Rus Bradburd left coaching major college hoops to pursue a career in writing

Rus Bradburd is the author of four previous books. He spent 14 seasons coaching Division I basketball, including eight at the University of Texas – El Paso, where his teams battled Colorado State and Air Force each year. He was a writing professor at New Mexico State for 16 years. “Big Time,” which takes place at the fictional Coors State University, is his first novel.

SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory. What inspired you to write it? Where did the story/theme originate?  

Rus Bradburd: I made an unusual transition, leaving Division I basketball to try to be a writer. I was immediately struck by the stark contrast of the academic world and the life of a major college coach. I was coming to grips with the strange alliance of the purpose of a university and the demands of basketball and football. Sitting through faculty meetings, I realized I had to either laugh about the mentality or bang my head against the wall. 

SunLit: Place this excerpt in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole? Why did you select it?  

Bradburd: Chapter One sets the novel in motion:  the reader lands in the midst of the madness at Coors State University, where two history professors are getting the popcorn ready for the first home game. The rebrand has already happened, the faculty has to work for football to survive—and one of the professors essentially declares war, in the philosophical sense, on big time sports, hoping to drag the other prof along. 

SunLit: You had a long and interesting career in basketball before leaving to teach writing and publish many works yourself. Tell us a little about your sports background and why you shifted gears. 

Bradburd: I was the worst player in North Park College history, but I loved basketball and didn’t want to get a real job. Even as a Division I coach at the University of Texas – El Paso and New Mexico State I’d bring a book on the airplane, and never turned on the TV at a hotel. I was a closeted reader that spilled over—the way most coaches are former players who spilled over into coaching. 

How did your experience as a coach in Division I basketball inform your work on “Big Time”? 

Bradburd: I worked for two of the greatest coaches in the history of the game, Don Haskins and Lou Henson. In retrospect, I was always more interested in the stories behind the coaches, the players, and games than the stats or strategies. I can’t diagram any of Lou Henson’s brilliant plays, but I have many compelling stories about him. 

SunLit: The landscape of big-time college athletics has changed dramatically in the last few years with the advent of NIL, conference realignment and other factors. Did that impact your approach to the novel? 

Bradburd: I had a sense of urgency when I began writing it in 2011: I wanted to get it finished before the era of big time college sports ended and the satire would be obsolete. Of course, because of NIL and television, sports are more dominant than ever. And I’m conflicted, like so many people who love sports. They’re destroying the mission of our universities, but they’re so great to watch. I’m like the alcoholic who keeps walking by the pub and peeking in the window: Maybe I’ll go inside just for one beer.  

SunLit: “Big Time” describes a fictional Colorado university, and at a time when the football program at the University of Colorado has undergone a massive change under “Coach Prime” Deion Sanders. Was that coincidence? Can readers see some parallels between CU’s new direction and what unfolds in the book? 

Bradburd: Total coincidence, with me setting the story at “Coors State University.”  Would that be Colorado State, or Boulder? Well, it doesn’t matter so much.  But Coach Sanders has helped make the book timely and urgent. Thank him for me, OK? Wait, I’ll just send him a Coors State U hoodie. 

SunLit: Your novel certainly takes on college athletics at a fascinating and tumultuous period. What do you hope readers take away from “Big Time”?  

Bradburd: The book began as a humorous critique of the expansion of big time sports on our campuses. But in the end, it’s just as much about the impotence and inability of the faculty and administration to stand up to the changes. In 1939, the president at the University of Chicago—they were in the Big 10!—dropped football. I think humor is a great tool for revealing things. Stephen Colbert, in my view, is as good a news source as any.  

SunLit: What books influenced you the most in writing “Big Time?”   

Bradburd: I read David Meggyesy’s memoir “Out of Their League” when it first came out and I was a young teenager. I’ve read it five times since then, and it’s more relevant than ever, although there’s nothing funny about his expose. 

But I loved “Straight Man” by Richard Russo, which mocks academia, and Tom Perrotta’s novels, and “Catch-22” and Karen Russell’s “Swamplandia.” Oddly, the British television series “Detectorists” was a big influence on my two flawed history profs working the popcorn stand. 

SunLit: Tell us about your next project. 

Bradburd: I’m completing (I hope) a nonfiction book about Syrian and Ukrainian refugee children in Northern Ireland assimilating through Gaelic football.  

 A few more quick questions

SunLit: Which do you enjoy more as you work on a book – writing or editing? 

Bradburd: They are two different muscles, the creation and the revision muscles. That would be a tie, and we’ll have to go into overtime to get the answer. Certainly I spend more time revising by far. 

SunLit: What’s the first piece of writing – at any age – that you remember being proud of? 

Bradburd: My first book, “Paddy on the Hardwood,” is a memoir about coaching my Irish basketball team into dead-last place while I struggled to learn the Irish fiddle. It’s my most personal book. It’s my story. 

SunLit: What three writers, from any era, would you invite over for a great discussion about literature and writing?  

Bradburd: Among the best times of my life were sitting at the kitchen table of Robert Boswell and Antonya Nelson, who were my teachers at New Mexico State. I learned so much from hearing them talk about writing—so maybe you could get James Baldwin there to round things out? They live in Colorado now, so the pressure is on you to arrange all this. 

SunLit: Do you have a favorite quote about writing? 

Bradburd: I resist slogans and aphorisms, which sound like guidance counselor posters to me. But my wife, the great poet Connie Voisine, told me in 2002, “You have to sit your ass in the chair for three hours a day and type.” Simple enough. It helped me to think of writing as a physical act, first. 

SunLit: What does the current collection of books on your home shelves tell visitors about you?  

Bradburd: That I’m way behind on my reading. I lean on audio books, though, which you can’t see on my nightstand, but they help me keep up. 

SunLit: Soundtrack or silence? What’s the audio background that helps you write? 

Bradburd: Oh, silence for sure. I’m a serious fiddle player and I can’t engage in both music and books. 

SunLit: What music do you listen to for sheer enjoyment?  

Bradburd: Irish traditional or American old time string bands. 

SunLit: What event, and at what age, convinced you that you wanted to be a writer?

Bradburd: Like a lot of people of my generation, at age 20 I read “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac, and I used to reread it every spring, which seemed the right time to embrace the novel. I haven’t read it since I quit coaching to be a writer, and I’m afraid of how it might hold up now. 

SunLit: Greatest writing fear?  

Bradburd: I’m not a great writer, but I think I’ve had good ideas for books. I’m concerned that I’ll run out of good ideas. 

SunLit: Greatest writing satisfaction? 

Bradburd: I got a very late start, quitting coaching in 2000 at age 40, so I’m just happy that my radical career leap didn’t leave me in the mud at the side of the road. 

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