Steve Stinson is the author of the biography "Bullet" Bill Dudley: The Greatest 60-Minute Man in Football, now available in paperback. It focuses on the life of his late father-in-law, who played in the National Football League. Stinson's other books include Grumpypants. He lives in Virginia.
Q: Why did you decide to write this biography of your late father-in-law, NFL player Bill Dudley?
A: Bill asked me to do it. When someone you admire asks you to write his life story it’s an honor…for about 10 seconds. Then, oops, you’ve got a book to write.
Q: How did you balance your roles as family member and biographer as you wrote the book?
A: I knew the real story could be told. I knew there wasn’t a skunk under the porch, so to speak, which meant I didn’t have to protect the name. His accomplishments were real and measurable, so I didn’t have to burnish his legacy. All this made it like telling anyone’s story.
At the same time, I didn’t open up the writing process much with the rest of the family. It’s to be expected, but many close family members wanted a hagiography. From their perspective Bill’s many praiseworthy personal traits – integrity, sense of purpose, humility, and faith in God – were unique.
To me, they aren’t. I’ve known many men with those qualities and then some. There just isn’t a hall of fame for farmers. To me, Bill’s many admirable traits and devotion to his family were evident in his work and his life choices. I saw little need to elaborate on it. It was there to see. I asked family members for written stories and memories. My wife, Bill’s daughter, was a sounding board.
Q: How did your research his life, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: For the first year I interviewed Bill in a semi-formal way. It didn’t work. He was a terrible interview. He’d been taking questions for more than 60 years. The usual answers just rolled out of him almost word for word.
I found it more fruitful to just pay attention when his guard was down and he was speaking from the heart. This was often when he was behind the wheel of a car. He could be very blunt from that position, to put it mildly. I guess you could say I was interviewing him and he didn’t know it.
Bill died in the third year of the process. I was left to the customary methods used by any researcher. Few of his contemporaries were still around, so it was mostly digging through print material. A book about sports requires a ton of fact checking. I can’t imagine doing this pre-internet. The family helped here. They were diligent about saving things over the years, and they were organized.
I also had film and radio sources. His radio interviews were especially helpful.
There were a few eye-openers for me. One was the military’s fervor for football during World War II.
The biggest one was the complexity of Bill’s association with Jock Sutherland. Sutherland was the Steelers coach who made Bill MVP in 1946 and also made Bill so miserable he quit football after that season, which meant walking away from Art Rooney, who Bill loved like a father. Even after 60 years you could tell it remained a wrenching decision. I never got to the bottom of it, mostly because neither did Bill.
Q: What do you see as Bill Dudley's legacy today, and how do you think the NFL in his era differs from the NFL today?
A: I think Bill’s legacy is anchored in his work with the NFL Alumni and the Hall of Fame. Bill, along with others, was pivotal in bringing the NFL Alumni to life and nurturing it during the early, difficult years. His work, again along with others, led to pension parity for older players. He wrote the NFL’s first pension plan. He gave of himself when the Hall of Fame needed nurturing in the early years, and he dreamed up the HOF’s enduring symbol, the gold jacket.
In football, Bill’s legacy would be his 1947 contract with the Detroit Lions. It forever changed the way NFL contracts were written by placing the player and the team on a more equal footing.
Outside of football, Bill played an important role in the birth of Virginia’s Community College system while he was in the Virginia legislature.
I miss the old NFL. I miss the workmanlike ethic. I miss the maturity. I don’t like showboating. I’ve got better things to do on Sundays.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I have a novel coming out this fall with Conservatarian Press. Flip tells the story of a man who is transported back and forth between two lives until he is forced to choose one.
I have a children’s book that is illustrated and ready to go. The First Traffic Jam in Callaway County is based on a true story about my grandfather and the day he was allowed to drive a team of mules into town when he was 11 years old, only to encounter an elephant.
I’m working on a novel entitled Samuel Boots. It tells the story of a 12-year-old boy who walks a hundred miles along a dirt road that crossed Missouri in 1921. He’s in search of his father, who has gone missing. It’s a journey to manhood story. Think Huck Finn meets Aristotle and you’ll about have it.
I’m also illustrating another children’s book now. Cecil the Steadfast Sea Oat tells the story of a lone sea oat who must hold his dune together and save his friends in the face of a hurricane.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Last year, I was asked by a film producer to write a screenplay based on the Bill Dudley book. It’s being shopped now.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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