My Losing Season

NONFICTION SELECTION >> A point guard learns: It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game —on the basketball court and in life. The Story So Far All through high school, basketball has been Conroy’s life. What he lacks in talent he has made up for in his sheer dedication to his game. As the book opens, Conroy is a senior in college, and point guard for the “Green Weenies,” the second string team of the 1966-1967 “Citadel Bulldogs.” Jacksonville to Richmond

PHOTO COURTESY OF PAT CONROY

THE JACKSONVILLE AND GEORGIA SOUTHERN

games were the worst two I played in college. I could smell the stench of my own game as I disconnected from the game-possessed boy who loved basketball as he loved nothing else. My legs had lost all spring and freshness and dash, and I played point guard as though I were in a coma. Every time I crossed midcourt with the ball I would hear Mel yell at me, “Don’t shoot, Conroy.” And despite my strange epiphany in New Orleans, I had begun listening to my coach again. In each contest, I scored only a single free throw. For much of both games, I rode the bench with the Green Weenies as Tee Hooper replaced me and played brilliantly. His slashing, passionate style brought my team to life. Against Jacksonville, Tee led the Green Weenies to a dazzling rally with Zipper and Brian “Bean” Kennedy and Connor all over the boards and flying down the lanes on every fast break. But Jacksonville pulled away in the final two minutes, defeating us 87–80. But let the sportswriter tell the tale: “Finally in an effort to shake some life into the lethargic Bulldogs, Coach Thompson went to the bench with about 10 minutes to play. continued on page 16 ➟

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2003 Literary Cavalcade

Author and point guard, Pat Conroy.

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My Losing by Pat Conroy

MEET THE AUTHOR: Pat Conroy BORN 1945, Atlanta, Georgia GROWING UP Family moved frequently to different military bases forcing Conroy to constantly change schools. EDUCATION The Citadel Military Academy FIRST JOB Teaching underprivileged children in a one room schoolhouse. MAJOR INFLUENCE Much of his work is about growing up with an abusive father. QUOTE “My father’s violence is the central fact of my art and my life.”

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THE BUZZ Conroy’s fiction is known for its thinly disguised autobiographical features. Now he applies his writing skills to “the truth.”

Literary Cavalcade NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2003

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NONFICTION SELECTION >>

MY LOSING SEASON by Pat Conroy

➟ continued from page 14

“The starters, all except DeBrosse, found themselves watching from the sidelines as Brian Kennedy, Greg Connor, Tee Hooper, and Bob Cauthen scratched and clawed their way back into the game. It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective as the huge Dolphin lead slowly melted.” The translation of this is our Green Weenies were kicking the hell out of their Green Weenies, and I felt like a deserter for being on the bench when my real team was on the floor. The malaise of the Blue Team had infected me like some insupportable virus. I felt humpbacked and aghast at my play. Hurt of spirit, I found

PHOTO COURTESY OF PAT CONROY

I found myself consumed with self-loathing and haunted by the words of my father that Tee Hooper would sense that I was a loser and find taking my place on the first team an easy task.

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FROM MY LOSING SEASON BY PAT CONROY. COPYRIGHT © 2002 BY PAT CONROY. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF NAN A. TALESE, AN IMPRINT OF DOUBLEDAY A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE, INC.

myself consumed with self-loathing and haunted by the words of my father that Tee Hooper would sense that I was a loser and find taking my place on the first team an easy task. When I guarded the six-foot-four Wayne Kruer, I had never felt quite so overmatched by an opponent and he was the first guard ever to post me up under the basket. My defense stunk, my offense stunk, and I could barely get my muscles to respond to commands I sent them in the urgency I felt to keep Kruer away from the baskets. I was even worse when we played against Georgia Southern in Statesboro a couple of nights later. In fact, I think I lost my team that game with my inexcusable, cowardly play. Some paralysis gripped me, and I went through the motions without inspiration or flair or any sense of mission. Hoping to make something happen for myself—myself, not my team—in desperation I drove past the ethereally gifted Jim Rose, a twotime little All-American, and I saw the center Jim Seeley move off Dan Mohr to intercept me leaving Mohr wide open in the lane. But so frantic was I to join the game in any way that I broke every rule of every point guard in the history of the game and did not get it to the open man. Dan would have had a layup but I elected,


in an act of pure distress, to try to take it to the hoop myself. Because there is such justice in sport, Mr. Seeley rammed the ball down my throat and sent it sailing into the stands. For thirty-two years, I have felt lousy about not getting Dan the ball, but I was in the dead center of the two worst games I would ever have as a basketball player and I did not feel like myself. In those first two matchups of January, I was a disgrace to my college, my coaches, my teammates, and myself. I let all of them down and we lost those two games because of my incompetence. I had died as a basketball player and no one had bothered to show me the results of the autopsy. In my death, Tee Hooper had found something in himself, and I got to witness his own resurrection as the bold, hellbent nature of his game made its reappearance. He was all over the court against Georgia Southern, flamelike, intense, relentless. We were twenty-one points down at one time, but my team—not me—my team fought back and we lost by one in overtime, 79–78. Dan Mohr played a magnificent game against Georgia Southern and displayed his 1. I always write first drafts of my books on long yellow legal pads using a pen. 2. Once I’ve finished a new manuscript the pens go into a ceramic cup on my desk. 3. All the books on my writing desk are by people I have loved. 4. Many years ago the writer Patricia Hampl told me I should always write in beautiful journals and I do.

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immense gifts under the boards all night. His shot was so soft that night that the action looked like a transfer of pillows. He pulled down thirteen rebounds against bigger players from Georgia Southern. It was a joy to watch him and to know him and to have him as a teammate. That game demonstrated how good Dan Mohr was against terrific competition and how amazing his whole senior year could have been if Mel had not crushed his spirit. Mohr had the best game of his season, scoring twenty-five points. Jim Rose ate me alive and his game had a strange sweet grace to it and his jump shot was picture-perfect. n the bus back to Charleston, I sat on the back seat trying to beat down a sense of hopelessness I had not been able to shake since the Christmas Day practice. Later experience would teach me that I had entered one of those black depressions that would long plague my adult life and bring me to my knees with alarming frequency. I could summon no fire or energy or passion, and my body felt more fatigued and lifeless than at

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any other time. That Tee had beaten me out for my position I could accept, but that he had done so without the fight of his life made me writhe with shame. In darkness, I let Georgia pass into South Carolina and I thought about quitting the team, telling Coach Thompson that I did not deserve a scholarship and did not deserve to be on the floor with these much finer players. I could no longer bear to hear Mel’s words, “Conroy, don’t shoot.” Then I heard the voice again, the one that had sprung alive in New Orleans, the one I would come to call my writer’s voice, the one that would come to me when I sat down to write my books. “Hey, pal,” it said, “I thought I told you not to listen to a single thing Mel Thompson says to you. Let’s go over it again. He’s bad for you. He gets under your skin. He lowers your morale. Got it? Do I make myself clear? One more time. Tune Mel out. Play the game because you love it. You’re thinking too much. Don’t think. Play. Get into the rhythm of the game and let it flow through you. Be natural. Be loose. Get yourself back. You’ve lost yourself.”

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continued ➟ 5. Readers occasionally send me stuff, some very special things, like that antique box with metal clasp. 6. Gene Norris, my high school English teacher, prowls antique stores all over the South and comes home with unusual inkwells. 7. Gene personally selected my desk, the most beautiful desk you will ever see, and insisted I buy it. 8. Letter holder filled with letters that need to be answered.


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NONFICTION SELECTION >>

MY LOSING SEASON by Pat Conroy

LC Book Club Questions

1

Does Conroy’s fiercely selfcritical attitude help or hurt him as a player?

2

What do you think about Conroy’s devotion to a game that he does not play very well?

20 Minute Essay

>>TAKE 20

MINUTES

TO PLAN AND WRITE AN ESSAY ANSWERING THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: Conroy’s coach resorts to humiliation and insults to lead his team. Do you think this is effective leadership? If so, why? If not, why not?

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gain what surprised me most about the return of this interior voice was that it sounded much like that of my father. It was a voice that would come and go for years until I realized what it was, the truest part of me, the most valiant flowering of my character, a source of pure light and water streaming out of unexplored caverns deep within me. Unlike me, this voice knew nothing of shyness or reserve or shame or despair. This voice rang with authority and spoke with a blazing, resonant accuracy, with the clearness and certainty of church bells heard on bright Sundays. It riveted me with its absoluteness of vision, its breathtaking assurance. It left me as quickly as it had come, and as I sat in darkness, the strangeness of the encounter and its eerie nature of intervention and miraculous visitation gave me great pause. Because I was taking a course in abnormal psychology and because my family produced psychotics the way some families pass down freckles, I wondered if that unbidden voice was a sign of paranoid schizophrenia. But the voice offered advice too good to have any connection with mental illness. The voice knew what was good for me. In the days before the Richmond game the following Saturday night, I again practiced with the Green Weenies and Tee practiced with the Blue Team. But since the return of the voice on that bus ride home, I was on the mend and ready to do battle again. With the University of Richmond coming to Charleston, the guards knew that the great Johnny Moates was coming to town. He was the guard at Camp Wahoo the previous summer who reacted with fury when I was the only camp counselor to take defense in the summer games seriously. At twenty-five points a game, Moates was one of the leading scorers in the nation. As a Green Weenie again, I ver y comfortably helped the Weenies dismantle the poor Blue Team once more. Now I took a greater interest in how Mel would turn his scorn on one individual player, pick a victim out of


the crowd and humiliate him before teammates. Mel had singled me out over Christmas because I had played three solid games in a row for my Citadel team, and Mel had noticed me for the first time in his life. As a Green Weenie, I was invisible. But as a starter, something in Mel’s subconscious (a place I am sure my coach never traveled to or even booked a ticket to) stirred into life and the athlete that still lived within him became competitive with the young athletes on his team. Dan Mohr had made an inexcusable error of judgment—he had dared score twenty-five points against Georgia Southern and played a magnificent game. Because of that, Mel brought up the heavy guns to rain artillery fire at him during practice. Basketball players do not always notice these things, but novelists do. Mel would stop practice, then go after Mohr as though he hated him personally. “Mohr, you just don’t give a damn. You don’t care about getting the job done. You stand there in the middle like your feet were rooted to the floor. If you don’t want to rebound, Mohr, I’ll get someone in there who does.” “Can’t you see I’m giving it everything I got, Coach?” Dan said, but it came out pleading and whining, which infuriated Mel even further. “You want me to feel sorry for you, Mohr? Is that what you want? If that’s what you want, you’ve come to the wrong place and the wrong guy. I want you to move your ass out of one spot and get to the boards. Kroboth’s eating your jock. Every damn time. You’re nothing but a can of corn.” Mel’s harsh words cut through Dan every practice, and all of his teammates carry with us the image of Dan’s great hurt eyes staring down at his coach with disbelief and humiliation. But as the season wore on, the look in Root’s eyes began to turn a darker shade of hatred. On that Saturday night, I dressed for the first time since playing Loyola with the feeling that I had a small chance of starting. I had decided to put the Jacksonville and Georgia Southern games out of my mind and concentrate on playing well the next time I got a chance. As a senior I tried to say something

STOPWATCH: PHOTODISC VIA SODA

➟ continued from page 17

to every player on the team before the game, upbeat words of praise or encouragement. I teased the sophomores and already felt a brotherly solidarity with the juniors. It would never be a happy locker room because locker rooms reflect more the personalities of the coaches than the players. hen Mel entered the locker room with his ritualistic walk before the Richmond game, he surprised the team again by adding my name to the starting lineup. It was a shock to me and a blow to Tee Hooper, who had worked his tail off in practice to get ready for Moates. Tee looked sucker-punched and when I caught his eye, I shrugged my shoulders then lifted my palms up, letting him know that I knew an injustice had been done. After warmups, I joined the refs at midcourt as captain. Always feeling like an impostor, I stood with the two refs waiting for the Richmond captain Johnny Moates to get out of his warmup pants. As we waited, I said to the two men who had spent the last four years reffing in my games, “Gentlemen, I heard Johnny Moates calling both of you rotten

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Yet it was a night when my fate turned bright as a basketball player of marginal skills and limited prospects. Poor Tee’s fate as a sophomore would turn to dust on the same night. bastards in the visiting team locker room.” They grinned, then one of them asked, “Pat, what did you do about it?” “Beat the living sh**t out of the rotten sonof-a-bitch,” I said, deadpan. Johnny never knew why the two men were laughing when he and I shook hands. It was an honor to be on the same court as Johnny Moates that year. But what began as an honor Mr. Moates turned into a challenge. Yet it was a night when my fate turned bright as a basketball player of marginal skills and limited prospects. Poor Tee’s fate as a sophomore would turn to dust on the same night, and his boyish, handsome face would quiver with anguish and incomprehension for the rest of this trying season. I would become the unwilling agent of the destruction of Tee’s year. I would be the starting point guard for the rest of the season for reasons both unclear ■ and unfair.

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