Authors that Inspire | Jeff Benedict

 

About Jeff Benedict

Jeff Benedict is a distinguished professor of writing and mass media at Southern Virginia University. He is an award-winning investigative journalist, essayist, and a best-selling author. He is a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated, and his work has appeared numerously in the Los Angeles Times, and the Hartford Courant.

Benedict’s books include: “Little Pink House,” “How to Build a Business Warren Buffet Would Buy,” “The Mormon Way of Doing Business: How Seven Western Boys Reached the Top of Corporate America,” “Out of Bounds: Inside the NBA’s Culture of Rape, Violence and Crime,” “No Bone Unturned: The Adventures of a Top Smithsonian Forensic Scientist and the Legal Battle for America’s Oldest Skeletons,” “Without Reservation: How a Controversial Indian Tribe Rose to Power and Built the World’s Largest Casino,” and the bestseller “Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL.”

He also is a frequent essayist. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Village Voice, Hartford Courant, Chronicle of Higher Education and ESPN’s on-line magazine. He has appeared as an expert on ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, HBO, ESPN and Court TV. Benedict’s M.A. is in political science, and his B.A. is in history. He is the former president of the Connecticut Alliance Against Casino Expansion, a non-profit corporation he founded with business, civic, and religious leaders in Connecticut. He and his wife have four children. Biography courtesy of Southern Virginia University

 

Interview Transcript:

Alan
Welcome back. I’m here today with Jeff Benedict. He’s a sports writer and an author of many books. Jeff up the Today Show. Good to be here. Jeff, give me your background and how you fell into the role of writing and what led you here. We’re not selling Virginia University campus?

Jeff
Well, when I was in law school, like most people, I went to law school to become a lawyer. But in my first year of law school, I signed my first commercial publishing contract. And I finished that book, right as the first year of law school was coming to an end. And between my first and second year of law school, I was offered a second publishing contract. And it was at that point that I made a fairly critical decision to change direction and pursue a profession in writing versus a professional in the law. And it was something that I really never set out to do. I never had my mindset on writing as a profession, I never thought of writing as a job. And, in fact, I never really thought of writing at all, it was not something on my mind in high school, or college or even graduate school. But it worked out that in the pursuit of finishing my education, some opportunities came up to write I found out that I discovered that I really liked it. And it was something that I was, you know, fairly good at when I first got started. And it um, I don’t know if I would say it came naturally to me, but it felt comfortable and felt like something that I could, I could do. And so I started down that road, not knowing if it would actually, I think in the beginning, I was questioning whether it would actually be a long term profession, but there was an opportunity in front of me, and I started to chase it. I was like 20 years ago. And so it turned out to be a great profession.

Alan
Yeah, it’s it’s interesting enough that you were in law school, and you decided, well, in law school to write your first book. I’m curious, the topic was?

Jeff
On the topic, what happened was just before law school when I was in graduate school, and you have to produce a thesis to get your graduate degree, and I did mine on athletes and violence against women, it was a very academic look at that issue. And the timeframe was during the OJ Simpson murder trial. And boxer Mike Tyson had just gone to prison for a sexual assault. And so for the first time, the country was the culture, American culture was really turning its attention to this idea that this issue of violence against women within sports but but no one had really researched it at that point, it was it was new. And I that’s what I did my studies on in grad school. So when I was finished graduate school, I decided to publish my very, basically rewrite a thesis in a commercial way. And I published that in graduate school, never intending to make any money off it or to be a professional writer, it’s just that I’ve done written something that was timely. And so we published it, it was a small publishing house. And that was kind of going to be the end of that because I was going off to law school. But that book got so much attention, and so much media and it got critically, it got really good reviews, that a literary agent contacted me and, and basically said, I think I could get you another publishing contract if you wanted one, about if you wanted to do a book about the National Football League and the criminals who play in the NFL. So that book that I wrote, my first year, law school was called pros and cons of criminals to play in the NFL. And that was my first commercial deal. And that’s what really changed the direction of my career track, because that book did extremely well. And it put me on a path to do something quite a bit different than what I thought I was gonna do.

Alan
Yeah, it’s interesting, the these topics in some way, they’re very controversial. Yeah, I’m gonna go right out of a book on all the criminals in the NFL. And, and you would think that, you know, how do I know this is gonna work? I mean, how do you assess how to approach the book and to make sure that you when you’re taking the time for this, that it will be a success?

Jeff
Well, with that, with that book, I was offered a contract upfront, which is usually how it works in publishing is if the if the idea is commercially viable to a publisher, then they they pay you, they give you a contract and pay you up front. I was, you know, at that point, I was like, I’m in my first year of law school. I, my wife and I, we just had our first child, we just bought our first home, which was a little condo in Boston. We were financially being stretched as far as you could imagine. And so there was, I didn’t really have time to think about what if this doesn’t work? In turn have the book idea itself, all I knew is that a publisher thought it was going to work. And they’re paying us upfront. It wasn’t until after that book came out. And I had to do my second commercial deal, that I started to understand how publishing works in terms of the author needing to come up with, with an idea, pitch it to a publishing houses publishing house review, and decide if it’s going to be commercially viable. And that’s actually a really big part of what authors do is coming up with ideas that are not only interesting to the writer, because you have to be able to put your passion into it for two years to write it. But it’s also got to be interesting to enough people and enough consumers that they’ll want to buy it. And it has to be viable to a publisher. So there’s various parties that have to all see this project as viable. Sometimes you’re not right. You know, sometimes, you just you go down the road to do a book and then the book comes out and it doesn’t sell. And, in fact, that happens a lot. In sometimes it goes the other way, you have a great idea, but the publishers don’t think it is and so they don’t publish it.

Alan
If I need to take a quick break, we’ll be right back out this message. More with Jeff Benedict sportswriter, book author.

Alan
Welcome back, I’m here today with Jeff Benedict. He’s a sports writer and a book author. And we’re talking about first segment getting books published, but I want to focus on the author, the authorship, but as an author, what is your purpose in writing?

Jeff
Well, I there’s a few things. I mean, first of all, it’s a profession. So you know, in a real crude sense, it’s a, it’s a living. And so there has to be a payoff with everything that I write, for the most part, because it’s a job. And I think that’s one thing that people miss a lot in this, this is a business, it’s a publishing is a business. And for writers, just like painters, and artists, I mean, we make our money by doing our craft. And so for me, it’s writing. And so I write to support my family. First and foremost. Secondly, I try to in the selection of topics and what I want to write about, I mean, I’m certainly at a point in my career now where I like to write things that are inspiring and motivating, moving, not merely entertaining, I like to entertain too. And I think there is no reason why you can’t get entertainment out of stories that are powerful and inspiring. And granted, I choose some topics that aren’t inspiring, I’ve written about some pretty hard and difficult subject matter. But in those cases, I hope that at least there’s some educational value. And I don’t mean in an academic sense, but when what I mean is that when the when the reader is finished reading whatever it is that I wrote, that when they put the book down, or the magazine story down, they feel like they, they learn something valuable that they didn’t know before, or they read something that really makes them think about the world differently than they did before they started the reading. And so it’s usually one of those two things i i Don’t pick topics just solely for entertainment value. I mean, I’m looking for, I’m saying, though, is I think you can get entertainment value when you’re doing those other two things. And people can get wrapped up in a story and whether it has humor mixed in or some other emotional roller coaster aspects like going from sadness to joy or whatever, as you follow a character through a story.

Alan
What are some of the more memorable interviews that have taken place as you develop some of these books?

Jeff
Wow, that’s a tough question. I mean, I’ve interviewed, I’ve probably done. I mean, I’ve interviewed over 1000 people in 20 years. And so, I mean, it would be easy for me, I think quickly to rattle off some of the more well known people that I’ve interviewed just because for me, like interviewing, you know, Coach Chesky at Duke University’s basketball coach and realizing how much I was learning by interviewing him. I’ve interviewed Warren Buffett and, you know, sat in his office and spent a day with him and just, you know, learned a tremendous Some out by spending time with him. I’ve interviewed some criminals, you know, people who have who are behind bars or spending time behind bars. I’ve interviewed janitors and carpenters and a wide range of people, victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, I’ve interviewed lots of them, because I’ve written about that topic more than once. Probably one of the most interesting people I’ve ever spent time with as being interviewed was, is a scientist at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History named Doug Owsley, who’s, who studies ancient skeletons. He’s the number one skeletal biologist probably in the world. And he has looked at he is the only one who’s looked at the oldest 24 Skeletons known in North and South America. These are skeletons that are, you know, 9000 to 20,000 years old. And the things I learned just from being with him in his office or out in the field, and spending time with him, you know, fascinating. And so I don’t know if I can’t point to one or two or three, because if I started thinking about it, the list gets longer, the more time you spend thinking about it, I think one of the things that happens is you do this over a long period of time, the card catalog of names gets so big that sometimes you forget, I forgot 15 years ago that I interviewed that guy. But if there’s a lot of them, that have changed my life.

Alan
I’m busy here today with Jeff Benedict, he’s a book author and a sports writer, Jeff, I need to take a quick break. And we’ll be right back after these messages.

Alan
Welcome back, I’m here today with Jeff Benedict. He’s a book author and sports writer and you know, I want to move into, out of all the books you’ve written. Do you have a favorite?

Jeff
Is probably I wouldn’t point to one. There’s three books that I’ve done, that are extremely similar. And I did them in different parts of my career. One is called without reservation. And I wrote that in my second year of law school. And I guess if you really pushed me to say, what’s the number one, it would be that one probably, it was about a an Indian tribe that surfaced in Connecticut and built the world’s largest casino. And book revealed that the tribe was a fraud. And the combination of writing it, the book itself, and then probably more importantly, the aftermath was very life changing. For me, I probably say that one. The other two books that are close to it would be little pink house, which is exactly same narrative style, same kind of story, baby epic scope, but a Supreme Court case over land rights, and which is now being made into a motion picture film. And then a book called poisoned, which was about a an E. coli outbreak in Seattle, in the early 90s, that killed some children, and led to the first class action lawsuit over food safety. Those three books, although I wrote them at three different stages of my career, they’re very, very similar in terms of scope, narrative, style, etc. And so I would probably pull those three out and put them together and say, those are my favorite three. That all being said, in the last few years, I’ve started writing biographies and autobiographies and a couple of the ones I’ve worked on haven’t been published yet. And one of them in particular, I’ve been working with Steve Young, working on his autobiography, and that has the potential to go right up there with those other three, just because I when I answer your question, I mean, you could do that a few ways. But part of it is the satisfaction that I get out of working on some of these books, and I’ve liked all of them. But there’s gradations in terms of how much fulfillment in personal satisfaction I get out of each of these projects. And I think the Steve Young project probably goes up there.

Alan
That said, What is your most recently published book?

Jeff
Most recently published is the system, the glory and scandal big time college football, which I absolutely loved. Ah, writing working on it was absolute fun to work on that book. And that’s why I almost feel guilty not including that in the list of favorites but and that book was a New York Times bestseller which is terrific. It’s now being made into a television drama for cable TV. So it’s, it’s it was a great, great project and book to work on. But that’s my most recent one that was published.

Alan
Now, what is your most noted story of all the stories that you’ve written?

Jeff
Noted as in…what do you mean by noted?

Alan
Maybe controversial?

Jeff
That’s probably a series of stories I did on Kobe Bryant’s rape case. For Sports Illustrated, I did three stories for Sports Illustrated in the lead up between the time Kobe was arrested and the time of the trial. The trial which never happened, but in that year period, I did three stories for Sports Illustrated, which were quite controversial. And then I was soon as the trial was called off, I followed that up with a cover story, and a couple of other stories in the Los Angeles Times and I’d say that package was pretty controversial. In terms of favorite stories, though, I wouldn’t rank that as my favorite. I mean, probably from a purely reporting standpoint, one of my favorite all time stories was a sports illustrated story that I did on the Duke basketball program where I followed Jabari Parker and coach Shecky through Jabari is freshman year and just spent a season inside the Duke program. And then in terms of stories that have been published in Sports Illustrated, my personal favorite is a story I did about a Brigham Young University player who was suspended from the team for violating the Honor Code. And I did a story about him and his redemption. And it was I didn’t get a lot of joy out of writing it because I had to write the thing in one day. And so the real satisfaction came in what happened when the story came out. Whereas the Jabari Parker, Duke story it took I worked on that for like six months, and so there was enough time to really enjoy working on the story. But in terms of impact, the Spencer have a story and Sports Illustrated is probably my top, my favorite.

Alan
Now, Jeff, you got a lot of things and feather up on your plate during the writing and the traveling it but you also now teaching class on the campus of Southern Virginia, right? Why?

Jeff
Well, originally I came here, I’ve been here eight years. And what what drew me here was the opportunity to teach what I do. I’m not real theoretical guy. I’m a practical guy. And I think there’s two different kinds of approaches to learning and teaching. And I’m certainly more on the practical side, I learned how to write by doing it. And never took a writing class in my life. I didn’t study journalism, I never worked at a newspaper or anything I, I just started writing. And not to compare myself, Ben Franklin, because that wouldn’t be appropriate. But one of the things I’ve loved about Ben Franklin’s life is that’s how he started writing. I mean, he’s self taught. And I’m a self taught writer. And so I came here because it was there was a chance to teach writing while I write. And I think from a student perspective, that’s a very different experience to have a teacher who’s doing what he’s teaching. Because although the mechanics and the basics of writing have not really changed the profession, the industry is rapidly changing. And so I think being in the field is really important in terms of how I teach my students because I’m in it every day, you know, I’m doing this right now, I’m working on three books, or three magazine stories, or a television show, I’m working on lots of different kinds of writing all the time. And so it’s very fresh. And frankly, what I tell my students this semester could be really different than what I said to them. You know, three semesters ago.

Alan
When you’re working with the kids, they’re on current topics, or what is the topic of your course here.

Jeff
So I have two classes here. One is a is called current affairs. And that’s really just for seniors. And we read the New York Times as a textbook. It’s not a textbook, obviously, but our text is in New York Times. So this was read that every day and and then I also assigned a couple of my books that are on current subject matter that’s in the news, whether it’s eminent domain or food poisoning, or athletes and violence against women. And we basically are looking at current issues, and that’s what we are analyzing and talking about. The other class is a writing class. It’s an advanced writing class nonfiction writing. And basically I have I’m, I have them write a feature feature story of their choice. But throughout the semester, they’re going through the whole process that I would go through as a writer from the beginning, which is you got to come up with an idea. And how do you do that? When you have to pitch the idea to me, like I’m the editor, you’ve got to sell me on the idea, then you’ve got to start the process of reporting, which is, it could involve interviewing, it could involve research online or offline, then how do you start structuring a story and then you get into the actual writing and then you get into the editing and then the production at the end? So over the course of a semester, they go through the entire process with one story, as opposed to writing like five different things. I have them work on one thing and take the whole semester to do.

Alan
Yep, I’ve enjoyed having you on today’s show. Thank you, Jeff Benedick, book, author, and sports writer, and we’ll be right back after these messages.

 

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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.

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