Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four - Hardcover

John Feinstein is an American sportswriter and commentator. He is a columnist for the Washington Post, an author, is a guest commentator on NPR, and does color commentary for United States Naval Academy football games. He is also a frequent contributor to The Tony Kornheiser Show. During a radio broadcast of the football game between the Naval Academy and Duke University on October 1, 2005, Feinstein blurted an obscenity over-the-air in response to what he perceived to be a bad call on the field. He immediately removed himself from the rest of the broadcast, except to return at the end to apologize on the air. Although he offered his resignation to the Naval Academy, they rejected it because of his contrition and have invited him to continue to participate in future broadcasts. Feinstein was a sports writer for the The Chronicle while enrolled at Duke University, where he graduated in 1977. One of Feinstein's nicknames is "Junior", despite not having the suffix in his name. The name was given by Tony Kornheiser because of the similarities in his temper to John McEnroe. Feinstein sometimes fills in as a guest host on The Jim Rome Show. Rome considers Feinstein to be one of the most intelligent people he's interviewed on the show, and occasionally teases him about an over-the-phone interview that was interrupted by Feinstein's daughter.

College basketball's Final Four is part party, part circus, part game, and a whole lot of mystique. John Feinstein, who has covered basketball for decades, uses the 2005 Final Four to explore the history, culture, and madness that are the event. His style is easy to follow. Arnie Mazer does not embellish that style. He adds emphasis with cadence, using dramatic pauses in place of exclamation points. He doesn't try to emulate well-known voices, like that of commentator Dick Vitale. Instead of caricature, he uses speed of delivery--with some restraint compared to the original. The editing of the abridgment is crisp, with only a few instances where a listener can spot breaks. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine