You grew up in Alabama during the height of Paul "Bear" Bryant's coaching successes, and you've followed him throughout your own long sportswriting career. What made you decide to write about him now [see review of The Last Coach, reviewed in PW, July 25]?

When I was a student at the University of Alabama [at Birmingham] during the 1970s, I was put off by images of Bryant—the Vietnam War was on, and football seemed like grits and circuses. But over the years, I've met so many players and coaches and other people who knew him well who told me essentially that my attitudes about him were wrong. And I've kept an autographed copy of his autobiography [The Hard Life and Good Times of Alabama's Coach Bryant] and boxes of various clippings about him, even when I moved to New York City in the 1980s, so I must have subconsciously wanted to write about him.

So what changed in your perception of Bryant?

I realized he actually represented everything positive about the game. Every time I turn on the television and see some guy showboating in the end-zone or standing over a fallen opponent and taunting him, I think of the dignity and cool Alabama showed on the field. Alabama under Bryant wasn't just a minor league team of the NFL. I think that's why there are still a lot of people in Alabama who won't talk about Bryant's off-season binge drinking, which I write about. But that was the way he dealt with his fanatical work ethic.

Did writing the book reveal anything new to you about football?

The best insight into college football is still in the Marx Brothers' film Horse Feathers. Chico is the quarterback and gives the signal, "Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, this time I think-a we go up the middle." That's still what it's all about. It doesn't get more complicated than that.

Was there anyone who was of particular help to you while you were writing the book?

My editor at Norton, Robert Weil, was amazing—I've known Bob since he was at St. Martin's. But the one man who guided me all though the process was W.W. "Pudge" Heffelfinger, who died in 1954. He was the first All-American selection, he went on to become the first man ever to get money for playing pro football, and he knew everybody. I first read his memoir, This Was Football, when I was a kid. He's the great forgotten football writer. He's the great forgotten football writer.