My Losing Season

Chapter 14 covers The Bulldogs’ first game of the Tampa Invitational Tournament, a four-team tournament also featuring powerhouse programs North Carolina and Florida State and Ivy League member Columbia. The Citadel would open against Florida State, but Conroy’s interest lie in the fact that if they win, they would take on the star-studded and always highly-ranked Tar Heels of North Carolina, which he calls “the Cadillac of Southern basketball” (194). Conroy points out that Thompson’s promise to start the Green Weenies was an empty one. All of the starters for the Florida State game would be the same with the exception of Tee Hooper, who was being replaced by Conroy. Writing about this decision and his team’s lack of chemistry and comradery, Conroy argues that “[he] had mistrusted [his] coach’s unimaginativeness, but [he] had never once doubted his word” (195). He goes even further in arguing that Thompson had lost all faith in his team, and in turn, his team was not really a team. 

Chapter 15 provides a recap of the consolation game of the Tampa Invitational against Columbia University. Conroy states that he “was the one guy on the Citadel basketball team who fully understood what the Ivy League meant in our country’s intellectual life” (199). He also writes about his jealousy of the Ivy League because he was aware that other students who shared his ambition of being a writer were getting life-changing educations at those schools. His excitement to play Columbia was not only based on the class war that was raging in his mind; it was also because he had seen the Columbia roster and noticed all of the players with immigrant attachments in their names. Noting Columbia’s location of New York City, Conroy writes:

[B]asketball 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 (199).

The Bulldogs won 74-71, thanks in large part to Conroy’s ability to break Columbia’s press and his free throw shooting. 

Conroy begins Chapter 16, writing that “for a Citadel basketball player, the Christmas break was a disturbing, fragmented descent into nightmare” (204). This was because Thompson always made the players return to campus Christmas day for a practice session that was far tougher than any other and that was followed by a week of two-a-day practices on The Citadel’s deserted campus. Conroy’s family had moved yet again, this time to Fall Church, Virginia, where he celebrated Christmas. Although he notes that his father’s violence disappeared at Christmas, his nastiness was still present, and he taunted Conroy about his poor basketball team for the full ride from the DC airport. Conroy’s father told him that he lacked the “killer instinct” on the basketball court. Conroy writes in closing Chapter 16 that his killer instinct takes a different form, noting that he killed the character Bull Meecham, an abusive father and fighter pilot, in his first novel, The Great Santini. 

The Citadel’s next three games, all covered in Chapter 17, were against Jacksonville University, Georgia Southern, and the University of Richmond. Conroy describes those first two games as the worst of his college career. He was on the bench for much of those games, replaced by Hooper, whom he says played brilliantly. Although he did not know it at the time, his poor play in those two games, and how he felt afterward, were signs of a problem that he would deal with throughout his adult life. According to Conroy, “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” (216). Thinking for certain that his starting position was lost, Conroy snapped back to life after listening to the same inner voice that had come to him in New Orleans.

For the game versus the Richmond Spiders, Conroy surprisingly remained in the starting lineup and would be tasked with guarding Johnny Moates, one of the leading scorers in the nation. Conroy and Moates had a history. Moates was also at Camp Wahoo the previous summer and took great exception to the fact that Conroy went all out to stop him defensively in one of the pickup games that the counselors played. Although Moates poured in 34 points, Conroy’s defensive play to limit him to only that amount was full of heart, seemed inspired, and did not go unnoticed by his teammates or the Corps of Cadets cheering him on. Most importantly, the Bulldogs had won the thrilling game 81-79. The following day, Conroy attended Colonel John Doyle’s poetry class and received a round of applause from his classmates. Of the incident, Conroy states that “on occasion, The Citadel would rise up and ambush me with such perfect and completely unexpected moments” (225). 

The Bulldogs’ next opponent would be Davidson University, coached by future Basketball Hall of Fame member Lefty Driesell. At the time, Davidson had become one of the top programs in the nation and was easily the most highly regarded Southern Conference team. Conroy makes his most pointed criticism of Thompson’s coaching and leadership ability throughout the recap of the Davidson game in Chapter 18. His criticisms of Thompson were both that he instilled fear in the team rather than hope, implying that they had no chance, and that when the team was playing well with a fast-paced style, he demanded that they slow the tempo down. Just before the half, Conroy made a behind-the-back pass to forward Al Kroboth which drew the ire of Thompson. Although the pass was delivered perfectly, Kroboth missed the layup, and Thompson yelled a slur from the bench. Conroy writes that he was benched for the remainder of the game, remembering, “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” (230). 

One of The Citadel’s primary athletic rivals within the Southern Conference is Furman University of Greenville, South Carolina, the next opponent in Conroy’s chronicle of the 1966-67 season. Chapter 19 begins with an anecdote about mascot-stealing and vandalism pranks that the two schools have played on each other over the years. According to Conroy, “the Furman game in Greenville is emblematic of everything that went wrong in [his] last year as a basketball player” (235). At the same time, however, he also argues that this game would be his personal turning point, the game in which he finally felt as though he belonged on the starting unit. Furman pulled away late and won the game 85-68, but Conroy scored a game high 16 points; it was the first time in his college career that he had been high scorer.

Also in Chapter 19, Conroy covers the team’s following game less than a week later against East Carolina University. Conroy’s parents traveled to see the game in Greenville, North Carolina. It would be only the second time his mother had seen him play in college and the first time that his father had. Concerning playing in front of his father for the first time, Conroy writes that “his presence made me as nervous as if someone had placed a cobra in my locker,” adding that “[he] feared playing a game in front of him” (238). The Bulldogs once again lost, but Conroy’s play was even better than the previous game, scoring a career-high 25 points. During Thompson’s post-game tirade, Conroy was stunned to hear him say that his harsh words applied to everyone in the room “except Pat Conroy” (240). Conroy’s father met him outside the locker room in order to push him against a wall and tell him “you were shit tonight. Your team was shit. Your coach can’t coach worth a shit” (241). 

Conroy’s unique Chapter 20 takes a respite from his straightforward account of his team’s season to go into a personal episode of his life unfolding during the same time. The team was experiencing a 10-day break between games due to exams, of which Conroy remarks that “The Citadel felt more like a college during exam week than any other time of year” (246). He had received an emergency phone call one night, which turned out to be from the mother of a girl he had dated and been dumped by the previous year. The hysterical woman was seeking his help because she was being threatened by an abusive ex-husband. Assuring the woman that he was on his way, Conroy then raced to the quarters of Lieutenant Colonel Nugent Courvoisie, the beloved Commandant of Cadets, nicknamed “The Boo.” Conroy introduces readers to Courvoisie by explaining one law of the land passed down from every upperclassman: “if you ever get into real trouble, go see the Boo” (247). Conroy received permission to leave campus and stay the night guarding the woman’s house.

In the second half of the chapter, Conroy delves into the story of how it was that the mother of a former girlfriend from a year earlier felt so attached to him as to call on him to protect her. Conroy reveals that the name he uses for his former girlfriend in this book, Annie Kate Gervais, is fictionalized, just as it was when he used her for his 1980 novel The Lords of Discipline. Conroy fell for Annie Kate after one blind date, but he did not see her again until after he learned that she had seemingly disappeared. Her disappearance was more hiding because she had become pregnant by another boy who had deserted her. Despite this, Conroy continued to fall for her and wanted to marry her. Months later, Annie Kate’s baby did not survive her difficult labor, and she stopped taking his phone calls afterward. She finally explained to him that now that her ordeal was over, she no longer wanted him around. Conroy compares this heartbreak to the ones he would later deal with and sees them as a result of his becoming attached to hurt women: “rescue would become my theme and my downfall” (254).