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Pat Williams on "How to be like Mike"
This interview is reprinted with permission for the Gameops.com audience. Special thanks to Charlie Friscia and Bookwire.com.
Bookwire's Meet the Author interview was conducted by Neela Sakaria on 9/19/01.
NS: You have an extensive career in sports and yet you have also written several books. Can you please tell us about your background and how you integrated writing into your career?
Pat Williams: Well I've combined two careers really -- a career in professional sports as well as a writing and speaking career. So they go hand in hand. This is my fourtieth year in professional sports. I spent seven years in baseball in the Phillies organization and this is my thirty-fourth season in the NBA, coming up. I wrote my first book in 1974 - it was my autobiography at the time. That opened doors that have continued to this day. The Michael Jordan book is my twenty-first book -- How to Be Like Mike. I've got quite a number of other writing projects that lie up ahead, that I'm working on. But without question, the Jordan book has been the most intensive and satisfying and interesting book that I've worked on.
NS: Did you study writing, professionally - or was it something that just developed out of an interest?
PW: It developed. I did not major in journalism, although I always had an interest in the written and spoken word -- way back as a little boy, growing up near Philadelphia, listening to the sportscasters and reading all the newspapers and devouring everything that was written. So I've always had a great interest in reading and speaking, and that continues to this day. So let's just say that I'm a self-taught writer to this point.
NS: Is this your first book, aside from your autobiography, which profiles a specific person and their life?
PW: I did one about a year ago on Bill Veeck, the great baseball promoter, that kind of was a motivational book around his life. I finished that one a year ago. The Jordan book is along the same lines where I've taken, in the case of Michael Jordan, eleven qualities of his life that I think made him unique. Then I researched around it in over 1500 interviews, gathering stories and anecdotes to heighten these different qualities. So I would describe How to Be Like Mike as a motivational, inspirational book. It's not a sports book per say, it's a life book designed to impact people's lives no matter what they do for a living, or no matter who they are.
NS: Michael Weinreb - He was a collaborator on the book?
PW: Michael Weinreb was my collaborator. I did all of the research and outlined the book. Michael assisted me in the mechanics of writing the book. So that's a good word - collaborator.
NS: How did the project come about?
PW: In 1998, at the end of the playoffs when Michael Jordan hit the game-winning shot to beat Utah for the Bulls' sixth championship of the decade, it appeared that that was going to be it for him as a player. I began speaking that summer to various groups of people about the topic 'How to Be Like Mike,' and it went well - it was well-received. Then I began to think, 'Why couldn't this be a book?' So, through a friend, I was led and introduced to the publisher - Health Communications is the name of the publishing firm. They are the Chicken Soup for the Soul publisher. The president, a man named Peter Vegso, listened to my proposal and liked it and said 'Go ahead - we'll do it with you.' And that's how it happened. So I guess, I've been working on and researching for this book for three years. To see it finally come out in book form was quite a thrill.
NS: You've interviewed many people for this project. So you're saying it took about three years in total?
PW: Yes. From the time that the idea hit me in June of 1998 until it was released in the Fall of 2001 - it was a three year project in which I had to come up with the idea, find a publisher, do the research, do the interviews, and then get it written. So it's been an enormous undertaking.
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