Rating: 
Summary: Still many unanswered questions
Review: I want to like this book, I really do. I want to understand what Conroy is telling us about his life, because it is not an ordinary life in any respect. The book can be a frustrating read from this perspective - a lot of attention given to the play by plays and not enough attention to issues that come up during the book. For instance, Conroy asserts several times during the book that military colleges don't support athletics and that the athletes are actually much disliked by the military establishment. But why? He never explains that, yet it's central to some of the issues in the book. He talks a lot about how the players loved their coach, yet during the season they act like they hate the guy's guts, so how did he arrive at the conclusion that they loved him? There is nothing in his narrative that would lead me to this conclusion. I've read Conroy's fiction and I'm not that crazy about it - too florid for me. This book, however, shows Conroy at his best. I just wish there was a little less [rear end] slapping and more attention to the big questions.
Rating: 
Summary: MY LOSING SEASON HAS WINNING READINGS
Review: Both Jay O. Sanders and Chuck Montgomery render thoroughly enjoyable readings of Conroy's love affair with basketball. A stand-up comedian and TV performer (The Sopranos, Law & Order), Montgomery brings nuanced richness to his performance on the Unabridged version. The acclaimed author of "Beach Music" and "The Prince of Tides," Conroy was a military child whose constant was change, from town to town and house to house. He discovered basketball at the age of nine and hung on for dear life. While enduring a less than perfect childhood, Conroy has said that basketball "provided a legitimate physical outlet for all the violence and rage and sadness I later brought to the writing table.......It was also the main language that allowed father and son to talk to each other. If not for sports, I do not think my father would have ever talked to me." Thus, "My Losing Season" is not just about a sport, but about a life. It is a memorable coming of age tale. Conroy played for the Citadel Bulldogs during their 1966-67 season. The team coach, Mel Thompson, was a harsh disciplinarian who was known for his 3 ½ hour Christmas Day practices. Rather than encouragement he doled out abuse. In retrospect Conroy looks at that season as a benchmark experience in his life. Although his teammates may very well wish they had been victorious, Conroy writes, "I consider it one of the great years of my life. If I could change history, if I could change everything that happened that year, if I could bring us a national championship I would not do it...It was the year I learned to accept loss as part of natural law. My team taught me there could be courage and dignity and humanity in loss...." Listen to this remarkable true story - listen and learn. - Gail Cooke
Rating:
Summary: the prince of ambivalence
Review: Pat Conroy is a pretty decent basketball player - but unless you read very closely, you won't come away with that impression. According to him, his main strengths are persistence and perhaps a bit of blind loyalty to a coach who even the most non-judgmental reader will realize is a walking personality disorder. Perhaps Conroy's strength as a player in college is the same as his strength as a writer - i.e. a willingness to show up, take notes, invest much time doing so, and finally, bear witness for his team and school. Those who have read Conroy's "The Lords of Discipline" will have a sense of deja vu in many places, and it may be fascinating to see how Conroy first shaped his time at the Citadel into fiction. You get to meet the real people whom the characters in "Lords" were based on, and also get a good sense of why Conroy kept his protagonist's father deceased.
He, himself, may disagree with this, but I believe that the early abuse Conroy received at the hands of his military father, may have kept him from seeing his college coach as the monster he was. The book is well-written but charts a lot more humiliation than triumph, and the reader may become unsure as to whether Conroy is exaggerating or under-stating. One page, X is a monster, the next, he is singing X's praises. So the read as a whole, keeps your interest, but in many places can be somewhat grueling to get through. As a writer, he is both acutely self-aware and maddingly blind to other people's character. Towards the end, Conroy states that his father eventually changed, and became closer to the idealized father his "The Great Santini" book/movie. Yet he leaves out the details of this transformation. That was a disappointment. But maybe that's the subject of a future book.
Rating:
Summary: Abuse and Losing Forges a Winner
Review: Writer Pat Conroy uses the 1966/67 basketball season at The Citadel where he was a senior point guard as the engine from which his views on life are produced. He played for a despotic coach, was raised by a tyrannical, abusive father, and grew up struggling to be the best he could despite being told he was worthless. The basic theme in this personal look at the best sports has to offer, is that life-long lessons can be learned when you lose, especially if you take the time to reflect upon the experience. MY LOSING SEASON is a story of the human spirit; how a young man was able to survive and prosper despite being told repeatedly of his short-comings. When he was honored for success, those who had the greatest influence, his father and his coach, denigrated him. Nevertheless, Pat Conroy prevailed. I haven't read any of his other books but have seen the movies developed from them. Each has abuse in its many destructive forms as its unifying principle. MY LOSING SEASON also uses abuse as the behavior to examine and to interest its readers. It is refreshing to see that despite the pain and unfairness, victims of abuse are able to succeed. Abuse seems to forge the human spirit into a durable, determined empathic person. MY LOSING SEASON describes that process beautifully.
Rating:
Summary: An Enlightening Memoir
Review: I have read all of Pat Conroy's books. The Prince of Tides has been on the absolute top of my favorites list since it first came out. Over the years, and through his novels, it has always been in my mind that he must have had a very troubled life indeed. Aside from his obvious talent with words, writing has also been his therapy. Now, since the death of his parents, we get a view of just where he came from, and it's really not such a surprise. One suffers for the young man in his losing season, and one suffers for the middle-age man who wrote about it. It's gratifying to know that his father could reform (a bit) after reading the Great Santini. Conroy's insight into that particular basketball season, and what seeds were sown within him, shows once again his keen abilities in the art of retrospection. My only complaint, and it's a small one, is the sometimes needless play-by-play of each game of that season. It shouldn't put anyone off reading My Losing Season though, and it won't change my annual habit of reading at least one of his previous novels.
Rating: 
Summary: My Losing Season
Review: Pat Conroy is arguably the best writer of our times. His character development, attention to detail, and turns-of-the-phrase are to be praised and esteemed. I am also arguably the most devoted Conroy fan, having read, loved, and memorized every one of his novels. However, this book was an extreme disappointment.
First, there is the structure. For the most part, Conroy describes every single game the Citadel Bulldogs played his senior year on the basketball team. Additionally, at the beginning and the end of the novel--fittingly as this is in flash-back form--Conroy talks about the current status of his old team-mates and coach. Yet, there are parts of the book that do not seem to fit.
Conroy spends a good many pages describing his elementary, middle and high school basketball careers; while this would be fitting if the book were an autobiography or even if it were solely about Conroy's love of basketball, it seems pointless as the novel claims to center around a single season. He also talks about his multiple marriages, frequent mental breakdowns, previous novels (at one point even talking to characters from his novels) and other aspects of his life that, while interesting, again break away from the main idea of the single season. Also, like in all Conroy books, there are the "I hate my father and the military" statements, which--I hate to say--grow a bit old after a while (though, admittedly, he says he later grew to love his father and reconciled with his alma mater).
Second, there is the language of the text. While Conroy is known for his mastery of the English language, it seemed that he was "trying too hard" in this book; the sentences were longer and more dramatic than they had to be, and at some points I was laughing at Conroy's word selections.
I suppose my main problem with this novel was that I didn't understand his purpose in writing it until the last ten pages. He wrote the novel to show that everyone has "losing seasons" and to show that while winning is great, it is our mistakes that teach us our greatest lessons. While this is certainly an admirable, and sound argument, it was not apparent until the last ten pages, forcing one to wonder many times "What's the point?!"
In conclusion, this was an "OK" read. If you are a true Conroy fan, I don't even know why you're skimming these reviews, because you know you're going to read the book anyway. If you are merely interested in reading Pat Conroy's work, that's wonderful, but don't let this mediocre novel be your first exposure to a truly exceptional author who can and has written better (read Beach Music or The Prince of Tides instead).
Rating:
Summary: A Slam Dunk!
Review: When I began reading "My Losing Season", I glanced at the endpaper photograph. Reprinted from the '1967 Sphinx', the class yearbook of The Citadel, it depicts twelve young basketball players posing for their official team photograph. Author Pat Conroy is the small guy at the front and center of the old black and white photo, kneeling alongside the basketball, a spot typically reserved for the team captain. But we can't be sure he is the team captain, or for that matter, we can't be sure anyone is the captain. No one actually holds the ball. Over the course of 400 pages, I found myself looking back to this photo repeatedly, as Conroy adds deep dimension into each player's background and character. Conroy unveils the story behind his team, the 1966-67 Citadel Bulldogs who lost more games than they won, but as he brings forth, learned enough for a lifetime. "My Losing Season" tells the story of a young man's journey through a very difficult boyhood, his escape into sport, his endurance at a southern military school, his central participation on a team of moderately talented basketball players, and his discovery of language and writing through wonderful professors at the Citadel. Conroy's greatest strength, his strong and unabashed character portrayals, resonates through this book. Readers of The Great Santini (or viewers of the Robert Duvall movie) will become reacquainted in great detail with the real-life Santini, Conroy's abusive father. "In My Losing Season", we also meet basketball coach Mel Thompson, who inflicts psychological terror on his charges, constantly tearing apart his young players and destroying any chance at winning this team might ever have had. Conroy adorns his professors and deans at the Citadel with laurels for giving him the keys to his future as a writer. But Conroy shines the light most brilliantly on his teammates. He effuses his fellow cadets with the color that is missing from the front photograph, intimately introducing the reader to his court colleagues. We learn about strengths, weaknesses, skills, fears, and limitations of each of the twelve. Four years of coach Mel Thompson, cadet hazings, severely repressed social lives and a total absence of support make for an over-extended "Survivor" episode. Conroy saves the best for last: a reunion tour in which he reconnects with each of the individuals on the team and their families independently, thirty years after hanging up his Converse high-tops. Emotions spill over. Nearly a dozen basketball games are described, in a kind of sepia-toned movie reel, as Conroy relives the play-by-play from his vantage at point guard. He overuses the flowery adjectives at times ("the beautiful boy" and such) but balances it with good locker room banter and the practical jokes of young men. The games themselves come alive again, and I found myself rooting for second half comebacks and last second heroics. You can feel the ball coming up the court, and like his teammates, you wonder where the pumpkin's going to go. Conroy emotes a strong love for his game, and basketball fans will appreciate the occasional name-dropping of great players and coaches he once bumped into. If you don't have courtside seats to this year's ACC or SEC tournament finals, this book will be a suitable replacement. Nothin' but net, baby!
Rating: 
Summary: MY CAPS LOCKS BUTTON ISN'T WORKING...
Review: WE SHOULD ALL HAVE A LOSING SEASON LIKE PAT CONROY. HE WON THE SPORTSMANSHIP TROPHY AND MVP TROPHY FOR HIS BASKETBALL SEASON. HE WON A SCHOLARSHIP TO GRADUATE SCHOOL AND SEVERAL OTHER AWARDS. HE'S HAD BOOKS MADE INTO MOVIES. WHY IS HE WHINING? HE HAD A TOUGH CHILDHOOD. TIME TO MOVE ON, PAT. YOUR BOOKS ARE FUN TO READ BUT WE GET THE THEME ALREADY! MAYBE YOUR DAD WANTED YOU TO FIGHT HIM BACK. MAYBE COACH THOMPSON WANTED YOUR TEAMMATES TO FIGHT HIM BACK. WHO KNOWS? WHO CARES? LET'S GO PLAY H-0-R-S-E...
Rating:
Summary: Basketball was the author's vehicle to overcome adversity.
Review: This was a fantastic book. It is an autobiography of the author from his teenage years through his senior year at The Citadel in 1966-67. I am amazed that Pat Conroy survived being at the Citadel, much less dealing with an extremely abusive and violent father. The author is a survivor and it was basketball that helped him through his adversities. Pat Conroy was abused emotionally, verbally and physically by his father, a pilot in the Marine Corp. And if that abuse wasn't enough, he tells an amazing story of survival as a freshman plebe at The Citadel in South Carolina. Since many of us can not imagine dealing with an extremely abusive father or dealing with the violent and demeaning hazing of The Citadel's military-style campus in the mid-1960's, just reading Conroy's exploits is chilling. The author was tough. But as emotionally difficult as his high school years were, the abuse he took as a freshman plebe at The Citadel was even worse than the abuse and violence his father relished dishing out. Getting through college and thriving his senior year on the basketball team is yet another great part of the author's story. Pat Conroy overcame a multitude of adversity. His writing and prose makes this book a fast read and very entertaining. I hope they don't make this one into a movie. It would ruin the vivid images in this book. Five stars, easy.
Rating:
Summary: As powerful as it is entertaining
Review: I must admit I had my doubts entering My Losing Season. For starters, most books in the sports genre are dull, uneventful, predictable, and leave little to the imagination. Although a basketball fan myself, I wasn't overly keen on reading this one. To say I'm glad I did would be a vast understatement. Conroy, long known for his semi-autobiographical works that divulge so much of his traumatic childhood, has written his first pure work of nonfiction in the incomparable My Losing Season. Conroy takes us through his unbearably torturous plebe year at The Citadel as he endured unremitting physical torment bordering on categorical sadism - the likes of which he already had suffered from his father. Conroy recounts how it was only on the basketball court where the reticent Pat felt alive and allowed to shine in a futile attempt to build a bond with his mercilessly abusive father. The 12 man team of The Citadel 1966-67 basketball team that had a losing season and lost in the first round of The Southern Conference tournament may not sound like a great subject for a book. That being said, words cannot truly do justice to My Losing Season. It is only through adversity and the stigma created by losing, Conroy writes, that one ideally discovers - via introspective reflection - the person one truly is. Losing, in turn, brings out the best in some and the worst in others. Moreover, it provides previously unexploreed opportunities for self-discovery and growth. Simply stated, My Losing Season is a book that should not only be read, but cherished as a keepsake on one's bookshelf as a pillar of sagacity and wisdom.
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