My Losing Season

“If not for sports, I do not think my father ever would have talked to me.” 

Conroy introduces readers to his stormy and violent relationship with his father in his Prologue. Conroy’s father, who had been the main subject of one of the author’s most famous novels, The Great Santini, was also an excellent basketball player as a college student. As Conroy explains, basketball was the only reason that his father ever communicated with him. 

“Each player would have to submit himself to trial by Mel Thompson, a season-long initiation in which our coach would search for the soft spots and breaking points of his newest players, then would go to work on them with a cruel finesse.”

In Chapter 2, “First Practice,” Conroy is describing the new varsity players coming in for The Citadel, a talented group of players who excelled on the freshman team the previous season. Because freshman athletes were ineligible for varsity athletics at the time, this would be their on-court introduction to Mel Thompson, an abrasive and strict disciplinarian head coach.

“It was during my Arlington years that I discovered the vast difference between the way black kids played the game of basketball and the way white kids did.” 

In Chapter 4, “First Shot,” Conroy details his life as a military brat in which his family frequently moved, never allowing him to settle into a particular area or school for too long. This was also the time in which Conroy fell in love with the game of basketball. While living in Arlington, Virginia, Conroy began playing pick-up basketball in Black neighborhoods and immediately noticed that Black kids played with a rougher and faster style than the White kids. Conroy adopts this style, which noticeably sets his playing apart. 

“The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life.” 

As a student at Gonzaga High School in Washington, DC, Conroy discovered a mentor in English teacher Joseph Monte. Monte introduced Conroy to the great works of literature and sparked his early interest in becoming a professional writer. 

“I played under Mel Thompson for the next four years, and he never again said ‘good game’ to me. Nor did he smile at me again. Ever.” 

Throughout his memoir, Conroy is extremely critical of Thompson’s coaching style and his treatment of his players. In this quote, Conroy is referring to his first meeting with Thompson while being recruited. Thompson’s friendly demeanor was needed to recruit high school players but was discarded once they became his college players. 

“My father possessed a small genius for scab-flicking, for zeroing in on that tenderest spot of the psyche where healing was most difficult, exposing the rawness of the wound again and again.”

As a senior basketball player at Beaufort High School in South Carolina, Conroy was recruited to play at the University of South Carolina, which at that time was a member of the powerful Atlantic Coast Conference. Although it sounded like a full scholarship offer was coming to him, the coach ultimately decided on a different player. Conroy prematurely told his parents that he had the scholarship offer, and his father berated him as a loser and a liar when it turned out not to be the case. 

“I suffered grievously under the spell and sway of the plebe system. It left me terrified, brutalized, altered, and introduced me to a coward that lay deep inside of me.” 

Chapter 7 covers Conroy’s first year at The Citadel, during which all cadets are forced to go through ritualized hazing from older cadets known as the plebe system. Conroy explains that the terrifying first week during plebe year is known as “Hell Week,” and that the experience left him feeling cowardly. 

“In the plebe system I endured and loathed, I could also feel the weight and shape and great bonding taking place in the darkness.” 

On the same subject of the ritualized hazing of the plebe system, Conroy explains that it also brings the cadets together to form a bond of brotherhood. Referring to an incident in which Conroy’s treatment was particularly brutal, and he was broken to the point of uncontrollable sobbing, he also points out that a line of cadets formed in his room to comfort him. 

“In sport the mind serves as the acolyte and apprentice of the body. Nothing interferes with the flow of the game more than the athlete who obsesses about his every move on the court. You move, you react, you recover, you drive, and the thinking is seamless and invisible in the secret codes of your game.” 

Conroy’s experience at Camp Wahoo was integral to his development as a player the next season at The Citadel. Although the camp counselors consisted of nondescript current college players, such as himself, great professional players such as Jerry West and Hot Rod Hundley were regulars there and took part in practice sessions and pick-up games. This allowed Conroy to be on the court with truly great players and develop his game. Conroy is referring to the countless hours he spent practicing new moves and tricks he learned. His point is that, through repetition, these moves became second nature to him, and he could deploy them seamlessly when playing.  

“Something smoldered inside Mel Thompson. He was the type of man you would expect to cut open and see lava flow instead of blood.” 

Returning to the subject of his hard-nosed, disciplinarian coach, Conroy is attempting to explain to readers the personality of Mel Thompson. Thompson had been a star player under legendary coach Everett Case at North Carolina State University in the 1950s, and as a coach, did not believe in encouraging his players with positivity or the concept of team comradery. 

“Winning basketball games in a military college is as perilous a way to earn a living as exists in American coaching.” 

Although Conroy is extremely critical of Thompson’s coaching style and demeanor throughout his memoir, he also comes to his defense in regard to the fact that military academies such as The Citadel are at a huge disadvantage because very few athletes are willing to choose that system over a typical university. Conroy points out that The Citadel basketball program has had only a handful of winning seasons since 1940. 

“It never occurred to me a single time in the year I am writing about that I was in the dead center of living out my own life, accruing the experiences and gathering the raw materials to form the only life I was ever going to have.” 

Early in the season, The Citadel traveled to New Orleans to play against Loyola University. Being in New Orleans was significant for Conroy because of the city’s rich literary history and being home to famous authors such as William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams. Upon arriving in the city, Conroy found himself lamenting the fact that the people he was surrounded by were dull and “colorless” rather than the exciting fictional characters that he loved to read about. Although Conroy felt like his life had not yet begun, he was actually well into the phase of his life that would comprise his most famous works. 

“Basketball had always been a game for the poor kids of the big cities, the game where the boys of immigrant families could prove themselves while navigating their ways along the mean streets and fierce ghettos whether they were Jews, Irish, Poles, Lithuanians, or the soon-to-be dominant black kids.” 

Just before Christmas break in Conroy’s senior season, The Citadel played in the Tampa Invitational Tournament. This provided a unique opportunity for The Citadel to play against schools from outside its conference or geographic region. Their opponent was Ivy League member Columbia University from New York City. Conroy was particularly excited for this game because the Columbia roster was filled with players from immigrant families from the large cities of the Northeast. 

“Christmas morning was the only time of the year when you could be absolutely sure that my father would not slap you.” 

The Christmas break for college basketball players is typically much shorter than it is for other students because it takes place during the season, and they are required to return for practice. Conroy’s family had once again relocated during his final year at The Citadel and when he came home for Christmas for a brief stay, he was seeing the new house for the first time. Conroy is referring to the fact that his father’s typical violence was absent on Christmas day. 

“There is no feeling on earth quite so jubilant and satisfying as to have your team solidifying around you like a pearl in the tissues of an oyster.” 

Playing against the University of Richmond, Conroy was guarding star player Johnny Moates. Although Moates was clearly the superior player, Conroy was playing well and his teammates encouraged him during halftime. This particular game was unique during the season, not only because The Citadel won, but also because that moment of comradery among his teammates was one of the few. 

“Mel’s benching me was to his mind a fitting punishment for my temerity at throwing a pass I had learned while playing with black kids.” 

During the game against Davidson University, Thompson benches during the second half because he had made a “behind-the-back pass” to a teammate. The pass was perfect, but the teammate missed the layup so technically Conroy’s pass was unsuccessful. Conroy is alluding to the fact that such a pass during a game at that time was considered flashy and one that White players in a conservative-style offense did not attempt. This quote points to the inherent racism in basketball at the time.

“I could take my father’s fury and had proven that over and over during the long, forced march of my debased childhood; it was his laughter and mocking contempt that unmanned me completely, that I would do almost anything to avoid.” 

In addition to the physical violence that Conroy’s father inflicted upon him throughout his childhood, there was also continual harassment and taunting that he was not a great basketball player. Conroy is referring to his fear of being mocked by his father for playing poorly in an upcoming game against Furman University. The Furman game would be the first one his father attended.

“My writing career has proven to be riddled with such encounters with people wounded by the malice of my portraiture.”

While at The Citadel, Conroy wrote for The Shako, the academy’s student magazine. During his final year, one particular short story infuriated his coach, Mel Thompson, because he was certain that the fictional coach in the story was based on him. In several of his previous novels, particularly The Great Santini and The Lords of Discipline, Conroy based characters on actual people in his life and those portraitures often caused a conflict with friends and family.

“Fate hides in veils and approaches from behind with cards marked and chess pieces disfigured. You never know when a door you left unlocked will usher in a lost exterminator, a deposed queen, or the love of your life.” 

Conroy’s words about fate allude to the fact that while he was flying to Richmond, Virginia to play against The Citadel’s arch-rival Virginia Military Institute in 1967, his yet-unknown adopted daughter was being born in Kingsville, Texas. Not long after Conroy’s future daughter was born, her father was shot down and killed in the early stages of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. A year later, Conroy married that military pilot’s widow and adopted the children that he left behind.  

“Fact and fiction have been engaged in an abnormal and fanciful dance since I first began my writing career. There are lost geographies in my psyche because I fictionalize events stolen from my actual life.” 

In Chapter 24, “Four Overtimes,” Conroy covers the thrilling game versus The Citadel’s arch rival, Virginia Military Institute. This particular game was also featured in Conroy’s novel The Lords of Discipline, but that version was fictional, as Conroy combined elements from other games as well. Conroy is pointing out that actual events and people have frequently been the basis for his works of fiction. 

“Basketball had rescued me from the malignant bafflement of my boyhood. It had lifted me up and given me friends that I got to call teammates. The game gave me moments where I brought crowds of strangers to their feet, calling out my name. The game had allowed me to be carried off the court in triumph. The game had allowed me to like myself a little bit, and at times the game had even allowed me to love the beaten, ruined boy I was.” 

Following The Citadel’s loss and elimination from the 1967 Southern Conference Tournament in Charlotte, North Carolina, Conroy began weeping uncontrollably in the locker room. His deep sadness was not from the defeat, which was fully expected, but rather because he knew that his basketball career was over and that the game that he loved so much and had allowed him to be confident was gone. 

“My mediocrity in my chosen sport has kindled in me my whole life, and I have suffered for it. Athletics is mercilessly fair.”

After The Citadel was eliminated from the 1967 Southern Conference Tournament, Conroy’s career as a basketball player was over. College basketball players with enough talent move on to play professionally, but Conroy is acknowledging that he has always known that he is not one of those talented players. Regardless of other factors, talent and skill is usually what matters in athletics. 

“It is a strange and hollowed-out American father who cannot be proud of a son who scores twenty-five points in a college basketball game. But that was my father. I served twenty-one years under him trying to learn how to become a son he could learn to love.” 

Following the Furman game, Conroy’s father pushed him against a wall, cursed him, and bluntly told him that he “couldn’t hold [his] jock as a ballplayer” (242). This was the first of Conroy’s college games that his father attended, and it resulted in his scoring his career high-point total of 25 points. Conroy expected a different reaction, but he knew from experience that this is who his father was.