My Losing Season (3 page)

I had remembered the boldness of Dickie Jones's game. He played the game like it should be played, but until his death I had never thought of the deeper stirrings that move beneath the facades of those people we select to be our heroes—I had never once considered the sadness of point guards.

         

T
HIS IS THE STORY OF
a mediocre basketball team that is remembered by few, a team that spent a year perfecting the art of falling to pieces. I thought I would be a senior on one of the greatest basketball teams in Citadel history. I could not have been more wrong.

Sports books are always about winning because winning is far more pleasurable and exhilarating to read about than losing. Winning is wonderful in every aspect, but the darker music of loss resonates on deeper, richer planes. I think about all the games of that faraway year that played such a part in shaping me, and it is the losses that stand out because they still make their approach with all their capacities to wound intact. Winning makes you think you'll always get the girl, land the job, deposit the million-dollar check, win the promotion, and you grow accustomed to a life of answered prayers. Winning shapes the soul of bad movies and novels and lives. It is the subject of thousands of insufferably bad books and is often a sworn enemy of art.

Loss is a fiercer, more uncompromising teacher, coldhearted but clear-eyed in its understanding that life is more dilemma than game, and more trial than free pass. My acquaintance with loss has sustained me during the stormy passages of my life when the pink slips came through the door, when the checks bounced at the bank, when I told my small children I was leaving their mother, when the despair caught up with me, when the dreams of suicide began feeling like love songs of release. It sustained me when my mother lay dying of leukemia, when my sister heard the ruthless voices inside her, and when my brother Tom sailed out into the starry night in Columbia, South Carolina, sailed from a fourteen-story building and plunged screaming to his death, binding all of his family into his nightmare forever. Though I learned some things from the games we won that year, I learned much, much more from loss.

PART 1

THE POINT GUARD
TAKES TO THE COURT

CHAPTER 1

BEFORE FIRST PRACTICE

I
T WAS ON THE MORNING OF
O
CTOBER 15, 1966, THAT THE FINAL
season 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 91⁄2 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

T
HERE 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. Mohr believed that Mel Thompson was as charming in hiring new assistants as he was when he recruited us.

Coach Mel Thompson blew his whistle, shouted “Two lines,” and without fanfare or commentary, our season began. He flipped me the ball and proffered me the honor of making the first layup in the first practice of my final year. A surge of enthusiasm rippled through the team as the line moved smoothly, expertly. One thing a college basketball player could do without thinking or breaking a sweat was to move effortlessly through a layup line. Style was important, and everyone brought his best moves into play during the warmup. The big guys dunked it as we little guys did reverse layups on the other side of the glass. You worked on being cool, disinterested, unflappable. You knew that this period was the last time during the season that the team would not be exhausted. Getting out of bed tomorrow morning would require the forbearance and strength of roommates.

A whistle blew again and Mel shouted, “Figure eights,” and we broke up into three lines of four men in a line. I passed the ball to Tee Hooper, the sophomore guard on my left, and ran behind him as Tee threw to Bridges and cut behind him, who threw it to me, cutting behind me as I passed it to Tee, who put it in for a layup. Not once did the ball touch the ground. Coach Thompson also turned it into a disciplinary drill where we ran the figure eights until we were close to dropping. The guys with bad hands—always the big guys—had trouble sometimes handling the long passes and their awkwardness infuriated Mel.

“Catch the goddamn ball,” he yelled at Brian Kennedy, a willowy sophomore. “Protect it. It's not a loaf of bread.”

“Gee, it's not?” Cauthen whispered. “Why didn't someone tell me?”

“You got something to say, Cauthen?” Coach Thompson barked.

“No, sir,” Bob said, lowering his head. Our coach required gestures of submission.

“You still ain't worth a shit, Conroy,” DeBrosse teased me, slapping my butt as he ran by me.

“You're shorter than you were last year,” I whispered, coming up behind him in the figure eight line.

“I'm a half inch taller than you, duck butt.”

In truth, John and I were both very small basketball players, and that's why we were guards. John was prickly and defensive about his height while I was not; I was prickly and defensive about my shooting ability or lack thereof. All athletes disguised the secret shame of their shortcomings. John spent a great deal of time stretching his neck, lifting up, trying to convince himself he was taller than I was. When I was listed as five foot eleven in the program, DeBrosse went wild and said, “Honor violation, Conroy. HV. HV. Turn yourself in.”

“I didn't say I was that tall,” I said. “Our coach has always pretended I was. It makes him feel better.”

“Why?” Johnny said. “You still can't shoot worth a shit.”

In the middle of the figure eight drill, I got to study the sophomores up close for the first time. Their speed and athleticism impressed me, but it was their closeness as a class that was most unique. Their freshman team put together a remarkable record. With each game they improved at all positions. They were the first freshman team I had witnessed who did not seem completely undone by the plebe system. By the end of that first year, they had cohered into something very special. I thought they would make The Citadel a team to be feared in the Southern Conference. Even in the layup line and the figure eight drill, they hung together, a team not yet incorporated into our team. Incautious and reckless, they hurled themselves around the court and brought an enthusiasm to this first practice that made me feel a great affection for each of them. So much of our team's destiny rode on their shoulders. So much would be required of them, and no one knew how their egos would withstand the changeable nature of our tempestuous coach.

Years later I read a copy of a program from that year which spelled out this team's prospects in the words of Mel Thompson himself. Though it was still a cautionary tale with loopholes and escape clauses, I read between the lines that our coach was as optimistic about this coming year as I was.

PROSPECTS FOR THE SEASON
by Coach Mel Thompson.

The 1966–67 season will again find the Bulldogs in a year of rebuilding. First, on a long list of musts, we must find a replacement for Wig Baumann, the team's leading scorer and floor leader. Our success will depend on finding a replacement for Baumann and the ability of our younger players to find their maturity in the early going.

Senior Pat Conroy and Junior John DeBrosse appear to have a shot at floor leading the Cadets. DeBrosse appeared in all 23 games last season as a guard. He scored 248 points averaging just over 10 points per game. Conroy appeared in 16 games scoring 74 points for an average of just over 4 points per game. Both boys are excellent ball handlers. Conroy excels in passing and dribbling. DeBrosse is a fine shot. He hit on 49 percent of his shots last year.

Our thin blue line will definitely be improved this year with a better overall depth than we have experienced for the past couple of years. Team speed also will be improved with the addition of this year's group of sophomores.

Dan Mohr, Doug Bridges, and John DeBrosse all started last season and should, with gained experience, be much improved. Mohr will be our tallest man at 6´7´´. He is an excellent offensive pivot man and is rated as one of the best pivot men in the Southern Conference. Second in scoring last year with 314 points for an average of just over 15 points per game, Mohr was our top rebounder with 156 points in 20 games. Bridges was our third leading scorer, averaging 12.6 points. The year's experience should make Doug one of our most consistent players.

Bob Cauthen saw considerable action as a sophomore. He has displayed hustle and heart. The year's experience should improve Bob's overall performance and we expect him to have a good year.

One of our weak points again is the need for height. We don't have the big man and we will be hurting under the backboards. Rebounding definitely will be a problem.

Five of the twelve men of the Varsity this season will be sophomores. This group is led by the top three men in scoring on last year's freshman team—Bill Zinsky, Al Kroboth, and Tee Hooper. The ability of these boys to adjust to Varsity competition will be a key factor in our success this season.

We veterans knew something the sophomores would learn quickly. 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. By doing this, Mel thought he was making his players tougher and more resilient when the games came down to the wire. I had seen some kids crack under the weight of Mel's fiercest attention, which was no perversity on Mel's part, but simply an outgrowth of his philosophy as a coach. Coach Thompson could break a boy in a day or over a season or over a career. It was a gift that he brought to the art of coaching.

The whistle blew again and the rigid structure of our practice sessions locked into place as Mel shouted, “Two-on-two drill. Conroy and Halpin. You guard Hooper and DeBrosse.”

Jim Halpin and I glanced at each other. We put on our game faces on October 15 and would wear them until the final horn was sounded at the tournament.

The two-on-two drill was an excellent teaching method combining both defensive and offensive skills in the open court. It utilized the entire floor and the two players on defense tried to stop the two offensive players from bringing it up the floor. It was also a much easier drill for the guards than it was for the big men. Sometimes, their awkwardness or slowness afoot would be highlighted by any drill that found them scrambling over the entire area of the court. This would often be enough to draw the wrath of Mel on one of the big guys.

“Move it, goddamn it. Move it, Mohr,” he shouted. “What're you trying to do? If you don't move it any better than that, you sure as hell aren't going to be ready for Auburn.”

“Pick it up, Pat. Pick it up,” Ed Thompson said, the first time we heard the new assistant speak in practice.

The whistle blew again. We were sweating now and the sweat felt good on the skin. October was still hot in the low country, and the tide was going out in the Ashley River, fifty yards away from the field house where we practiced. Because Mel's practices were set in concrete, Johnny and I began moving toward the south end of the court before the command was given: “Guards at the other end of the court with Coach Thompson. Forwards and centers over here with me for rebounding,” yelled Mel.

“I'm going to eat your jock this year, Conroy,” DeBrosse said.

“They got any interesting boys in Ohio, DeBrosse? Or are they all like you?”

“You're faster with words, Conroy. But watch who sticks it in the net.”

“I'll be all over your short squat self.”

We communicated in secret using the skills of ventriloquists. I enjoyed John DeBrosse's cockiness and brashness on the court. It pleased me that he taunted me openly and tried to get me to retaliate. DeBrosse grabbed the ball from Little Mel as the guards lined up for one-on-one drills.

“Get out there, Conroy,” DeBrosse said. “I'll teach you some new tricks.”

I got down in my defensive stance and pushed off of DeBrosse's shoulders hard. He took a step forward and I retreated exactly that amount. When he rocked back to his original position, I moved up on him again. John was a jump shooter, a great one, but he hated to drive to the basket. He knew it and he knew I knew it. Ours was a cat-and-mouse game and we were like shadow selves with each other. He faked right, then went left, which was unusual for John, but I was on him close. I tried to flick the ball away from his left hand, but he turned his body and regained control of the ball with his right hand. Johnny then began backing me into the lane as though we were two centers fighting for position in the paint. Once we began playing, no words were spoken between us, ever.

Suddenly, Johnny whirled for the jump shot and I left my feet a fraction of a second late. The ball swished through the net.

“Good hustle, both of you,” Little Mel said.

I trotted to the back of the line and watched as John took his defensive position against Tee Hooper, the sophomore guard. I had kept a sharp eye on Tee Hooper since his arrival as a freshman. His natural position was small forward, and he was a slashing, hell-for-leather kind of player who gave it everything he had every time he hit the court. His improvement from the first game to his last as a plebe had dazzled me. His game was still rough around the edges, but he was six feet five inches tall, had the best and fastest first step on the team, and was one of those rawboned, skinny kids who always found a way to score. To me, he carried an air of greatness about him, but I personally hoped that greatness would flower sometime after my graduation. Tee Hooper was a real threat to take my position and send me to the end of the bench for my whole senior year.

As DeBrosse waited for Tee's first move, I noticed how much taller Tee was than the rest of the guards. Yet he was quick as we were and his first step to the basket was a lunge move that swept him past John and into the lane where Tee went high and laid the ball high off the backboard.

“Jesus Christ,” DeBrosse said as he joined me in the back of the line. “Did you see that, Conroy?”

“Worst defense I ever saw,” I whispered.

“See how well you guard him,” DeBrosse said.

When it was my turn to guard Tee, I played off him, giving him the outside shot because I noticed that Tee, like me, wanted to put the ball on the floor and whip by for the layup. I offered him the jump shot because I knew that Tee did not yet fully trust his shot. But he was game and fast, and he practically enveloped me and Johnny when he guarded us.

I put my hands on my waist as I watched Jimmy Halpin covering the freshman guard Jerry Hirsch. My hands. The subject was painful to me. I had the smallest hands I'd ever seen on a man. I was reading a book by Bob Cousy on what made him so great, and he shocked me by revealing that one of the absolute requirements for a point guard was large hands. I could not palm a basketball; I was forced to use both hands for balance and control. There was no way for me to do a one-handed layup, but I had perfected the art of pretending to do one. With great care and some legerdemain, I kept all attention away from this liability.

I regarded Tee Hooper's great, spidery hands with envy as I listened to the big men battling each other under the board at the far basket. I was in trouble; this gifted, athletic boy had it in his power to steal my last season away from me.

On the opposite end of the court, in the land of the big man, a war was going on. The rebounding drills seemed like full-contact karate drills. There were often fights and scuffles under the boards. Mel liked it when the forwards and centers lost their tempers with each other. They pounded on each other with unrestrained fury for twenty minutes each day, and their tempers remained rent and frayed for the rest of the afternoon. Mel was excited by violence among the rebounders, cheering when the big guys made each other bleed.