I never would’ve known about this book had it not been for a friend of mine, Richard Oliver, on Facebook, who shared an update status where he interviewed Robert Steinfeld (Bob) at the JCC in San Antonio.
Now, let me tell you that when I worked for the San Antonio Spurs from 1999 to 2002, I often saw Bob and his team eating in the hospitality room. My team also ate around that same time.
Also, as somebody who did stats for high school football games on television, I know what goes on behind the scenes in the production truck. Not a lot of people get that insight until now. It’s a pretty busy job with a lot of preparation (both before, during, and after the event). Stressful? Yeah, I would think so.
Bob tells his story of how he got started, along with a lot of great stories from various sporting events, and I enjoyed reading about everything. Of course, he got to me meet athletes and celebrities throughout his amazing career.
For the 1996 Summer Olympics, he not only produced the US Women’s Softball team wining the gold for the first time in that sport, but he fought with all his will to showcase the gold medal game in primetime. He also produced lots of games for the WNBA. And, he highly encouraged women as announcers, sideline reports, producers, and directors. There is even a while chapter written about how amazing Nancy Lieberman (no relation to me) is.
In the chapter about the San Antonio Spurs, I was looking for my name, and didn’t find it. His first year began in 1989, and one of the rookies on the Spurs was David Robinson. He talks highly of Robinson, Sean Elliott, and Coach Pop. He had a talented crew working with him of directors Mike Kickirillo and Daniel Ashcraft. If you watched a game on television, you would often see those three names at the end of each broadcast. He worked with many talented announcers and got to see quite a few Hall of Fame players during his 24 year career with the Spurs – in addition to four championships.
One of the stories that resonated with me was he had a heart attack at 30,000 feet enroute to New Orleans for a basketball game between them and LeBron James’s Cleveland Cavalier team. Well, just like me, he had elevated levels of troponin. He had bypass surgery, and was out of commission for a several weeks. I had two stents and was back to work two days later.
I am very glad I read this and as you can see, I really enjoyed it.
