Interview wasn't a hard sell

How much does Jeff Pearlman want to sell his new book? He’ll talk to me.

I preordered his “Football for a Buck,” a tale of the defunct United States Football League, months ago. I’d never followed the USFL nor purchased any of Pearlman’s previous seven books, but was optimistic it would be to the USFL what Terry Pluto’s “Loose Balls” was for the American Basketball Association.

Condensed review: Fantastic read so far, and I laugh out loud about every five minutes.

A coworker who noticed my book mentioned Pearlman seemingly agreed to any interview request. “If you have a cell phone, Jeff Pearlman will talk to you.” I told Jeff I wrote a small column for a small newspaper. He still said yes, even while he had the No. 16 book on the New York Times bestseller list — would be No. 15 if Bob Woodward hadn’t released “Fear: Trump in the White House” the same day.

I was roughly his 120th interview out of 160, because a book is a hard sell and a USFL book is a harder sell. Maybe genius, maybe crazy, definitely my most fun interview of 2018.

Strangest interview? His friend’s sex-themed satellite radio show, on the condition he wouldn’t talk about his sex life or his wife.

What did he offer that other USFL retrospectives didn’t? “The truth of the matter is there are only two USFL books that have gotten play. One was ‘One Dollar League’ (Jim Byrne). I loved that book, but it was really from the owners’ perspectives. The other was printed by an academic press and sold for $50. It was a book for diehards. There’s a lot of minutiae. Being a diehard, I loved that book. I wanted to call players, I wanted to know their stories. It wasn’t just written for USFL geeks like me. It was written for fans and, I guess, entertainment.”

Surely, it’s liberating writing a book everybody expects to fail: “I don’t feel that way. I know you’re supposed to. It’s like when Delaware plays Pitt in football and they say, ‘We’ve got nothing to lose.’ They’re just as dispirited losing to Pitt as they are to Richmond. I want this book to sell like I want any book to sell.”

Surely, research was difficult. “Not true at all. If you go to newspapers.com, the best website ever, you can find articles on absolutely everything. Two employees of the Chicago Blitz sent me boxes of stuff. That helped a lot. I think the biggest problem is some of the people are dead. The two commissioners are dead, some of the coaches are dead, many of the players are dead. So you don’t have the chance to interview some people anymore. But as far as research material, there’s no shortage.”

How much did time improve the storytelling? “The longer time goes, the less raw everything is. You look back at it with more joy. Also, you lose loyalties over time. Maybe (former USFL team owner) Donald Trump just gave you a $1 million check. You’re going to be less inclined to speak truthfully. Maybe a coach was wonderful to you after the league folded, but you’re upset then. Over time, you get more perspective.”

How do you keep the spotlight off Trump? “As far as writing the book, it was easy. It’s my book, and I can write whatever the hell I want. As far as promoting the book, it’s a little harder. He’s ubiquitous and he does suck the oxygen out of a room. You kind of want to scream, ‘Wait, this isn’t a Donald Trump book.’” (Five minutes before he talked to me, a TV interviewer introduced him as the author of a book about Donald Trump.)

What city would have been a great USFL host? “Omaha would have been really good. Boise as well.”

What current sports owner would have been a great USFL owner? Jeanie Buss of the Lakers — “She’s really good with PR and she looks out for the good of the league.”

How many of my questions had he heard in his first 119 interviews? “About half of them.” (Dear interview No. 121, nobody’s asked him about bed bugs yet.)

Why should anybody buy the book? “I always say the same thing. A member of the San Antonio Gunslingers went onto the injured reserve list because he slammed his penis into a trunk. That’s the most amazing thing ever, and it’s so prototypical in the USFL.”

Take that, Bob Woodward.

Kevin Wilson is managing editor of The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at: [email protected]