Bob Greene

Robert Bernard Greene Jr. (born March 10, 1947) is an American journalist and author. He worked for 24 years for the Chicago Tribune newspaper, where he was a columnist. Greene has written books on subjects including Michael Jordan, Alice Cooper, and U.S. presidents. His book Hang Time: Days and Dreams with Michael Jordan became a bestseller.

Early life Originally from Bexley, Ohio (a suburb of Columbus), Greene attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and became a reporter and feature writer for the Chicago Sun-Times upon graduating in 1969, receiving a regular column in the paper within two years. Greene first drew significant national attention with his book Billion Dollar Baby (1974), a diary of his experiences while touring with rock musician Alice Cooper and portraying Santa Claus during the show.

Newspaper column Greene's primary focus remained his newspaper column, for which he won the National Headliner Award for best column in 1977 from an American journalism group. Shortly afterward, Greene was hired by Chicago Tribune and began making occasional guest appearances on local television, eventually landing a commentary slot on the ABC news program Nightline. He also wrote the "American Beat" column in Esquire.

In 1989, he asked Vietnam veterans if they had really been spat upon when they returned from overseas. The response was so overwhelming, he published a book—Homecoming: When the Soldiers Returned From Vietnam— full of the letters he received.

During the 1990s, Greene spent time covering Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls basketball team, forming an unlikely friendship that Greene documented in two best-selling books. The movie Funny About Love (1990) was based on a Greene column. In 1993, his novel All Summer Long was published by Doubleday, and his columns are collected in several books.

Though Greene was popular with readers, critics accused him of excessive sentimentality, heavy writing and repetitive coverage of the same subject, Critical coverage of Greene, which offered extensive coverage of his predilection for rewriting pop-culture press releases, was also featured in Spy magazine in a December 1988 article by Magda Krance, "You Wouldn't Want to Be Bob Greene". Krance characterized his output as "the journalistic equivalent of Tuna Helper".

Dismissal from the Tribune In September 2002 Greene was forced to resign from his newspaper column after admitting to an extramarital relationship that took place 14 years prior. The female with whom Greene had a relationship was 17, legal age in Illinois, and had graduated from high school in the months between their first meeting and his invitation to take her out to dinner. Their sole hotel tryst was described in the Chicago Tribune as a "sexual encounter that stopped short of intercourse," and Greene told Esquire that he demurred at going further, telling her, "You should wait to do this with someone you love."

Four months after Greene's resignation from the Chicago Tribune, his wife Susan died of heart failure following a month-long respiratory illness.

Current books Greene did not return to newspaper or magazine journalism. He continues to write books and is a contributing writer to CNN.com. His 2006 book, And You Know You Should Be Glad: A True Story of Lifelong Friendship, is a personal account of the illness and death of his lifelong friend Jack Roth at age 57. Publishers Weekly reviewed it as follows:

Bestselling author Greene... looks back on his youth in Bexley, Ohio (pop. 13,000), where he and his four pals grew up together, calling themselves ABCDJ (for Allen, Bob, Chuck, Dan and Jack)... Greene met Jack in kindergarten, and they remained best friends for life. Remembering people and places they shared, the two revisit old haunts, discovering that their beloved Toddle House, where they once went for late-night chocolate pie, is now a Pizza Plus. Greene's repetitive, rambling free associations recall everything from his Halloween costume and old songs to ice cream parlors, state fairs and clothing fads. Unfortunately, the author's dusty attic of lost Americana is cluttered with clichés, nostalgia and overly sentimental yearnings.

His next book, When We Get to Surf City: A Journey through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams, was released on May 13, 2008. It is a chronicle of a 15-year period when he intermittently toured with surf-rock musicians Jan and Dean, singing backup and playing guitar.

His most recent book, Late Edition: A Love Story was released on July 7, 2009. In it, he wistfully chronicles his days as a copyboy and other apprentice positions at the Columbus Citizen-Journal and the Columbus Dispatch.

Awards and honors In 1977, Greene won the National Headliner Award for writing the previous year's best column.

In 1995, Greene was named Illinois Journalist of the Year. In the same year he was awarded the Peter Lisagor Award for Public Service Journalism for his reporting on courts failing children in need.