Callahan, Tom

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Callahan, Tom

PERSONAL: Male.

ADDRESSES: Office— Golf Digest, 20 Westport Rd., P.O. Box 850, Wilton, CT 06897. Agent— David Black, David Black Literary Agency, 156 5th Ave., Ste. 608, New York, NY 10010. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER: Journalist. Golf Digest, Wilton, CT, columnist. Has worked as a reporter for the San Diego Union, U.S. News & World Report, Washington Post, Newsweek, and the National, and as a senior writer for Time.

AWARDS, HONORS: National Headliner Award.

WRITINGS

NONFICTION

(With Dave Kindred) Around the World in Eighteen Holes, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1994.

In Search of Tiger: A Journey through Golf with Tiger Woods, Crown (New York, NY), 2003.

The Bases Were Loaded (And So Was I): Up Close and Personal with the Greatest Names in Sports, Crown (New York, NY), 2004.

Dancin’ with Sonny Liston, Mainstream Publishing (Edinburgh, Scotland), 2005.

Johnny U: The Life and Times of John Unitas, Crown (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS: Tom Callahan, a former reporter with the National and the Washington Post, is the author of a number of sports biographies, including In Search of Tiger: A Journey through Golf with Tiger Woods and Johnny U: The Life and Times of John Unitas.A longtime columnist for Golf Digest, Callahan published his first book, Around the World in Eighteen Holes, in 1994 with coauthor Dave Kindred. In the work, the authors chronicle their 37, 319-mile journey to play eighteen holes of golf on eighteen of the world’s most exotic courses. Their adventure, beginning at St. Andrews in Scotland and ending at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, took them to Iceland, Scotland, Russia, Nepal, and Singapore, among other nations. “In less talented hands, the book could have been a self-absorbed slog,” wrote David Ellis in People. Rather, the book is “an engaging,. . . insightful read.” In the words of Booklist contributor Bill Ott, “Anyone who has dreamed of the ultimate golf vacation will savor each page of this fantasy come to life.”

Callahan profiles golfing phenomenon Tiger Woods in In Search of Tiger, “a comprehensive examination of the man, his talent, his competition and the world of professional golf,” according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer. The author traces Woods’s professional career, including his victories in major tournaments, and pays special attention to the golfer’s relationship with his father. In Search of Tiger received mixed reviews, with several critics noting that Woods, a famously guarded individual, makes a difficult subject for a biography. In Booklist Gilbert Taylor remarked that “Callahan’s assemblage of anecdote and conversation is more a sequence of digressions than an unfolding narrative,” and a Kirkus Reviews contributor observed that, despite the author’s efforts, Woods “continues to be a pleasant and graceful cipher.”Sports Illustrated reviewer Jeff Silverman, on the other hand, felt that Callahan “seems to be in search of larger game than even the most prized golfer in the universe, and it is the perspective he picks up along the way that makes his book more than just another recap of Woods’s accomplishments.” Writing in the New York Times Book Review, Charles Salzburg called the work “a loving appreciation of golf and those who play it, using the otherworldly Tiger Woods as the standard against whom all other golfers will be forever judged.”

Hall of Fame quarterback John Unitas is the subject of Johnny U, a legend of the early decades of the National Football League, as well as “a look at the nature of the sport in his day,” a Publishers Weekly critic stated. Unitas, a native of Pittsburgh who was cut by his hometown Steelers during his rookie year, eventually played eighteen seasons and led the Baltimore Colts to three National Football League championships. According to Washington Post Book World critic Jonathan Yardley, the author “graciously and gracefully pays Unitas the tribute due him without lapsing into sentimentality.” Callahan’s stories describe the world Unitas inhabited, “providing insight into this cool, collected leader who inspired his teammates and epitomized what it was to be a professional football player during the game’s halcyon days,” remarked a Kirkus Reviews critic.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1994, Bill Ott, review of Around the World in Eighteen Holes, p. 1757; January 1, 2003, Gilbert Taylor, review of In Search of Tiger: A Journey through Golf with Tiger Woods, p. 831.

Entertainment Weekly, April 30, 2004, Warren Cohen, review of The Bases Were Loaded (And So Was I): Up Close and Personal with the Greatest Names in Sports, p. 170.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2003, review of In Search of Tiger, p. 33; June 15, 2006, review of Johnny U: The Life and Times of John Unitas, p. 610.

Library Journal, January 1, 2003, William O. Scheeren, review of In Search of Tiger, p. 123; September 1, 2006, John Maxymuk, review of Johnny U, p. 154.

New York Times Book Review, April 27, 2003, Charles Salzberg, “Books in Brief: Nonfiction,” review of In Search of Tiger.

People, July 11, 1994, David Ellis, review of Around the World in Eighteen Holes, p. 26; June 16, 2003, review of In Search of Tiger, p. 66.

Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh, PA), September 3, 2006, Allen Barra, “How Quarterback Went from Steelers Reject to NFL Legend,” review of Johnny U.

Publishers Weekly, May 16, 1994, review of Around the World in Eighteen Holes, p. 57; February 17, 2003, review of In Search of Tiger, p. 64; July 31, 2006, review of Johnny U, p. 63.

Sports Illustrated, May 5, 2003, Jeff Silverman, “Still Searching,” review of In Search of Tiger, p. G19.

Washington Post Book World, October 22, 2006, Jonathan Yardley, “How a Legendary Athlete Became the Heart of His Team—and of His City,” review of Johnny U, p. 2.