The B/R Interview: Jeff Pearlman

This week’s interview is with Jeff Pearlman, a columnist for ESPN.com’s Page 2 and author of the new book Boys Will Be Boys: The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty. 

In his new book, Pearlman delves deep into the on-and-off-field issues that surrounded America’s team during the '90s. His coverage of the Cowboys through countless interviews with players and personnel intimately documents the achievements and controversy surrounding the team that won three Super Bowls in four years.

With an emphasis on Michael Irvin, the relationships between owner Jerry Jones and  head coaches Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer, and a variety of eccentric and bizarre stories, Boys Will Be Boys is one of the most entertaining sports books I have ever read and one that will have you re-reading passages in disbelief of what you just read.

Pearlman is also the author of the New York Times Bestseller The Bad Guys Won! which documents the ’86 Mets, as well as Love Me, Hate Me, a book about Barry Bonds. To learn more about Jeff Pearlman you can visit his Web site, where you can find more information about his works, links to articles, and his blog.

Enjoy the interview!

--Max


MT: Hi Jeff, thanks for speaking with me today.

JP:  Hey how’s it going? Thanks for having me.

MT: To start out could you give us a bit about your background, where you grew up, went to college, what you majored in, how you got into journalism?

JP: I was born in Mahopac, NY, which is about an hour north of the City. My first journalism experience was as the sports editor of my high school newspaper, The Beaverton. And as a track and cross country geek, I saw it as a way to get a little attention. I wrote stories like “Cheerleading is Stupid” because I knew the cheerleaders would yell at me, and that was as close as I could get.

Actually I have a true story from high school; it’s really embarrassing but I like telling it. There was a girl that I had a huge crush on who was the keyboardist for a rock band at my high school. So I told the editor that I should do a huge profile on her for the paper. 

I remember being really nervous when I called her up. I think I was a Senior in high school at the time, and I’d never kissed a girl, never went on a date, you know, just a geek.
 
Anyways, I called her up and lied to her. I told her that my Dad gave me money for having a big story, her profile story, in the student newspaper, and that I needed her to go out with me for the story. And she uh, she totally shot me down.

MT:  [laughs] No way, you’re kidding me!?! That is cold!

JP:  The funny thing is that I did a story a couple years ago, it never ran anywhere, about tracking down girls I had crushes on to find out if I could have acted any differently so that I would have gotten better results.

I found the girl and invited her to go apple picking. We’re both married with kids, so both our families went apple picking together. And that day I asked her, “Did I have any shot at all?”  And she goes, “Absolutely zero.”

MT: [laughs] Well at least she was honest...

JP: [laughs] Yeah right. Anyways, that was high school. From there, I went to the University of Delaware and I wrote for my college paper, as sports editor and then editor.

MT: And what did you major in while at UDel?

JP: I was a History major with a minor in Sociology. We had a really good college paper, and I was pretty much the standard controversial college-student columnist that would write stuff to piss off the fraternities and rip the administration, stuff like that. It was a great experience, and I had a couple of internships during my college summers. 

After college, I was hired as a food and fashion writer for The Tennessean. That was my first job. I didn’t know anything about food or fashion, but I had interned there, and I guess they liked me and that was the only thing they had, so that was my first job.

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