Kindred, Dave

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Kindred, Dave

PERSONAL:

Male.

ADDRESSES:

Home—VA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas,New York, NY 10020.

CAREER:

Sportswriter with the Washington Post andAtlanta Journal-Constitution.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Red Smith Award, 1991, for lifetime achievement in sports journalism.

WRITINGS:

Basketball, the Dream Game in Kentucky, Data Courier (Louisville, KY), 1975.

(With Joe Theismann) Theismann, Contemporary Books (Chicago, IL), 1987.

Heroes, Fools & Other Dreamers: A Sportswriter's Gallery of Extraordinary People, Longstreet Press (Atlanta, GA), 1988.

(With Tom Callahan) Around the World in Eighteen Holes (memoir), Doubleday (New York, NY), 1994.

The Colorado Silver Bullets: For the Love of the Game: Women Who Go Toe-to-Toe with the Men,Longstreet Press (Atlanta, GA), 1995.

(With Bernie Miklasz, Ron Smith, and Mike Eisenbath)Celebrating 70: Mark McGwire's Historic Season, Sporting News Publishing (St. Louis, MO), 1998.

Sound and Fury: Two Powerful Lives, One Fateful Friendship (biography/memoir), Free Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including the Sporting News.

SIDELIGHTS:

Among sportswriter Dave Kindred's volumes is a memoir of the ultimate golfing tour designed and played by Kindred and Tom Callahan. Both sports journalists were at a crossroads when they designed their own golf tour. In Around the World in Eighteen Holes, they write: "We would find eighteen diabolical holes in eighteen diabolical places and string those holes together to make a golf course. We would call it the Royal & Diabolical Global Golf Club. It would be a par 72. The length would be 37,319 miles." It was nearly midnight when the friends teed off in Iceland, and they practiced in New Delhi on the marble floors of the airport. Their tour took them to twenty countries, including Belgium, Russia, and Nepal, each with its own set of trials. Bill Ott wrote in a Booklist review: "Anyone who has dreamed of the ultimate golf vacation will savor each page of this fantasy come to life." People contributor David Ellis found the book to be "an engaging, often insightful read."

Kindred documents a great era in sports history withSound and Fury: Two Powerful Lives, One Fateful Friendship. His subjects are Cassius Clay, who took the Muslim name of Muhammad Ali, and the iconic sportscaster Howard Cosell. Ali fought his way from segregated Louisville, Kentucky, to become heavy-weight boxing world champion. He joined the Black Muslims and was given his Muslim name by Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. In June 1967, Ali was convicted in federal court of refusing induction into the U.S. Army when he claimed conscientious objector status based on his Islamic faith. His actions were considered detrimental to the sport and his title and license were revoked, though he eventually got them back. Ali's career, decline, and suffering from Parkinson's disease are well known and documented, but Kindred adds a personal touch. He had met the young fighter back in 1966, in Louisville, when he was a fledgling boxer and Kindred was a beginning reporter. Kindred was also close to Cosell, who was not universally well liked, but whose appearance and harsh nasal speaking voice made him immediately recognizable. They first met in 1977 and were friends until Cosell's death in 1995.

Budd Schulberg noted in the New York Times Book Review: "This is no fawning eulogy. Kindred sees Cosell, warts and all, with the clear eyes of a trained observer—and no man had more singular warts than Cosell. The author also expresses love, admiration and awe for his longtime friend Ali. But the dead-on honesty that has characterized Kindred's career … is reflected in his view of Ali the man, with all his flaws and his inflated narcissism."

The older, white, and Jewish Cosell and the young, black, and Muslim Ali, both of whom suffered from racism during their careers, became an attraction because of their lively repartee, which entertained television audiences and advanced the careers of two of the biggest egos of the day. Cosell questioned Ali's style, and Ali countered with threats to remove Cosell's toupee on camera. Although they never became true friends, when Ali hit hard times over his resistance to the draft, Cosell stuck by him. The careers of both Ali and Cosell began to diminish during the same period. Cosell suffered many health problems in his later years, including dementia.

Booklist contributor John Green called Sound and Fury"approachable, touching, and altogether fascinating." "Finally, and most enchanting," wrote James Rosen in the Washington Post Book World, "there is Kindred's interwoven memoir of his days and nights on the road with the boxer and the TV personality. It is in these sentimental autobiographical passages—not footnoted, unlike the rest of the book, because they draw on the author's own memories and scribblings—that Sound and Fury touches the heart and renders an invaluable service to history, by bearing witness to moments that no other reporter saw."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Kindred, Dave, and Tom Callahan, Around the World in Eighteen Holes, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1994.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1994, Bill Ott, review of Around the World in Eighteen Holes, p. 1757; January 1, 2006, John Green, review of Sound and Fury: Two Powerful Lives, One Fateful Friendship,p. 46.

Entertainment Weekly, March 10, 2006, Warren Cohen, review of Sound and Fury, p. 72.

Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2006, review of Sound and Fury, p. 74.

Library Journal, January 1, 2006, Jim Burns, review of Sound and Fury, p. 126.

New York Times Book Review, March 19, 2006, Budd Schulberg, review of Sound and Fury, p. 16.

People, July 11, 1994, David Ellis, review of Around the World in Eighteen Holes, p. 26.

Publishers Weekly, January 2, 2006, review of Sound and Fury, p. 50.

Washington Post Book World, April 23, 2006, James Rosen, review of Sound and Fury, p. 8.