Oh, so much was unknown to me. I grew up in the Tampa Bay area and was fascinated by the Bandits. At first, this book was to be a straight history of the USFL team but as I started to research it became quickly apparent that the story had to be of Bassett's life.
I think Bassett was a true renaissance man: newspaper writer, television producer, movie producer, auto racing promoter, tennis phenom, hockey impresario, football entrepreneur and of course husband and father. The fact that we packed so much into a roughly 13-year span that had a lasting impact on sports is his greatest legacy. He definitely still inspires me today to not let too much time pass between projects, because we never really know (a). how much time we have and (b). just what kind of an impact we can leave.
Because this is a hockey site, I will say that a great nexus of his film production and hockey work was his 1971 film Face-Off. This was before his work with the WHA, so Bassett was able to get permission to use the Maple Leafs as the employer of the fictional player Billy Duke and incorporated a lot of great late 1960s/early 1970s footage into the film. While it is far from Citizen Kane, hockey fans will greatly appreciate a serious take on the sport and the archival footage. This was one of several films Bassett produced...another, Paperback Hero, featured the song "If You Could Read my Mind" by his good friend Gordon Lightfoot. Learning about how seamlessly Bassett traversed between music, film, sport, and politics was probably my greatest takeaway and one I hope readers enjoy also.
