Last Dance by John Feinstein
 

I flew out to Vegas last week and picked this up in the airport bookstore...it is excellent. Story of the 2005 Final Four with a whole chapter on the Referees. Storys about Hank Nicholl's and how Mr. Rose, as an altrnate official, saved a very veteran crew from sending the wrong player to shoot free throws. All in all a very entertaining book

John Feinstein spends an inordinate amount of time in his books talking about bad calls by officials. At least in this one he digs a little deeper and finds out the whole story, instead of just taking a coach's word for what happened.

I have read "A March to Madness" and I'm in the middle of "The Last Amateurs". I haven't found anything out of line.

I guess I'll have to check out the one listed above too. I'm a big Feinstein fan.

I have read all of John Feinstein's non-fiction sports books, and I can't remember him bashing officiating. Maybe I'm wrong.

I believe "The Last Amateurs" is about the Patriot League, if I am not mistaken, and Feinstein did the official scorebook at some Patriot League games. I am sure he knew he was part of the officiating team.

I haven't read any of his books, but I do know he wrote that Bobby Knight story, or one of them. I vaguely remember either on this forum or on a sports talk radio show with Feinstein where Knight personally blames a certain official for totally jobbing him.

A Season on the Brink

Great author - actually discusses the officiating (pretty neutrally) in most of his books.

I'm actually in the middle of A Civil War right now. Pretty good book - I just wish I had more time to read it.

I don't really see that....I've read a lot of his books, and to suggest he has it in for officials isn't really fair IMO.

"Season on the Brink" is about Bob Knight - basketball's version of John McEnroe - so OF COURSE there's going to be negative ref-talk. I believe the ref he specifically mentioned was Tom Rucker.

I didn't mean to say that he has it in for officials. The basketball books I've read by him seems to have coaches complaining about officials (what else is new), but little in the way of rebuttal. From a writer that seems to carefully research everything, this didn't seem balanced.

I haven't read "The Last Amateurs" yet; I was refering to "A Season on the Brink" (he seems to blame the officiating for the Pan Am games incident) and "A March to Madness". I seem to recall a chapter on the quality of ACC officiating having gone down since the NBA raided their staff when the NBA went to 3-man.

Maybe this is just something that stuck out in my mind. Or a senior moment.