Drucker, Joel

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DRUCKER, Joel

PERSONAL: Male. Education: University of California at Berkeley, B.A.

ADDRESSES: Home—Oakland, CA. Agent—c/o Sport Media Publishing, Inc., 21 Carlaw Ave., Toronto, Ontario M4M 2R6, Canada. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer.

AWARDS, HONORS: Tennis Writer of the Year award, Tennis Week, 1999; Tennis Book of the Year, Ace magazine, 2004, for Jimmy Connors Saved My Life.

WRITINGS:

Jimmy Connors Saved My Life (nonfiction), introduction by Mary Carillo, Sport Media Publishing (Wilmington, DE), 2004.

Contributor to Best American Sportswriting, 1995, and to numerous magazines, including Tennis, Tennis Week, USTA Magazine, Tennis Championships Magazine, People, Men's Journal, Forbes FYI, and Cigar Afficionado. Technical editor, Patrick McEnroe, Tennis for Dummies.

SIDELIGHTS: Long-time tennis journalist Joel Drucker is the author of Jimmy Connors Saved My Life, a joint biography of the author and his idol, left-handed tennis ace Jimmy Connors. Although Drucker had interviewed Connors a number of times during Connors' professional tennis career, the ace was not interested in authorizing a biography or of having an autobiography ghosted. Undeterred, Drucker decided to combine his own memoir with a description of the role that Connors played in his own life: that of an inspiration. Drucker tells the inside story about his career as a sports journalist, while the portion about Connors, though "carefully researched," to quote Booklist reviewer Wes Lukowsky, contains primarily descriptions and analyses of Connor's most important tennis matches. While Lukowsky found that "both make compelling reading," Library Journal reviewer John Maxymuk described the subject matter as being of "questionable broad interest." Mary Carillo, in the book's introduction, suggested that Jimmy Connors Saved My Life says much about the role that celebrated sports figures play in American society. "Connors will be surprised by what he finds out about himself, about his far-reaching powers, and especially about the author," wrote Carillo.