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My Losing Season (Paperback)
by Pat Conroy
| Category:
Autobiography |
| Market price: ¥ 168.00
MSL price:
¥ 148.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
This story goes beyond basketball. It’s an inspiring tale of forgiveness, perseverance and the loyalty to one’s life-time dream. |
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Author: Pat Conroy
Publisher: The Dial Press; Reprint edition
Pub. in: August, 2003
ISBN: 0553381903
Pages: 416
Measurements: 9.0 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00467
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- MSL Picks -
More than a great sports book, which it is, My Losing Season is a story about resiliency and one boy's lifelong, ongoing journey through the trauma of child abuse and domestic violence. Pat Conroy shows how his deep love for basketball and writing, detailed in a memoir of his senior basketball season at the Citadel, helps him to transcend, if not escape, a shattered childhood. Conroy's reconstruction of his final season, on and off the court, includes detailed descriptions of game to game action and analysis of the social and psychological landscape that he and his teammates endured.
Conroy brings the games of his final year to life in a way that the reader cares about the outcome of each one described and is often left on the edge of his or her seat awaiting the final outcome. He also brings the situational surround to life in a way that the reader cares about Pat and his teammates, again awaiting the final outcome of the bigger game that awaits them, beyond their losing season.
Although there is a hopeful message that Conroy conveys in what can be gained from the hardship and hurt of a losing season, what I am left with most powerfully is that no matter what he accomplishes in his life the lens of a scarred childhood is always his looking glass, distorting all that illuminates his gifts, talents, and hard fought accomplishments. His life evokes in me a desire to drape my arm around his shoulder and, although I am a younger man that he, to say to him, "Nice job son." And so if you're reading this Pat, nice job, really nice job. And if anyone else is reading this, I highly recommend My Losing Season.
(From quoting Andrew Malekoff, USA)
Target readers:
General readers
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Pat Conroy is the bestselling author of The Water is Wide, The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides, and Beach Music. He lives in Fripp Island, South Carolina.
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From the Publisher:
Pat Conroy – America’s Most Beloved Storyteller – Is Back!
“I was born to be a point guard, but not a very good one. . . .There was a time in my life when I walked through the world known to myself and others as an athlete. It was part of my own definition of who I was and certainly the part I most respected. When I was a young man, I was well-built and agile and ready for the rough and tumble of games, and athletics provided the single outlet for a repressed and preternaturally shy boy to express himself in public....I lost myself in the beauty of sport and made my family proud while passing through the silent eye of the storm that was my childhood.”
So begins Pat Conroy’s journey back to 1967 and his startling realization “that this season had been seminal and easily the most consequential of my life.” The place is the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, that now famous military college, and in memory Conroy gathers around him his team to relive their few triumphs and humiliating defeats. In a narrative that moves seamlessly between the action of the season and flashbacks into his childhood, we see the author’s love of basketball and how crucial the role of athlete is to all these young men who are struggling to find their own identity and their place in the world.
In fast-paced exhilarating games, readers will laugh in delight and cry in disappointment. But as the story continues, we gradually see the self- professed “mediocre” athlete merge into the point guard whose spirit drives the team. He rallies them to play their best while closing off the shouts of “Don’t shoot, Conroy” that come from the coach on the sidelines. For Coach Mel Thompson is to Conroy the undermining presence that his father had been throughout his childhood. And in these pages finally, heartbreakingly, we learn the truth about the Great Santini.
In My Losing Season Pat Conroy has written an American classic about young men and the bonds they form, about losing and the lessons it imparts, about finding one’s voice and one’s self in the midst of defeat. And in his trademark language, we see the young Conroy walk from his life as an athlete to the writer the world knows him to be.
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Chapter 1
Before First Practice
It was on the morning of October 15, 1966, that the final sea-son officially began. For a month and a half, my teammates and I had gathered in the field house to lift weights, do isometric exercises, and scrimmage with each other. Right off, I could tell our sophomores were special and were going to make our team faster, scrappier, and better than the year before. In the heat of September, there was a swiftness and feistiness to the flow of these pickup games that was missing in last year's club. My optimism about the coming season lifted perceptibly as I observed my team beat up on each other in the vagrancy of our uncoached and unmonitored scrimmages.
I could feel the adrenaline rush of excitement begin as I donned my cadet uniform in the dark, and it stayed with me as I marched to mess with R Company. I could barely concentrate on the professors' voices in my classes in Coward Hall as I faced the reality of the new season and stared at the clock with impatience. It was my fourth year at The Citadel and the fourth time October 15 had marked the beginning of basketball practice. Mel Thompson was famous for working his team hard on the first day and traditionally ran us so much that the first practice was topped off by one of us vomiting on the hardwood floor.
I made my way to the locker room early that afternoon because I wanted some time to myself to shoot around and think about what I wanted to accomplish this season. Four of my teammates were already dressed when I entered the dressing room door. The room carried the acrid fragrance of the past three seasons for me, an elixir of pure maleness with the stale smell of sweat predominant yet blended with the sharp, stinging unguents we spread on sore knees and shoulders, Right Guard deodorant spray, vats of foot powder to ward off athlete's foot, and deodorant cakes in the urinals. It was the powerful eau de cologne of the locker room. I realized that my life as a college athlete was coming to its inevitable end, but I did not know that you had to leave the fabulous odors of youth behind when you hurried out into open fields to begin life as an adult.
As I entered the room, I waved to Al Beiner, the equipment manager. He and his assistant Joe "Rat" Eubanks were making sure that the basketballs were all inflated properly. Carl Peterson, another assistant, had just returned with a cartful of freshly laundered towels, still warm to the touch.
"The Big Day," Al said. He was reserved and serious and considered the players juvenile and frivolous. Al's presence was priestlike, efficient.
"Senior year," Rat said. "It all comes together for the big guy this year, right, Pat?"
Joe Eubanks was the only man on campus who called me "the big guy." Five feet five inches tall, he was built with the frail bones of a tree sparrow. His size humiliated him but his solicitousness to the players made him beloved in the locker room. Joe hero-worshiped the players, a rarity at The Citadel. His wide-eyed appreciation of me reminded me of the looks my younger brothers gave me. My brothers thought I was the best basketball player in the world, and I did nothing to discourage this flagrant misconception.
When I began undressing, Carl brought over a clean practice uniform and a white box containing a pair of size 91Ú2 Converse All Star basketball shoes. Carl wore gold stars for his brilliant academic work and moved quietly among the players, silent as a periwinkle.
As I sat down to open the new box of shoes, Joe Eubanks slipped up behind me and began massaging my neck.
"Still hurt, Pat?" Joe asked. "It's been two years now." My neck had been sore since Dick Martini knocked me unconscious in a practice game.
Behind me Carl rumbled by with another load for the laundry room. Stepping out of the equipment office, Al warned us not to take our shoes out unless we signed for them. Joe brought a box of tape to Coach Billy Bostick, the mustachioed seventy-year-old trainer who taped Doug Bridges's ankles as Danny Mohr waited his turn.
Jim Halpin sat to my right, struggling to put on the grotesque knee brace which supported his ruined leg.
"Still happy about your choice of colleges, Jim?" I asked.
"This fucking place sucks," Jimmy answered as I knew he would. For four years, all conversation between Jim and me began with this withering mantra.
"Tell me what you really think, Jimmy, don't hold back," I said.
"Conroy, Halpin says the same damn thing every day, year after year," Danny said, sitting at the last locker, both his ankles taped.
"Thanks for pointing that out, Root," Bob Cauthen said.
"Fuck you, Zipper," Danny said, not even looking at Bob. Danny we called "Root" because he was not much of a leaper for a big man and stayed "rooted" on the ground beneath the basket. Bob was called "Zipper" by Danny because he was long and skinny. He was given that name by a heckler from Georgia Southern, and it stuck.
"Don't you love the fellowship on this team?" I said. "Can't you feel the brotherhood? The coming together of a group of guys who can never be broken or defeated?"
"Conroy," said John DeBrosse, unbuttoning his uniform shirt as he approached his locker. "Speak so us poor peasants can understand you. I got to carry a dictionary around to understand what your sorry ass is saying."
"Thank you, Lord, for directing my path toward The Citadel," I said. "I love this place, Lord. I truly love this place. I've found myself a home."
"This fucking place sucks," Jimmy muttered to himself.
"You're onto something, Halpin," Dave "Barney" Bornhorst, a wide-bodied forward from Ohio, said. "Keep working on the details."
Danny said, "I had scholarships to Davidson, NC State, Wake Forest. Do I go to any of those great places? Oh, no. I come to El Cid so I can spend my life with Muleface."
I looked to the door, watching for the sudden appearance of our coach. "Be careful, Danny."
Joe Eubanks came through the locker room. "Twenty minutes to get dressed and on the floor."
"Eat me, Rat," Bob said.
"Don't irritate me, Cauthen," Joe said, putting his tiny fist against Bob's chin.
"Make me laugh, Rat," Bob said.
"Leave Rat alone, Zipper," Danny called down from his locker.
Bob stuck up a middle finger at Danny and said, "Eat a big hairy one, Root."
"What a team," Jimmy Halpin said, shaking his head sadly. "This fucking place sucks."
The new assistant coach, Ed Thompson, came into the locker room and walked down the straight line of lockers, squeezing our shoulders or slapping our butts, whispering words of encouragement. A sweet-faced, soft-spoken man, he looked like an aging Boy Scout as he imparted his own enthusiasm about the beginning of the new season.
"Let's get ready to go, boys. Let's win it all this year. This is the year for us. Can you feel it, boys? Tell me now. Let's get on out there."
After he spoke to each of us, he retreated from the locker room like an ambassador for a third-world nation intimidated by the hauteur of the Court of St. James's. "Little Mel," as we called him, was intimidated by us still and did not feel comfortable interacting with us quite yet.
"Why'd Little Mel take this job?" Danny asked the room.
"He just lucked out," Bridges said.
"What a sinking ship," Bob said.
"Hey, none of that, Cauthen," DeBrosse said. "We're going to have a great team this year. None of this negative shit. Leave that in the barracks."
"Who are you, the fucking Gipper?" Bob answered.
Danny Mohr finished lacing his shoes and said, "I like Little Mel. What in the hell did he see in Muleface?"
"He just wanted to coach All-Americans like you, Mohr," Cauthen said.
"Eat me, Zipper," Danny said, again shooting Bob the finger.
"Can't you feel the team jelling?" I said. "Feel the camaraderie. Feel the never-say-die spirit. Nothing'll ever get between this band of brothers."
DeBrosse said, "Get the dictionary. Conroy's moving his lips again."
Rat appeared suddenly at the door and said, "Muleface left his office. Hurry up. He's on his way."
There was a headlong scramble of all of us as we raced for the door that opened to the floor. The sophomores had not spoken a word. It was their first day on the varsity team and they were nervous and mistrustful.
"This fucking place sucks," Halpin said, then moved out toward the sounds of boys shooting around, limping in his knee brace.
Chapter 2
First Practice
There was a tension in the gym among the players when the first practice was about to begin. We were more serious as we took jump shots, awaiting the appearance of the coaching staff at exactly 1600 hours. DeBrosse hit eight jump shots in a row from the top of the key as I admired the perfection of his form and the articulation of his follow-through. The net coughed as the ball swished through again and again. It was the loveliest sound in a shooter's world. Bridges and Zinsky both practiced long-range jumpers from the corners. Everyone had his favorite spots to get to when shooting around before practice. The managers were feeding all of us retrieved balls as I caught sight of our two coaches, both named Thompson, skirting the bleachers on the way toward the court. Mel was talking quietly to his new assistant, and we wondered aloud if "Little Mel" had any idea what he had gotten himself into…
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| View all 12 comments |
The Washington Post Book World (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
A superb accomplishment, maybe the finest book Pat Conroy has written. |
Mark (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
My Losing Season is a true story of how a college basketball player trying to get the approval of his father. Yet, getting that approval is hard due to his father's expectations. Conroy tells a wonderful story that may leave some teary-eyed. Though it is a basketball story this one is for everyone. He shows that even in the tough times good things can come of them. With Conroy telling his about college playing days the reader feels as though he is playing in the game. This is a great read and one that you will remember for a long time. |
Lawrence Slocky (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Conroy works emotion like Michelangelo did marble. An absolute master. I suggest that one read The Great Santini and The Lords of Discipline before My Losing Season to fully appreciate his artistry - as he develops the emotional nuances on his palette to weave fiction out of the auto- biographical details of his life. I was very moved when he spoke to Will McLean to have his doppelganger recede to the background so Pat Conroy could explain the facts of his heroic VMI game. Likewise when he explained how his father remade himself after the Great Santini - since Conroy took pains to embue Bull Meechum (Don Conroy) with a modicum of admirable traits his "real" father never had. But then again, perhaps Don/Bull did - and that realization may eventually come to Conroy in his twilight years.
Perhaps this book will serve as a final catharsis as regards his late father. If I have a criticism of My Losing Season, is that Conroy retains an adolescent angst while writing from the perspective of a middle aged man and that produces a sense of atrophied personal development. On re- reading the book, this was the message I got page after page: "Here I am, a 5'10" midget with no talent and I go on to be the team captain and MVP of my college basketball team. And, pal, all I got from my dad was a backhand across the puss. And all I and my teammates got from their coach and The Citadel was a figurative backhand as well. So, tell me, pal, who are the real losers here?"
One is left to wonder, as I am sure Conroy himself does, whether he would have attained such personal and career heights were it not for descending into the abyss that was the relationship with his father and with The Citadel. It could well be said that The Citadel has re-fashioned itself much as his father did. Such is the power of words well written. |
Andrew Henry (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Although My Losing Season seems to resemble so many of Conroy's novels, there is nonetheless a refreshing new aspect. Yes, there is the same dark, violent characters of his novels, and Conroy's penchent for melodrama. And, many of the scenes seem to play over and over again in My Losing Season. However, the style had its effect on me when I felt my anger, disbelief and somber mood take hold as Conroy's basketball season goes into a full tailspin and their demeaning, capricious coach sucks the spirit out of the team.
The sparks came as Conroy's indomitable spirit refused to die and he often outplayed opponents who had much more athletic talent. He admired, and often adored, the talents of the point guard that he was set against in each game, but he never seemed to wilt. He gave no quarter and played with every once of his energy as I cheered him on and quickly turned the pages to find out which team won the game. It seemed as though playing against his opponent with everything he had was the highest compliment.
The book deals with more ambivalent feelings than you can shake a stick at. Conroy is elated to be a started and named team but feels guilty because some of his teammates are more worthy of the positions. He plays hard for his coach and staunchly defends him when he is fired, but spends a large portion of the story displaying his bitter resentment of the man that physically and emotionally flattened a talented team. He hated his abusive father yet has him attending a 30-year reunion of these teammates. He is appalled at the plebe system at The Citadel and the mean spirited hazing, yet he is extremely proud to march for his school and wear its ring.
The last part of the story is a reconciliation, of sorts. Conroy reconnects with many of his former teammates and his former coach, Mel Thompson, and discusses his anti-war activities and public criticisms of The Citadel. Although this section of the book is disjointed and at times feels like confessions of guilt and regret, there are a few parts that fit nicely to resolve that ill-fated basketball season that had ended 30 years ago.
In short, Conroy's story worked on me. I was often frustrated and shocked at the abusive relations with people and institutions, and at times the story seemed to float a dark palor above my head. Yet, I kept turning the pages to pick up those sparks in the darkness - Conroy has an indomitable spirit and an earnest demeanor, and he loves people (even the sordid ones).
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