The author tackles American football in Italy; riffs on being mistaken for Texas coach Rick Barnes

No, this man does not coach Texas basketball. Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images Entertainment

Last week SI writer Richard Deitsch interviewed author John Grisham for the magazine's Q&A. The author's latest novel, Playing for Pizza, is about an ex-NFL QB on a team in Italy. Here are additional excerpts from their conversation:

SI: This book is about an former NFL player playing for a football team in Parma. How did you stumble across the subject?

Grisham: Totally by accident. I was in Bologna researching The Broker and I did what I always do: I got the hotel clerk to give me a car and a driver to show me around town. The next day there was a shiny Mercedes and this big guy jumped out. His name was Luca. So we're riding around town and I said, "Luca, your English is very good. Where did you pick up the language?" He said, "I play center." I said, "What are you talking about, man?" After riding around for three days with Luca, I could have written four books. There's a real league that has been there for 25 years and they have an Italian Super Bowl every year. It's a club sport, kind of like a rugby club in the U.S. They draw a few hundred fans to the games but they are very serious about it. Every team has can have up to three Americans and the quarterback is always an American.

SI: How many times did you watch Parma play while researching the novel?

Grisham: Twice. I was there last April 1 for three or four days of research. I watched them in the rain on April 1, just a miserable day. Then that night I went to the opera for four hours and that was my first trip to the opera. I'd much rather watch football. Then on July 14 after I finished the book, I was in Italy and I watched the Italian Super Bowl. Double overtime and Parma lost by six points, to their bitter rivals, the Bergamo Lions.

SI: You have twice invoked Archie Manning in novels, putting a poster of Archie on a character's wall in A Time to Kill and naming a Supreme Court justice Archibald Manning in The Pelican Brief. Are there other athletes you have placed in your books?

Grisham: Oh, yeah. In The Broker the first 15 or 20 characters that you meet in the story were all major league second baseman and infielders. I don't think anyone has caught it yet.

SI: No way?

Grisham: And I can't remember which book it was -- I used to write real hard in September and October and we would go to most of the Virginia home football games because we were living in Charlottesville. So I remember UVA played Wake Forest, and I happened to have the program. Every book has 300 names and I'm always desperate for names. So I wiped out the entire Wake Forest roster with names. Now you have to scramble the names up, of course, but I've yet to get a letter on that. I've heard Stephen King say he'll go to box scores for names. I'm going to do it again. Maybe I'll get the NBA All-Star team and get all the names and see if anyone catch it.

SI: Kobe and LeBron may be a little obvious?

Grisham: Well, maybe I'll pass on those.

SI: Did you know that Texas basketball coach Rick Barnes is often mistaken for you?

Grisham: Happens all the time to me, too. He was at Clemson when we moved to Charlottesville so I started getting those questions 13 years ago. And I get them again every March during the Madness because Rick is frequently on the TV (laughs).

SI: What athletes have come up to or contacted you to let you know they admire your books?

Grisham: Mike Cubbage is a friend from Charlottesville. When he was coaching the Red Sox, he took me into the locker room where Johnny Damon and Jason Varitek asked me to sign a baseball to give to their mothers who they said were big fans of mine. They also said the read all the books. You just don't expect that on their turf.

SI: How did you meet Tony LaRussa?

Grisham: I met Tony after he read A Painted House in 2001. It was full of Cardinals baseball. He contacted me and said, "You gotta come to St. Louis and throw out the first pitch." So I got my kids and my Dad and we took off to St. Louis on Opening Day. We get there and Tony said, "John, we got a slight problem. Will Clark is going to throw out the opening pitch. Can you catch it?" I said, "Tony, Catching something in front of 45,000 people is lot harder than throwing something." But I got through it. The great thing about the day was Stan The Man was there and he did the national anthem on the harmonica. We sat in the owners box and my Dad spent three hours with Stan Musial. Afterward my Dad said, "Okay, I'm ready for heaven now. I'm outta here."

SI: Did you catch Will's pitch?

Grisham: I was a nervous wreck. I had a catcher's mask and street clothes on. I told him not to bounce the damn thing so I don't kill myself.

SI: What baseball player do you wish you could have seen in person?

Grisham: I would have liked to have seen Dizzy Dean and Sandy Koufax pitch. And I would have liked to have seen Mickey Mantle play at Yankee Stadium.

SI: There are all these stories that say you named your son Ty for Ty Cobb?

Grisham: I tell everybody I did. And my daughter's name is Shea. So I tell everybody it's Shea Stadium and Ty Cobb. But it has nothing to do with it. My wife named the kids. I had very little input. His name is actually John Tyler. My daughter, we got the name out of a baby name book.

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