Marshall Jon Fisher With Michelle Kaufman: A Conversation

Marshall Jon Fisher is the author or coauthor of five previous books, including Tube: The Invention of Television, which he wrote with his father; A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, A World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played, which won the inaugural PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing, and A Backhanded Gift: A Novel. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Harper’s, and Best American Essays. In Seventeen and Oh: Miami, 1972, and the NFL’s Only Perfect Season (Abrams Press), Fisher traces the arc from a ragtag bunch of overlooked, underappreciated, or just plain old players – losers in the previous Super Bowl – to an unbeatable team. Led by Don Shula, a genius young coach with a reputation that he couldn’t win the big game, the Miami Dolphins headed into only their seventh season with a team marked by generational and cultural divides. It featured party animals such as the late Jim “Mad Dog” Mandich; outspoken, flamboyant characters such as Mercury Morris; and conservative, straight-laced men like Bob Griese and the crew cut savior, 38-year-old backup Earl Morrall. With a fractious society as a backdrop, this racially and culturally diverse group found a way to become a perfect team.

Michelle Kaufman has been a sportswriter for 35 years. She has covered 14 Olympics; six World Cups; numerous Wimbledons, French Opens, and U.S. Opens; and NCAA Final Fours, Super Bowls, World Series, and NBA Finals. Her assignments have taken her to South Africa, Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, Russia, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Norway, Greece, Italy, France, England, Germany, Canada, and Spain. Her career began in 1987 at the St. Petersburg Times, where she covered the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and was one of the only women covering the NFL at that time. From there she went to the Detroit Free Press, where she spent seven years before returning home to the Miami Herald in 1996. Her many accolades include the Associated Press Sports Editors Top 10 Enterprise/Project Reporting (2021), National Headliner Award (second place 2007, third place 1999), Florida Sportswriter of the Year (2015), Associated Press Sports Editors (third place 2008, fourth place 1987, fifth place 1994, Top 10 2000 and 2001), Michigan AP awards (first place 1994), and the Florida Sports Writers Association (second place 1988 and third place 1998). A Miami native and graduate of the University of Miami, Kaufman has been teaching a sports reporting class at UM for 17 years. Her work was published in A Kind of Grace: A Treasury of Sportswriting by Women; Real Sports Reporting, a sports journalism textbook; and Nike is a Goddess: History of Women's Sports.