Neil D. Isaacs

Neil D. Isaacs, born August 21, 1931, in New York City, died at 93 of natural causes in Pompano Beach, Florida, on December 14, 2024.

Devoted husband, father, grandfather and "Grandpa Great;" English professor, family therapist, prodigious reader, prolific writer, discerning critic and editor; avid sports fan, tennis player, softball pitcher, marathon-runner, banjo picker, jazz lover, poker player, and champion puzzle solver, Neil was distinguished by his full auburn beard and jet black head of hair crowned by a circular patch of pure white that he maintained was caused by an exploded tennis ball.

Neil led a life of arts and letters. He graduated from Dartmouth College with a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature and Philosophy in 1953, a Master's degree in English Language and Literature from the University of California, Berkeley in 1956, and a Doctorate of Philosophy in English Language and Literature from Brown University in 1959.

He began his academic career in 1956 as an instructor teaching Beowulf and Chaucer at Brown University, and advanced from there to the City College of New York and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he explored new fields in fiction and slow pitch softball. In 1971 he was recruited to join the English Department at the University of Maryland as a full Professor, moving his then family of four children to Silver Spring, Maryland. By the late 1980s, Neil was playing dual roles in the classroom as both professor of English and student of social work, soon earning his LCSW and launching his second career as a family therapist. During this time he also met and married Ellen Laton, happily adding her two young children to his family. He retired from teaching in 2000 and from his therapy practice a few years later. He and Ellen relocated to Florida in 2017.

Neil was rarely seen without a book in hand, and if he wasn't reading, he was writing. With his longtime friend and colleague Rose Zimbardo, he was among the first to bring the work of J. R. R. Tolkien into the academic mainstream with a collection of groundbreaking scholarship, Tolkein and the Critics (1968) and Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism (2004). Merging his expansive academic interests with his passion for athletics of all kinds, Neil authored a number sports-related books, including All the Moves: A History of College Basketball (1975), Checking Back: The History of the National Hockey League (1977), and Jock Culture USA: The Takeover of American Life by the Morality of Overemphasized Sports (1978).

In addition to books, pens, and typewriters, his tools of trade were decks of cards, glasses of scotch, tennis and squash rackets, ping pong paddles, and nine irons. When not at desk or table, court or course, he could be found encamped in his favorite armchair fortified with the sport section in his lap, an NBA game on a large color tv, baseball game on the black and white set perched on top, and a transistor radio on his shoulder, with which he commanded any number of race tracks around the country. Neil covered them all, from Saratoga to Hialeah.

Once he reached his nineties, Neil's activity of choice became balking at physical therapy, which topped a long list of things he viewed as balk-worthy, including the waging of war, the wearing of ties, organized religion, lazy sentences, chewing gum, and the Yankees.

Neil was predeceased by his brother Philip Isaacs in 2016, sister-in-law Marilyn Isaacs in 1998, and his first wife Esther in 1989 (from whom he was divorced in 1982).

He is survived by Ellen Isaacs, his loving wife of 40 years; three sons, Ian Isaacs (Rita), Jonathan Isaacs (Liz), Daniel Isaacs (Tammy), daughter Annie Moyer (Amir), stepson Joshua Laton (Jeff), stepdaughter Emmi Suarez; 12 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

All are invited to join the family for a memorial on Zoom, Saturday December 21 at 3:00 pm ET. https://bit.ly/neilisaacs. Donations may be made in his memory to the War Resisters League.