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My Losing Season: A Memoir

3.75 of 5 stars 3.75 · rating details · 4,215 ratings · 290 reviews

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...more 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.

From the Hardcover edition.(less)

Paperback, 432 pages

Published August 26th 2003 by Dial Press Trade Paperback (first published January 1st 2002)

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May 12, 2013 William Bentrim rated it 5 of 5 stars

My Losing Season by Pat Conroy

Normally I prefer something to be illuminated in a one or two word description rather than buckets of prose. I’m not fond of poetry. (I know, GASP!) However Pat Conroy’s writing brings new heights to prose and poetry. This book details his basketball career at the Citadel.

Conroy’s lush descriptions and vivid emotional portrayals captivate you from word one. His soul searching and searing self condemnation bring new bloody wounds each time you turn a page. I’m not...more

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Mar 14, 2013 Dme rated it 4 of 5 stars

My Losing Season by Pat Conroy was a book that I chose because I saw that it was a book that had to do with sports. I have always been a fan of sports books ever since I started reading. I enjoyed the very specific and detailed descriptions that Conroy used. Conroy paints a very colorful picture in the reader's head of what is occurring. I liked the nicknames that Conroy discusses and how he makes the readers feel like they have a real connection with the characters in the story. The theme withi...more

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Apr 15, 2012 Ron rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

There's a scene in a 1970s movie in which Gene Hackman tries to grind up a broken wine glass in a garbage disposal. Reading this book is a lot like that.

I picked up "My Losing Season" not as a great fan of Pat Conroy or as a former athlete. I was attracted more by the theme of loss and its lessons. And I expected a different personal story than the one Conroy tells. The losing basketball season in his last year as a cadet at The Citadel in Charleston, SC, is a pretext for a much deeper theme - s...more There's a scene in a 1970s movie in which Gene Hackman tries to grind up a broken wine glass in a garbage disposal. Reading this book is a lot like that.

I picked up "My Losing Season" not as a great fan of Pat Conroy or as a former athlete. I was attracted more by the theme of loss and its lessons. And I expected a different personal story than the one Conroy tells. The losing basketball season in his last year as a cadet at The Citadel in Charleston, SC, is a pretext for a much deeper theme - survival in the face of humiliation.

And it's not the losses of the games that are humiliating. On the one hand is the brutal and unrelenting contempt of his marine colonel father, a child abuser and wife beater. On the other hand is the withering scorn of Conroy's arbitrary and capricious coach, Mel Thompson. Both, in Conroy's account, do their best to beat the spirit out of the boy who has grown into an indomitable (though undersized and modestly talented) point guard for his team. And all of this takes place in the regimented, fierce, all-male environment of The Citadel in the 1960s, where incoming boys are routinely broken by the merciless hazing of their upperclassmen.

Humiliation is a much more difficult subject than loss to deal with. Loss leaves scars, but humiliation remains an open wound, and in writing about it there is the risk of slipping into the tug of war between self-pity and self-blame. Conroy takes us there sometimes, and those are the parts of his story that are lacerating. But win or lose, the ups and downs of the season are fascinating and the accounts of the games are thrilling. As a writer, he has a gift for hustling the reader with suspense and drama and sudden shifts of mood. As an observer of character, he vividly brings to life the individual boys who make up the team. As someone deeply wounded, he is able to freely and convincingly express the many articulations of the heart - especially love, admiration, and gratitude.

Once I started into this book, I could not put it down. It kept me reading late into the night. And when I wasn't reading, it filled my thoughts, as I'm sure it will for a long time. It's a troubling book that wants to resolve a host of dark memories. And it may well want to show the reader how to do the same. I'm not sure that it's completely successful in either regard. And maybe that's the point. It's enough to recast humiliation as loss. That is a wound that can eventually heal. (less)

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Feb 18, 2010 Danielle rated it 4 of 5 stars

Another book I pulled from my bookshelves while riding out our snowpocalypse. I picked up this advanced reader's copy back when I was working at Barnes and Noble. The book was hugely popular when it was released, but I never got around to reading it until now. In the book Pat Conroy explores his life through his love of basketball, particularly through his senior year season on the Citadel basketball team. Although it is a lot about basketball and the games that team played, it also explores his...more

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Dec 14, 2009 Rob rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is an intense memoir that teaches lessons learned and perseverance even under losing circumstances. Conroy's early life that helped shape his later novels is all here--his abusive father, his military training and college life, etc... I'm not sure if a non athletic reader would lack the schema necessary for the basketball action parts. But if you have ever fell in love with a sport that helped you escape the troubles of childhood or gave you discipline and focus, this is your book. But even...more

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Oct 23, 2009 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars

My Losing Season is an introspective look at a critical time period in the life of novelist Pat Conroy. After forty years, few would care, let alone remember, of a losing basketball team at South Carolina’s military college of The Citadel. The team lost in the first round of the Southern Conference tournament, its coach was fired a few months after the season ended. The team’s anonymity should not be any greater than scores of other teams that fade into the passage of time, falling far short of...more My Losing Season is an introspective look at a critical time period in the life of novelist Pat Conroy. After forty years, few would care, let alone remember, of a losing basketball team at South Carolina’s military college of The Citadel. The team lost in the first round of the Southern Conference tournament, its coach was fired a few months after the season ended. The team’s anonymity should not be any greater than scores of other teams that fade into the passage of time, falling far short of excellence on the college basketball courts of the nation. Yet this team had one of the greatest novelists that the region ever produced, and one of the more controversial graduates that the school ever graduated in Pat Conroy.

This book has been Conroy’s only attempt at a book length non-fiction account of his life. Readers familiar with books and movies such as the Great Santini and the Lords of Discipline will quickly recognize the real life characters that the fictional stories were based on. Conroy’s real father was in many cases, much, much worse a father and husband than even was portrayed in the Great Santini. The brutalness of The Citadel, admittedly at the height of the Cold War and at a time when the old South was finally passing away, was in many cases much more arbitrary and difficult on an artistic, beat up and sensitive soul such as Conroy.

It must have been a difficult job to reimagine the feelings and world view of a 21 year old, thirty years later. In many cases, though it is often remembered as the greatest time of life, the layers of life that get added afterwards bury the freshness and naivety of life beneath years of experience and world weariness. The key to understanding this book is that in many ways, the central character is the voice, the inner perspective that Conroy develops during this time period in his life that allows him to step out from the abused son of a Marine and the victim of a diffident and clueless basketball coach, who really didn’t teach his players much.

While primarily focused on Conroy’s senior as captain of his basketball team, the memoir retells Conroy’s entire life up to this point, especially as the observation and empathy skills developed that enabled him to be a writer. The stories of his father’s brutality to his family are difficult to read, and due to Conroy’s vivid writing, hard to absorb. The reader should feel anger as an eager to please Conroy is met with constant put downs by a careless basketball coach. You should feel empathy as Conroy tells the awkward story of his first real infatuation with a Charleston woman, who just needed a friend.

Most of all, the reader should have the opportunity to take away from this memoir the triumph of life to overcome difficult circumstances, to deal with impossible harshness and the first, tentative steps of full adult hood for man. What is remarkable is how self-contained the story is. Much of this narrative takes place during the heat of the Vietnam War, and the radical movements and culture shift that came about as the baby boomers grew up. Conroy himself seems to indicate that he was oblivious to these larger movements, even at a conservative, Southern military college, and did not give them much thought until he was through with school, with protest followed by later shame as he realized the effort that his classmates gave for their country, during a difficult time. My Losing Season is an essential way to understand Conroy’s work, and a vital perspective of its time period in the South.
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Feb 07, 2013 Kyle rated it 5 of 5 stars

"My Losing Season" is a powerful book that uses the author’s losing 1966-1967basketball season at The Citadel to explore whether one learns more from winning or from losing. From the opening line, “I was born to be a point guard, but not a very good one,” to the end, Conroy has a gift for memorable, descriptive writing.

I should preface my review by stating I don’t enjoy basketball, which includes playing it growing up and now watching it live or on TV. In High School P.E., they nicknamed me “Th...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Niki rated it 3 of 5 stars

Ok so it's been a couple of days. The time away didn't do much for my appreciation or ennui with the book, but I will give my best shot at trying to summon what this book did do for me. What follows is not a review of the book per say, but mostly what it brought out of my psyche.

So coming straight off the heels of a highly publicized news story of Penn State and that well, pedophile that went to prison, I've been unnerved by this hero-worship that athletes give to their coaches and schools. I we...more Ok so it's been a couple of days. The time away didn't do much for my appreciation or ennui with the book, but I will give my best shot at trying to summon what this book did do for me. What follows is not a review of the book per say, but mostly what it brought out of my psyche.

So coming straight off the heels of a highly publicized news story of Penn State and that well, pedophile that went to prison, I've been unnerved by this hero-worship that athletes give to their coaches and schools. I went to a state school where athletics were pretty much something you did to get a scholarship, but nobody went to see the games. That was until they started playing really good football in 2005. My own background in sports is not very supportive of the athlete persona and culture.

So it was really hard for me to chew into this book. A friend of a friend gave it to me because well, the protagonist is a Marine brat. Well so am I. But there are many sharp contrasts in our upbringings: First, I might have been talked to in tones that would be deemed as negative, I was never hit or physically rough-housed. The abuse in this book makes me cringe with horror. I would probably never talk to a parent again after all of that he went through. It was hard for me to believe that the abuse was either that bad or that he inflated it for selling books, because I know that if I was really talked down to or violently hit for years, I would finally never speak to that man again. So it was sort of unbelievable that he continued to be in his father's life. Second, his hero-worship of his also abusive coach made me stop to wonder why didn't he just skip town and go to a different college? We all take out loans these days to attend college (well, alot of us do) so it makes think that some scenarios were really overdone for a shock factor. Third, I have a hard time buying this guy's vacillation between self-deprecation and his ego damn ego. I mean come on writer, take a stance and stick to it: either you hate your father/coach and want to crawl into a shell, or you are proud of the life you have forged with your meager resources. I would have written the book focusing more on the latter. No one likes to read such a miserable memoir. (less)

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Feb 11, 2013 Marialyce rated it 5 of 5 stars

As with all things written by Mr Conroy, I loved it. I am fully aware he wears his tortured childhood on his sleeve and each and everyone of his characters is imbued with it, but yet, I love each and every one of them. Within the pages of this autobiography of sorts, we see Mr Conroy come into himself though the efforts of a school, a team, and of course a coach. He, like the game of basketball he so loves, became a fiber that knit together his life and that of his team members. He grows into a...more

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Feb 17, 2009 Simon rated it 4 of 5 stars

I gave this book to my sons. Losing is a state of mind. You can take defeat and turn it into something that builds character and strength. More power to him.

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Mar 15, 2013 Dgm rated it 4 of 5 stars

I chose My Losing Season because I like sports and nonfiction books, and since it was a biography of a players college basketball career, I thought it would be perfect for me. I soon realized that this book was not just about basketball, but something much deeper. This book showed how Pat Conroy's team shaped him as a person and affected him for the rest of his life. I enjoyed this book because it isn't just a story of someone finding out who they really are, it's also about a basketball playe...more

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Apr 08, 2013 Wendy rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm not even sure how I came to have this memoir on my book shelf, and I'm not sure why I chose to read a book about a losing Citadel basketball team. But I did read it and I did enjoy it. Though Conroy waxes effusive at times when he revisits the joy of playing basketball for his college team, the pain, not just of a losing season, but of the abuse heaped on him first by his father and then by his coach, seems completely unreal. That Conroy survived growing up with a vicious father who pummeled...more

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Sep 11, 2011 Chris Wolak rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: autobiography-bio-memoir

I'm not a basketball fan, but adore Pat Conroy and so far I'll read whatever he wants to write about. I would have liked to hear more about his thoughts on writing and some of his experiences as a young man other than those revolving around basketball, but I realize that's not the book he wrote.

Two quotes that I like:
"You do not learn how to write novels in a writing program. You learn how by leading an interesting life. Open yourself up to all experiences. Let life pour through you the way ligh...more

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Jul 26, 2011 John Harder added it

I am a fan of Pat Conroy, but I found it hard to relate to this autobiographical account of a year of basketball at the Citadel. Except for women’s pool (there is much bending over) I am not a sports fan. Bouncing a ball around a big room with sweaty men; what a ridiculous way to spend an afternoon.

This is my problem I guess since many people enjoy this entertainment. After all the WWF, rap and Oprah are also popular – the retarded should have the opportunity to enjoy their lives I suppose.

Conro...more

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Feb 13, 2013 Jdh rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I chose this book because I had an interest in sports and like to read biographical books. I enjoyed this book mostly because I found the main character inspiring, he went through a lot and came out a better person instead of becoming bitter. However, the story line is easy to follow and exciting as well, which adds to the quality greatly. Pat Conroy writes this book in flashback form drawing on his memories and past experiences in order to tell the story of his college basketball days. He wrote...more

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Feb 06, 2010 Linda rated it 5 of 5 stars

I absolutely love this author, Pat Conroy. This was a true story of his years playing college basketball at the Citadel in the mid 1960's. I love reading honest accounts of people's real lives...the good and the bad. He also gives insight on how other characters and story lines from his previous books came from some of the real-life experiences we read about in this book. And of course, this story also takes place in the
Charleston, SC area so it is fun to read about places and streets I have ac...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Kjm rated it 5 of 5 stars

"My Losing Season" is a biographical novel that recounts the experience of playing college athletics as well as the culture of a southern military institute. I choose to read this book because I am a basketball player and have always enjoyed sports books,and I knew this book was about basketball. I liked that Conroy wrote about his own personal expereince of the military academy and athletic experience, therefore, the reader was able to see true, intense emotions that often a reader cannot exper...more

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Mar 15, 2013 Noah Constantine rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this book because my brilliant English teacher recommended it to me. She was right on point. I really enjoy biographical stories, and this was an autobiography, which was even better. I really enjoyed the book because of the details and images that Conroy creates. I also liked how I could relate to the story, because I am also a competitive athlete in the South. One thing I didn't like was the changes made to the setting. I sometimes struggle with flashbacks, and when Conroy changed the t...more

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Dec 31, 2011 Harold rated it 5 of 5 stars

Still reading this and it's very, very good.
It's about Pat Conroy at the Citadel (where he got the experiences that were used in his novel Lords of Discipline). It really covers all his years at the Citadel, not just his senior year (his Losing Season) and is about how, essentially, basketball saved his life there. Like most all Conroy's works, it's very bittersweet, and also very moving. I couldn't resist following recent accounts of his relationship with the Citadel: his first cousin Ed was th...more

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Mar 01, 2010 George Clack rated it 4 of 5 stars

Conroy is a florid writer for my taste. He seems to love every metaphor that occurs to him, is not at all troubled by clichés, and has a streak of sentimentality astonishing in a military college grad. But still. The stories he has to tell of his senior year as point guard on the The Citadel basketball team are marvelous. He’s got the deadpan locker-room humor of athletes cutting on each other down beautifully. Of course, this book is about much more than basketball, though it’s one of the top f...more

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Mar 15, 2013 Rp rated it 4 of 5 stars

I chose My Losing Season by Pat Conroy because I am a huge college basketball fan. I have always loved college basketball so finding a book about it was fun to read! I enjoyed the themes Conroy uses within the story. Its not always about winning but being part of a team and following your dream. Conroy really makes you feel like you are going through the season with him which I liked. The only thing I didn't like was when he would talk about his school life and how he would also go back and fort...more

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Feb 11, 2009 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

As a basketball player and a major participant in several losing seasons i am probably biased. But, Conroy does a great job of telling the story of his losing season as a senior at the Citadel. Lots of basketball action, but a great underlying message that goes far beyond the sport.

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Feb 12, 2009 Jacki rated it 3 of 5 stars

I know this is a strange thing to say about a book that is mainly about basketball, but I enjoyed this book with the exception of the play-by-play basketball game parts. I thought the team dynamics, Citadel life, his crazy coach and his mean father were all really good but the basketball parts I could take or leave.

I am glad I read it because I liked learning about this authors life and how he came to be an author and the different parts of his real life and basketball career that translated in...more

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Jul 31, 2011 Kristen Nace rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a nonfiction account of the author's senior year playing basketball for the Citadel. I'm not a huge sports fan, but I do live in NC afterall, and enjoy watching March Madness. This book reads like one of his novels and I came to realize that Conroy used very little imagination when writing his books Lords of Discipline and The Great Santini. I was actually saddened to realize his father in real life was actually much worse than the character Bull Meecham from the Great Santini. I enjoye...more

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Jun 10, 2009 Charlotte rated it 5 of 5 stars

Please do yourself a favor and read ALL of Pat Conroy's books. I recommend them to anyone. He is my favorite living writer. The Prince of Tides, Beach Music, The Lords of Dicipline,The Great Santini, The Water is Wide (did I miss any?) make you feel grateful for having had the experience of having read them. Conroy is a southern writer and all his books are wonderfully written, has soul, he makes you love and hate his characters at the same time- capturing the difficult relationships within fami...more

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Apr 22, 2010 Heather rated it 4 of 5 stars

When this book first came out, I was wildly excited to read my favorite living author's account of two of my favorite obsessions: The South and college basketball. This book is so much more than those two subjects, though: it's a memoir, a bridge to healing Mr Conroy's well-publicized rift with his alma mater, and a compelling story. If you want proof that this book left me changed, look no further than the positive light in which Mr Conroy forces the reader to view the legendarily persnickety s...more

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Jan 01, 2012 Frederick Bingham rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The story of Conroy's senior year basketball season at the Citadel in 1966-67. He played point guard on a team that won 8 and lost 17 games. The book is at its best when it describes the coach and the other players. It falls flat when it goes off on tangents, like a long one about the author's girlfriend in his sophomore year. Also unwelcome is an often sappy sentimentality about the Citadel and his reunion with the players in the 1990's. The last 1/4 or so of the book could have been deleted wi...more

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Jan 27, 2012 Anne Van rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm not much of memoir reader, but I enjoyed this memory of the author senior year as a point guard basketball player at The Citadel thirty years ago. I assumed he was reviewing films of the games, but no, it seems all based on his memory. His evil father, ever abusive and punitive, hoovers off-stage, replaced by his coach, similarly dismissive. Yet, Pat Conroy emerges "oilly polite" as ever a Southern boy could be, to capture praise as the Most Valuable Player on his senior year and Sportsmansh...more

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Apr 01, 2013 Marla rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: all-time-favorite

There are few books that affect me when they are over. Ones that make me sad and depressed because I will no longer be with the characters. Ones that can break my heart so much that when I turn the last page, I end up crying or even sobbing because I have grown to love the characters and/or I wish the book wasn’t done.

This is one of those books. My Losing Season is about Pat’s last year as point guard and captain of The 1966-67 Citadel Bulldogs and about his childhood with a strict and abusive f...more There are few books that affect me when they are over. Ones that make me sad and depressed because I will no longer be with the characters. Ones that can break my heart so much that when I turn the last page, I end up crying or even sobbing because I have grown to love the characters and/or I wish the book wasn’t done.

This is one of those books. My Losing Season is about Pat’s last year as point guard and captain of The 1966-67 Citadel Bulldogs and about his childhood with a strict and abusive father which defined him as a man.

When I say “Pat Conroy” in my head or out loud, I hear the voice of Jay O. Sanders who read the book. Jay has a slightly southern accent that fits perfectly with the book. While listening, I wondered how many times Jay read the book to know when to put feeling and passion into the dialog because he does a fantastic job.

Now granted, some people don’t like sports or some people can take it or leave it. I work in sports and I love sports. I’m not obsessed, but I enjoy a good game of basketball where the players play their hearts out and leave all of it on the court. During the Bulldogs’ losing season, you felt the passion and love of the game; you felt just how hard they fought. I found myself cheering for them even though the games were played back in 1966 and 1967. I cried after Pat had the best game of his life and his Dad still called him a loser and shoved him up against a wall.

I cried and laughed while driving to and from work. I sat in my car in the parking garage before work as I finished listening to the book, surprised by the afterward by the author himself (I should have read the cover closer).

His short speech left me sobbing in the car, tears streaming down my face as I walked into work and got on the elevator.

I’m glad I decided to take a chance on this book. I’m glad I listened to it during March Madness as the Big 12 Men’s Basketball Championship roared into town and I will listen to it every March Madness as Pat reminds me each time that you have to believe in yourself. Not everyone will be affected by Pat’s story as I was, but that’s okay. I’m just glad I got to experience the 1966-67 Citadel basketball team’s losing season and the young man of Pat Conroy.(less)

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Mar 14, 2013 Cpn rated it 3 of 5 stars

I think my losing season is a very good book for anyone who is involved in sports and has suffered that "losing season" where your team just tanked. I have experienced a lot of similarities with Conroy while reading this book and if you've ever been down in the dumps, you'll be able to relate just fine with him.
The story itself is interesting, but it takes a while to get to the good part, the part that wants you to not put the book down and just keep reading. The team bond is something to admir...more

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About Pat Conroy

Pat Conroy is the New York Times bestselling author of two memoirs and seven novels, including The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, and The Lords of Discipline. Born the eldest of seven children in a rigidly disciplined military household, he attended the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina. He briefly became a schoolteacher (which he chronicled in his memoir The Water Is Wide) befo...more

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“Do you think that Hemingway knew he was a writer at twenty years old? No, he did not. Or Fitzgerald, or Wolfe. This is a difficult concept to grasp. Hemingway didn't know he was Ernest Hemingway when he was a young man. Faulkner didn't know he was William Faulkner. But they had to take the first step. They had to call themselves writers. That is the first revolutionary act a writer has to make. It takes courage. But it's necessary” — 34 people liked it

“The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life. I wanted to follow Mr. Monte around for the rest of my life, learning everything he wished to share of impart, but I didn't know how to ask.” — 25 people liked it

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