For three decades Pete Axthelm (1943–1991) was one of the dominant voices in New York sportswriting. He wrote his first book, The Modern Confessional Novel, while he was a student at Yale, and succeeded in having it published at the age of twenty-four. Upon graduating, he went on to work for the New York Herald Tribune, where he covered sports in all their forms. He graduated to the national stage in the 1970s, writing for Newsweek and Sports Illustrated, and then moved on to television. In the 1980s he reported on football for NBC and horse racing for a young ESPN. Axthelm died in Pittsburgh in 1991.
