Talking to GOATs

 Book 78 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from October 27 - November 2

Talking to GOATs by Jim Gray

published 2020

Summary (via the book jacket)

In an illustrious career that spans more than four decades, Jim Gray has conducted tens of thousands of interviews with the best, most driven, most outlandish, most accomplished, and most colorful athletes in sports.

That list features conversations with the great athletes of all time, or GOATs - including Muhammad Ali, Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Hank Aaron, Mike Tyson, Michael Phelps, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Tiger Woods.

In Talking to GOATs, Gray dives deep into many of those interactions and the relationships that grew out of them; examines a myriad of significant moments in sports history from his unique, up close vantage point; and tells previously untold stories from his career, like what really happened when Tyson bit off part of another man's ear, the feud between Kobe and Shaq, and the behind the scenes of the Dream Team. Gray details what he gleaned from the probing questions he's asked so many luminaries and stars. Most of all, he reveals these elusive figures as the complex people they were and are.

Gray also shares his first television interview, as a teenager with Muhammad Ali, along with the last TV interview he did with Ali a quarter century later; one of Tiger Woods's first sit-downs as a youngster; and the rare occasions when Jack Nicholson appeared on live television. Gray describes what it was like to sit next to Ron Artist when a beverage landed on the player's torso, which led to so much Malice; what it was like to ask King James for The Decision live on ESPN; and what really happened in that interview with Pete Rose.

Gray branched out beyond sports and has interviewed nine U.S. presidents and other world leaders. Through it all, Gray has witnessed moments that speak not just to sports but to America, and thus the inextricable and shared history of both.

My Opinion

2 stars

Some interesting tidbits but had to wade through so much bragging and self-congratulatory behavior to get them.