RIP Dan Jenkins

[ChrisLong]

"You Gotta Play Hurt" is a must-read for anybody in the sports journalism business.
Before I read it, I met Lesley Visser, who spent a few days in Vero Beach in the early '80s. Her role in the book is hilarious.
Also, the office dweebs who torment him, and vice versa.
Only he could get away with describing the TCU running backs that way.

 

[billchristine]

I might have the amount wrong, but I'll be close.
During its high-rolling times, Sports Illustrated had an expense policy that didn't require receipts for items under $30.
So Dan would turn in expense reports where everything was $29.95. The bean-counters didn't blink.
After a while of this, the staff chipped in for a sweatshirt for Dan. In big bold letters on the back it read:

DAN
($29.95)
JENKINS

 

[Azrael]

Those were the days.

The cocktail cart came through every day at 4:30, and the line of black Lincoln Town Cars out front to drive the staff home went around the block.

His expense reports - and his fur coat - were legendary.

 

[HanSenSE]

A toast to Dan Jenkins, who humanized gods and changed sportswriting

 

[hondo]

But the graph further down, describing Johnny Rodgers' 72-yard punt return, is just as classic. That was the great thing about Jenkins -- he never wasted a sentence or a paragraph, hell, probably never a damn word:

"It was one of those insanely thrilling things in which a single player, seized by the moment, twists, whirls, slips, holds his balance and, sprinting, makes it all the way to the goal line. Rodgers went 72 yards for the touchdown, one which keeps growing larger in the minds of all. And afterward, back on the Nebraska bench, he did what most everybody in Norman, Okla. probably felt like doing: he threw up.”

 

[hondo]

Dan wrote for SI during the glory days, lived in New York and hobnobbed with Sinatra and Namath. But he never forget a beat guy's life. One telling thing about him was in a coffee table book he did on the history of the old Southeast Conference. Sally did the forward and told of the the day she visited her parents after they moved back to Fort Worth. Noting that she could see the lights of TCU's stadium from the front porch, she remarked, "You and Mom can walk to the games."

To which Dan replied, "What the hell would I do with my parking pass?"

 

[swingline]

Great story, hondo. Anecdote, maybe.

 

[Huggy]

His monthly Playboy column was great and I can never look at calamari - or onion rings - or the movie Reap the Wild Wind the same way after his hilarious article "What's The Deal With Food?"

 

[Azrael]

Some of his funniest stuff was built on the kind of white, vernacular, inside-sports cultural comedy it would be impossible to get away with today.

In that way, he was entirely of his time.

And yet he somehow adapted successfully to the post-modern pan-Twitter wisecrack.

 

[swingline]

In the first regard, like Mel Brooks.

 

[Starman]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/sally-jenkins/?utm_term=.482bb1e7fea2

 

[WriteThinking]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/sally-jenkins/?utm_term=.482bb1e7fea2

I hope Tom and Giselle (the people) get to read Dan Jenkins' last book. :)

That was a wonderful tribute.

 

[MileHigh]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/sally-jenkins/?utm_term=.482bb1e7fea2

As usual, Sally nailed it. Bravo.

 

[Slacker]

For what it's worth. YMMV ...

 

[justgladtobehere]

I read "Dead Solid Perfect" over the weekend. What an amazing book. Great storytelling with memorable characters and a good plot. How he weaved the elements together without hammering his points home was striking. It exceeded any expectation I could have had for it.

I knew about Dead Solid Perfect from having a faint recollection of the movie from when it was on HBO. Over the years I have tried to find it, but it has never been released on DVD and isn't streaming. I read up on the film and realized it was only "inspired" by the book and had a different plot. I also realized while getting the book from the library and finding more information about it is that Dan Jenkins doesn't get the attention I would think he deserves. Only one local library had Dead Solid Perfect and based on previous attempts to get recently deceased writers' books I assumed I would not get it on Saturday. I don't think the book had been cracked open more than once in 40 years. Online, there is very little about the book or Jenkins's novels it seemed. No individual Wikipedia pages for his books (the movie has one) and nothing discussing the book and the movie. (This is all based on a quick Google search, but nothing jumped out.)

 

[playthrough]

For what it's worth. YMMV ...

Pretty solid advice. I imagine he had some choice thoughts on "longform."

 

[Starman]

For what it's worth. YMMV ...

This was taken from "Fast Copy;" I used it as a writing guide for stringers...

Then told them to utterly disregard No. 1.

 

[Slacker]

This was taken from "Fast Copy;" I used it as a writing guide for stringers...

Then told them to utterly disregard No. 1.

Yeah, so did I.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

I read Number 1 and immediately thought "these rules have to be for magazines and not newspapers. We'd be fired if it were for newspapers."

 

[Starman]

I read Number 1 and immediately thought "these rules have to be for magazines and not newspapers. We'd be fired if it were for newspapers."

Yep. It's fine if you're writing for a magazine which cannot hit the streets sooner than two days after the event. But not if you're writing for an outlet which may actually be the primary news source for a significant part of the audience.

Oh, I told them to go ahead and bust No. 8, too -- but only if they had a really kick-ass quote. And don't do it very often, either.