My Losing Season

A veteran fighter pilot of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, Donald Conroy was a Marine Corps colonel and the father of author Pat Conroy. He was the inspiration for the character Lt. Col. Bull Meecham in his son’s 1976 novel The Great Santini. Although a heroic military figure, Conroy was an abusive husband and father, particularly toward his oldest son, Pat. One of Pat’s earliest memories is his mother attempting to stab her husband with a butcher knife, only to be slapped to the ground and taunted. Donald Conroy was a standout high school basketball player in his native Chicago and at a small college in Iowa. The fact that Pat had also become a star high school basketball player, and later a starting Division I college point guard, brought about a sadistic form of mockery from Donald because he did not feel that his son was as good of a player as he was in his youth. 

Mel Thompson became the head coach of The Citadel Bulldogs basketball team in 1960 and held that position until 1967. Prior to becoming a coach, Thompson was an All-Conference center for the North Carolina State University basketball team of the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1954. In his career at NC State, Thompson played under legendary head coach Everett Case and took on many of his philosophies when he became a coach himself. Thompson was a strict disciplinarian who preached fundamentals and forced his teams to play a slower, more conservative style of offensive. When Thompson recruited Pat Conroy to play at The Citadel, he openly let him know that he did not think much of him as a player. Early in the season, Thompson told Conroy that “except for your ball handling and passing, you’re barely college material” (140). The coach frequently said, “Don’t shoot Conroy” during games, letting Conroy know that he was there only as a ball-handler. Though Thompson seems unfeeling, Conroy says that he cared about his players, and even says that the coach loved them.

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Nugent Courvoisie was a veteran of World War II and the Korean War and was the Assistant Commandant of Cadets at The Citadel during Conroy’s time there. The cadets at The Citadel feared Courvoisie, but also greatly respected him. In Chapter 20, “Annie Kate,” Conroy writes that upperclassmen all passed down one law of the land to freshman: “if you ever get into real trouble, go see the Boo” (247). Courvoisie was the inspiration for the character Colonel Thomas Berrineau, nicknamed “The Bear,” in Conroy’s 1980 novel The Lords of Discipline and was the subject of Conroy’s first book, The Boo, published in 1970. In 1968, The Citadel fired Courvoisie because he was “bad for discipline,” and Conroy wrote The Boo as a defense of the much-respected commandant. Although The Boo was meant to defend Courvoisie, Conroy writes that it actually “turned him into a pariah” (383).