When Rick Neuheisel was forced to come clean

Two things for you in today’s Apostrophe:

1. The bill comes due for Rick Neuheisel

The issue wasn’t that Rick Neuheisel lied about interviewing with the 49ers in February 2003. The problem was he kept lying, going so far as asking to be interviewed by Mike Gastineau on KJR 950 AM so he could once again insist he was golfing in the Bay Area instead of interviewing with the 49ers. This wound up making a Seattle newspaper columnist feel compelled to explain exactly how he knew that Rick Neuheisel was lying and forever changing the way Neuheisel was seen in Seattle.

Here’s the conclusion to the oral history of Neuheisel’s less-than-truthful account of his interview with an NFL team:

2. Softening my hard feelings

I am writing a memoir on the resolution of what had been a life-defining grudge for me. This is very exciting, but is also a fairly steep challenge: memoirs are notoriously tricky to sell unless you’re an actual famous person.

The No. 1 reason that publishers pass on non-fiction proposals is the author’s lack of a platform. That’s tricky for me because this book is not about sports, which is where much of my experience is rooted (included this newsletter).

So I’ve decided to build a workaround: Grudgery.com. This is a free newsletter that is all about resentment:

• when we hold it

• why we hold it

• how we stop holding it

I’m going to writing about my own experiences. I’m going to be writing about other grudges I know of. I’m going to be interviewing actual experts, meaning therapists and academics. The first edition was published this morning, and you can read it here:

Did I mention it’s free? Yes! Grudgery.com is free. Sign-up now.