Pat Conroy, My Losing Season: A Memoir (2002).
I liked The Lords of Discipline so much I wanted more Conroy. This book appealed to me because it was about basketball. First the good, then the not so good.
The modesty is disarming. The description of the atmosphere of games is intoxicating. The account of plays is exhilarating. The attributes ascribed to other players, especially opponents (which made me think of Jerry Nicholarson, Mike Aspen, and Fred Hare – an honour to mix with them) are graceful and generous. The unity and division of the team through the season is moving. It started as a band of individuals but through the season often played like a team where the whole is greater than its parts. The descriptions of hot and cold players is right. The figures of speech and turns of phrase are easy and, at times, elevating. The recitation of the responsibilities of the point guard is informative, and that made me think of Captain Leo. The accounts of talented athletes who threw it away reminded me of Bob Krebsbach.
The effort in the last chapter to sum up the book from the point of view of a point guard, however, is not based on those responsibilities, and so occasions more dad-hating. The modesty becomes repetitive and even cloying.
Mel, the one-dimensional toxic coach, who never has a good word to say, who thinks screaming is motivation, who seems to have nothing to offer but the above is cardboard I am afraid. It is only at about 300 pages of chronicle of Mel’s malice is it implied that he taught Conroy some things about the game.
Dad-hatred piled high and deep enough for a PhD in the Oedipus complex, though there is nothing complex about it. (I also bought his cookbook, and guess what, dad-hatred is to be found there, too.)
Ditto his love-hate relationship with The Citadel. He just cannot say it often enough, well yes he can say it too often.
It is a gym rat’s adage. Only leave the gym when you have made your last shot. Never leave the gym on a miss. Superstition perhaps. But more practice never hurts.
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