Rockets’ Franchise Reporter™ Jonathan Feigen Retiring

… after 4 Decades with the Chronicle, and 27 as beat-writer covering the Rockets

I was always a big fan. He once asked me to write for the Chronicle, but I had to turn it down, bc I was moving to Germany. Would have been fun.





Many years ago in Indianapolis, Calvin Murphy laughed and told me that I was happy any day I was in the basketball gym. I liked that then. I love it now.

He was right. And it is appropriate for a beat guy, as I have long thought of myself, to quote a Hall of Famer on his way out.

I loved being in the gym. The challenges of the beat, the travel, the back-to-back games, none of it could stand up to the rejuvenating power of being in the gym.

I’ll miss that. But I’m giving it up to be Papa to my grandkids and to do my travels with Kathy, who has waited long enough for this day, whenever I want. That’s wonderfully uplifting, too.

I have resisted writing this because for more than four decades I followed the journalism rule that we are not the story. I’ve had a hard time even telling friends around the country, though their kindness when word got out has made it much easier for me to take this step.

Rockets players had also heard before I began telling them on this recent road trip, and I appreciate the way they wanted me to be around. I promised to be there in May, though I probably won’t be able to resist the pull of the gym much sooner than that.

Friday is my last day at the Houston Chronicle. As many have reminded me, I’m going out on my own terms, just one more reason among so very many that I have been fortunate.

If anything, choosing to step aside has made me even more grateful for all these years spent covering the Rockets and much more before I took on the beat in 1998.

I’ve told this story often, but it has come to mind lately. I tried journalism after taking a personality profile test in college. (Go Blue Hens.) When I returned for the results, the small staff at the career planning and placement office gathered around when someone said, “This is that guy.”

My test results recommended 12 careers; 11 were in journalism. (When I told that story to journalism classes, I’d call the student that asked what the 12th career choice was the future journalist in the class.)

I was fortunate again when the University of Delaware Review needed someone to cover a basketball game after the guy that was supposed to be on that beat decided to play one more year of lacrosse instead. With the great Ralph Sampson coming to the Delaware Fieldhouse, someone pointed out that I was playing a lot of basketball in those days.

I covered the game that night and have covered sports ever since. I told Ralph that story last year and he seemed to enjoy it almost as much I did.

I also was fortunate to have the best journalism teacher and mentor that anyone ever could. Dennis Jackson suggested (among many, many lessons I still follow) that I go to Texas or Florida because I would probably cover high schools, and they are taken very seriously there. As always, he was right.


A trip to China with the Rockets in 2010 came with more work than sightseeing for Jonathan Feigen.

Billy Smith II/Houston Chronicle
That has taken me from El Campo to The Great Wall of China, from Garland to The Parthenon, from Dallas to Madison Square Garden, where I got to recreate Willis Reed’s first shot from Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals.

Man, I cannot believe I got to write that paragraph.

I still cherish the memories of the El Campo booster club barbecue on my first day in town, the Cotton Bowls and Sugar Bowls and Olympics and NBA Finals. Phog Allen Fieldhouse. Cameron Indoor Stadium. Pauley Pavilion. The Rose Bowl. The Forum. And yes, The Summit for Game 7 when the Rockets won their first championship.

I had a term as a Naismith Hall of Fame voter, and in my second year got to vote for Calvin. I was there when Hakeem Olajuwon was inducted and in the room when he shared a phone call with Rudy Tomjanovich that I’ll never forget. I loved telling Rudy about how Hakeem felt when he hung up. I loved calling Rudy after he finally learned he would be inducted, too.

I could go on, but I share all this not to be boastful, but appreciative.

I have to thank Dan Cunningham for bringing me to Houston (a city filled with kindness) and for putting me on the Rockets beat, and to Fran Blinebury, Eddie Sefko and Michael Murphy for showing me how to do it. I joined an unbelievable staff with Ed Fowler, Harry Shattuck, David Barron, Neil Hohlfeld, John McLain, Jerry Wizig, Bill Stickney, Fran and Eddie.

Dale Robertson, Joseph Duarte and Jose de Jesus Ortiz joined us a few years later. Reid Laymance, the best boss you could have, came along around then, left and thankfully came home. I often said that when he retired, I would too. Beat him to it. Tons of editors have had my back, so mistakes did not get past them and to you. I’ll miss my peers around the country and the broadcasters I got to see every night.

The staff I leave is smaller but still richly talented. Danielle Lerner will thrive on the beat in ways even she might not yet know.

She gets a great locker room, which is beat-guy parlance for a team great to cover. I’ve had a lot of those. I started covering Tomjanovich, who was so great that the Professional Basketball Writers Association named the award for coaches that combine excellence and cooperation with the media after him. Another thrill was the day I got to tell him about the Rudy T award.


Dealing the coaches such as Mike D'Antoni was always a key part of the job for Jonathan Feigen.
Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographer

I’ve had great coaches to cover from start to finish. Few filled a notebook like Jeff Van Gundy. Ime Udoka is nearly as clear and forthcoming as he is with his players (though I’m thinking with a different tone). Stephen Silas was a mensch under the toughest of circumstances. I’ve often said that if Mike D’Antoni won the Rudy T award every year, it would never be wrong.

I’ve covered Olajuwon (who thanked the media for its interest after every interview), Charles Barkley, Steve Francis, Matt Bullard, Yao Ming, Luis Scola, Shane Battier, Tracy McGrady, James Harden, Fred VanVleet and many, many more. There was a time decades ago that when Sam Smith was president of the PBWA and he was trying to explain to David Stern that the lack of cooperation between teams and the media had spread around the league. He said, “We can’t all work in Houston.”

If he said that to Adam Silver tomorrow, he would not be wrong. I have to say again that this current bunch can stack up with any as the sort any beat writer would be lucky to cover.


The Yao Ming era was another part of Rockets' coverage by Jonathan Feigen.
Kevin Fujii/Houston Chronicle
Carroll Dawson, Daryl Morey, Rafael Stone and especially Tracey Hughes made covering the Rockets a pleasure.

Through it all, if you would allow one more indulgence while the band by now must be playing me off the stage, my family let me do this, sharing the journey. I always felt like Kathy did this job with me, making it easier to do and greater to leave.

Finally, thanks to readers over more than 40 years in the business. You will notice I included the word ‘I’ more in this piece than in the more than 25,000 Rockets stories I have written combined. It is difficult for me to write this way, but I did love writing the way I did and thank you for making that possible.

I’m so glad I didn’t choose the 12th career. Hospital administrators could not have had so much fun.

 

nm

 

And appropriately, he wrote that in the article above …

“I have resisted writing this because for more than four decades I followed the journalism rule that we are not the story.”​

 

Clutch just lost one of his sauces