even if you've made the shot before, it feels like a miracle every time it does. now This is your fifth book. Just take us to, you know, a sentence like that. And, you know, just the the process of having written a book and how really how challenging it is, no matter how often you've done it.
01:03:37
Speaker
Well, i mean, you know the deal. It's just not easy. And, you know, while certain parts of it get easier because you've done it before, ah other parts don't get easier. And I think some parts get harder because you know, ah you know, all the all the problems, all the pitfalls, all the ways it can go wrong. And so it is, I think, a miracle every time. It takes so many people as well. You know, you're...
01:04:08
Speaker
your Your whole family pays a price for the book you're writing. your your your ah Your whole support network is needed to help make this come to life and certainly your publishing team. So it is just a Herculean effort. And I know you know that too.
01:04:25
Speaker
Well, Keith, it's just so great to you know read the book and talk to you about it and everything. and I've just got one more question for you, and it's how I like to land these podcasts. In the end, it's just asking the guests for a recommendation of some kind for the listeners. That's just like anything you're finding fun and entertaining that you want to share with them. So I would just extend that to you as we bring our conversation down for a landing.
01:04:45
Speaker
Well, I mentioned before that I often read fiction ah you know when I'm coming out of a nonfiction project or in the midst of one. I'm reading a nonfiction or reading a fiction book right now, a novel. I'm reading Ben Markowitz's The Rest of Our Lives.
01:05:03
Speaker
It's sort of an empty nester, middle-aged, coming-of-age story, and and i'm I'm really enjoying it.
01:05:14
Speaker
Oh, fantastic. Well, well, Keith, this was such a such a joy to talk to you about this book, and I hope it is the first of many conversations going forward. So I just wish you continued success with Heartland and everything and in your backlist and ah just with Heartland as you as you go forward and on this tour. So thank you so much.
01:05:30
Speaker
Oh, Brendan, thank you, man. Love your podcast and love what you
01:05:39
Speaker
Yes. Awesome. Thanks to Keith for coming on the show to talk biography and Larry Bird. Great talk. Remember, this is basically your last call. It's not basically. It is your last call to sign up for Power of Narrative Conference in Boston using that Narrative 20 discount code. It goes bye-bye after this because the conference goes bye-bye until 2027.
01:06:02
Speaker
So visit combeyond.bu.edu and secure your spot and save some sick burrito money. And isn't it cool that today is the podcast's 13th birthday, March 20th. I don't know when the next time it'll actually land on a Friday again, but that's pretty wild.
01:06:20
Speaker
It might be six or seven years from now. Who knows? And i'll and that'll be, what, 20 years? And i mean, roughly, I don't have a calendar in front of me extending into the six or seven years, but let's just ballpark it. I'll be in my 50s by then.
01:06:36
Speaker
Will we be podcasting from the moon? As always, if you want to get better at pitching, you can subscribe to Pitch Club over at Substack. Or if you just want some random ephemera from the CNF Pod Extended Universes, there's the Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. Both embed forms are at brendanamara.com. If ah if ah you had to choose one of the newsletters, you'd be like, dude, i have so much email.
01:07:02
Speaker
Fuck you, who the fuck do you think you are? I'd say go with Pitch Club, yeah knowing this audience. Because I think this audience wants to be published, wants more publishing credits, and you do that by pitching by and large.
01:07:18
Speaker
Ah, yeah, so the podcast turns 13 today, March 20th, 2026. The first episode with Susan Kushner Resnick aired on March 20th, 2013. Let's see. I would have been living in upstate New York in Boston, not Boston Spa, Boston Lake. I lived in Boston Spa when I first moved upstate New York, but i was in Boston Lake at that time. I would have been 32 years old.
01:07:43
Speaker
32 and a half. ah Six Weeks in Saratoga had come out less than two years before that. I was writing shitty-ass slideshows for Bleacher Report and covering some local sports for Saratoga Wire, I believe. I don't think they're in business anymore. For like $30 story before taxes.
01:08:03
Speaker
Another gig I had, ah the publisher's check started bouncing, and then I eventually showed me like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars, and I had to file complaints with the labor bureau to get my money, and it took a long-ass time. ah I had no network to speak of.
01:08:22
Speaker
i was supremely frustrated and bitter having spent the better part of 2010 to 2012 working in specialty running retail while my peers in journalism were making something of themselves, publishing books and getting into good magazines. And here I was, this guy with an a shiny MFA and a published book and wondering how the...
Reflections on Podcasting Challenges and Growth
01:08:45
Speaker
Hell anyone ever makes it as a writer of nonfiction narratives and long-form magazine writing. Like my heroes. And it seemed many of the people my age were appearing in in the pages of Outside Magazine and GQ and Esquire and getting anthologized in the best American sports writing and somehow appearing on these bullshit 30 under 30 lists. What a time to be alive.
01:09:11
Speaker
I was wasting a lot of energy on that comparative shit. You know, just looking over my shoulder constantly. And if I just invested half the energy That I was wasting in that comparative shit.
01:09:28
Speaker
i I'd probably be you know you know farther down the road, so to speak. And it's a it's no wonder that I was always you know scurrying off to find the next menial day job to give me some steady paycheck that made me feel like I was in some way contributing.
01:09:44
Speaker
to the household income uh even if it set my writing career back 10 years i mean and not that uh not not that there is an actual schedule with benchmarks but i do feel i'm like 10 years behind i've always been a bit of a late bloomer anyway but i do feel like 10 years off track but maybe not maybe i'm right where i'm supposed to be i don't know we don't know these things until they happen and then you look back but yeah it was the way it was always supposed to be yeah Those were the conditions that spawned ye olde CNF pod. yeah My original podcast rig was running Audacity as my DAW, my digital audio workstation. It was a free program.
01:10:22
Speaker
Probably still is. And I had that going on my laptop to record. And then I had a landline on speakerphone. I leaned that up against thee the computer and I would call the guests and have the computer record them through the phone. And I would i would lean in close to the computer and the phone ah so it was catching my voice and they could hear me through the phone. I didn't get an actual microphone for a while.
01:10:46
Speaker
and I wasn't a radio guy. I was just a guy listening to some cool conversations about writing and art in the the budding podcast sphere and knew that nobody was ever going to invite me on their shows.
01:10:57
Speaker
As much as I wanted to have these conversations, I wasn't famous. I had no real body of work to speak of. Not really. And I knew there were legions of writers like me, yeah not famous but with some ability and ambition, who had insightful things to say but no platform to say it.
01:11:14
Speaker
Because we were all being ignored. Plus, there weren't really that many podcasts at the time. There just weren't. Not like today. you know When somebody says they're starting a podcast, these days you kind of groan. You're like, ugh, okay. Yeah.
01:11:28
Speaker
and Not unlike the the days of blogging lore. You're like, oh I'm starting to blog. And you're like, ugh, okay. yeah The long form podcast, like those guys, they started just before me. yeah I didn't know who they were when I started, i swear.
01:11:43
Speaker
But they had a team and an infrastructure in place that allowed them to do the show weekly. You know, they had three hosts and yeah people helping behind the scenes, I believe.
01:11:55
Speaker
And when I started, i it just did it whenever I felt like it for the first three years of the show's run and then wondered why I had no real audience. I originally thought I'd do something silly, ah you know, like 13 lessons from 13 years of the podcast, but maybe I'll end up doing a blog post or make it part of the next month's newsletter. But one of the many lessons that this show has taught me is that you just got to let time do its thing.
01:12:21
Speaker
I might, might, might have, I don't know, 5,000 subscribers after all these years. And that's not nothing, man. like it's But it's not exactly going to like blow your agent's hair back. you know That $5,000 might even be a little high. It's probably between $4,000 and $5,000. But it grows in a sustainable way. If you're even listening this far, you've probably been here for a minute or two.
01:12:46
Speaker
and The people who find this show tend to stick around. They realize this show is a little unbalanced. It's a little unhinged. It takes a long time to grow anything.
01:12:59
Speaker
I believe there was a a wise Chinese proverb that was like, the best time to start a podcast was 20 years ago and the second best time is now. I think that's how it goes.
01:13:11
Speaker
Don't be fooled by the viral outliers who went from like zero to 100,000 subscribers in a month. Most people who start a podcast and somehow have a big following right away are usually already famous or have a pretty big media company behind them with legions of people behind them to promote it and get it in front of people and are probably not doing any of the actual labor of putting the show together.
01:13:36
Speaker
I remember when Tim Ferriss, um who I stopped listening to years and years ago, but just outgrew it. Plus, he's not a great interviewer for reasons I won't go into here. Maybe he's improved, but I doubt it.
01:13:48
Speaker
I remember he said something like, and I'm going to start my podcast with just six episodes and see how it goes. But what he failed to mention was that he had millions of readers who were like weirdly obsessed with him in a culty kind of way because of his four-hour workweek empire. So of course his show wasn't going to be a tree falling in the woods with no one to hear it.
01:14:10
Speaker
He made it seem like the average chump starting a show should have a good idea of its trajectory after six episodes or something. Hey, maybe six years and you have an idea, but six episodes?
01:14:23
Speaker
What the fuck? The deck. was stacked with 48 aces and four wild cards. You know, and the CNF pod is unlike any interview show out there. And that's only because I'm unlike anyone out there. And I guess that's another reason is to just double down on what makes you weird, whatever you're starting, you know, be it a blog or a podcast or a YouTube channel, like whatever makes you weird, double down on that shit.
01:14:50
Speaker
You know, this show's closest cousin is WTF with Mark Maron. said Sad that he's gone. i mean, he's not gone gone. The show's gone. Well, it's still there. You know what I mean. I remember when I was well into the run of CNF Pod and I started at that point listening to Mark more.
01:15:05
Speaker
And it was like I found a kind of kindred spirit. He was expressing the same levels of resentment and crankiness around the craft as I was. But him being a pioneer of the form and 10 million times more famous means people might think that I've been ripping him off.
01:15:23
Speaker
But it's more like we just have similar personalities and worries and anxieties. So naturally, sometimes what we say about our work kind of rhymes. And because he's more famous, it makes me look like I'm copying him.
01:15:34
Speaker
That's what you got to live with. ah I've had a few people compare me to him on the show, and it always makes me... Always makes me smile. ah Two come to mind, Maggie Miss and Nick Davidson. they're like I was like, ah, that's really cool. I take it as a compliment. I think they meant it that way.
01:15:49
Speaker
And I don't know. Think about the last time you know when people were like, I just started a podcast and you kind of groan. i get it. like it' just like a But think about the last time you checked out a new podcast. like There's so much inertia to starting to listen to something new. you're like, ugh, do I really want to spend...
01:16:09
Speaker
an hour listening to what is most likely an unpolished unskilled person trying to find their footing do I want to give them a year to get better two years know what are they really offering me for spending an hour of my time with them you know this is the math we're all doing be it a listener or an astute podcast host is always doing the math because you have to balance being well entertaining and informative because you want your listeners to take something away so they can get better at what they do And inspiring, too, it puts some fuel in the tank.
01:16:39
Speaker
At least in this genre, or sub-sub-sub-genre of interview shows. That's how I'm thinking of, that's how I frame it. yeah How many podcasts go un-listened to in your feed because you just don't have the time or the energy? I thought when Longform sunsetted that I'd basically get their audience. Since I'm the only non-fiction interview sho go show going now, or if not the only, certainly the longest-running one,
01:17:02
Speaker
I was like, all right, get ready, B.O. This is your one shining moment. ah But I didn't get a bump at all, like at all. In fact, I'm sure all those long-form listeners were relieved that they didn't have to listen to another podcast or feel guilty for ignoring them week to week, and they just start coming. It's like New Yorkers that just keep landing in your doorstep, like, oh, my God, I haven't even read a comic out of this New Yorker, and here comes another one.
01:17:30
Speaker
It's kind of like the podcast, like, holy shit, these things just they just don't stop, do they? ah
01:17:38
Speaker
And the podcast itself, it was never, ever, and never will be about making money. It makes about $150 a month from Patreon before skimming off at least a third of that for tax purposes.
01:17:50
Speaker
It's always been about community and making you feel a little less shitty and alone. The show has opened doors for me and will continue to do so. And that's it's that's the payment. The platform is the payment, in my opinion.
01:18:05
Speaker
It is a tall tree in a forest of podcasts right now. And it's still growing. And it's evergreen as fuck. So stay wild, CNFers. And if you can't do, interview. See