The Themes of love, perseverance and value in losses: My Losing Season by Pat Conroy’s View
Loses are critical in allowing people learn of the attributes of love, perseverance and finding value in their lives. The book My Losing Season by Pat Conroy acts as a perfect definition of the kind of impact losses have on a person’s life. Written as a memoir, the book takes a look at Pat’s final season in Citadel Bulldogs, a tier-two college basketball team. In particular, Pat provides the audience with an insight of his last season playing basketball with the South Carolina based team. As the name suggests, the book is marred with a lot of failures from Pat’s side. He provides flashback of his life as a child living with an abusive father whose only identification of success from his son is excelling in basketball. Also, the story highlights instances of perseverance as seen in Pat’s quest to excel in basketball and the various hurdles he and his teammates faces as highlighted by a season of losses. Likewise, the story speaks of a series of lessons that people learn from the various loses they go through in their lives. The paper discusses the themes of love, perseverance and finding value in loses as learnt from My Losing Season.
Love is a constant theme in Pat Conroy remembrance of his childhood and his last season at Citadel Basketball team. The theme of love is illustrated in two ways. First, Pat talks of his childhood, desire for basketball and his father’s role in him choosing the game. As a child, Pat grows up in Orlando, Florida. Besides his parents, Pat has other six siblings (Hamblin 49). He considers himself as growing in an athletic family due to the various sporting events that most family members undertake. His father, Donald Conroy for instance, is a former basketball player. The fact that Pat’s father played basketball therefore, exposes him to the game. His liking for basketball is realized from a tender age. However, it is Donald that forces Pat to play basketball. Donald views himself as having the sole responsibility to raise Pat to be a man. According to Donald Conroy, basketball is the ideal game for Pat to pursue as it will allow him realize his dream and passion for the game. Despite playing other games like baseball. Just like Pat, Donald opines that pursuing basketball is the correct decision for his son. Pat’s love for basketball is also seen in his strong desire to play the sport from a young age. Even though he views his father having forced him to play the game, he considers it as a decision which he somehow was happy to take.
The father and son bond between Donald and Pat is held by basketball. The sport seems to be the only thing that ties the two together. Donald portrays himself as somebody who is happy and finds pride in his son only when he performs well at basketball. Realizing that the sport is the only thing that binds him to his father, Pat takes advantage of the various situation whenever present to make his father happy by excelling in basketball. An example is while he is 17 years, a time that allows him to gain tremendous success in basketball making his father love him more. Donald love for basketball sees him attend most games and often yells at Pat for according to his performance. The kind of treatment he later receives largely depend on the kind of performance at basketball with certain scenarios of poor results ending to physical punishment. As a sport, basketball is the only factor that unites Pat and his father as most of their discussions revolve around the topic. The significance of sport bond in father-son relationship is seen in the last season where the rare meetings between them only involves discussions on basketball. Pat thus states that “If not for sports, I do not think my father would have ever talked to me(Conroy 73).”
The theme of love in Pat’s story is further illustrated in the team. Pat points out that the love he lacked from his abusive father iss instead availed to him by the team’s unity. His statement “Love had always issued out of the places that hurt the most” illustrates the kind of support that he and other team members generate amongst themselves. Despite facing several losses, the team holds it’s trust together and encourage each other in their continuing matches. The importance of sport’s in shaping Pat’s illustrates itself in the kind of positive relationship he builds at a time he considers his home as lacking the necessary influences that is supposed to nurture love. On the contrary, he finds hope in his team mates. It is in through them that they all undergo different events that characterizes the good times in one’s life. It is in his belief for the team coupled by the wonderful experiences they undergo despite numerous losses that Pat refers to them as “the greatest athletes the Citadel had ever seen.”
The theme of perseverance in Pat’s memoir is depicted by the numerous negative events he encounters both in life and his senior year in the basketball team. Like in love, Pat views sports as the ideal avenue to free himself from the different challenges he undergoes in life. One such perseverance that Pat has to go is the constant movement of the family through different places and his father’s abusive nature. Donald career as a marine corps means that the family is on a constant shift to different places depending on where he would be posted. The results of the continuous movements is that Pat has to get accustomed to losing friends and at the same time strive to ensure that he creates new ones. Pat views basketball as the ideal avenue for him to escape the social alienation and create friends faster. Likewise, he perseveres without success to create a loving relationship with his father through basketball. The results of his perseverance to attract his father’s attention even though not for long is seen in him exceling in basketball at 17 years of age. Likewise, his perseverance in the sport is illustrated by him focusing on the game for long until a time he is recognized by community sporting groups as well as the Citadel sporting committee which in turn awarded him a college basketball scholarship.
Pat illustrates perseverance through the basketball team’s performance. Despite the numerous losses the team experiences, Pat still instills in them some sense of fighting mentality. The perseverance is seen in them training quite hard despite knowing that they are showcasing dismal performance. The urge to continue representing the school and putting in every effort to achieve better results sees Pat take on the leadership role. He is very aggressive in leading the team through training routines which at times leaves most of them exhausted. They are guided by the desire to attain better results and represent the schools in the best ways possible. Also, perseverance is seen in Pat managing to remain within the team despite having a coach whom he considers aggressive and degrading. Pat remarks that the coach, Mel Thompson, demeaning nature is illustrated in the negative reviews he makes about the team failing to show any kind of appreciation. The end of the season is marked by a series of losses translating to 7-18 record (Carson and Walsh 115).
Despite the series of poor performance, Pat’s efforts are appreciated at the end of the year as he is named the school’s most valuable player. Achieving the accolade means that the administration indeed realizes the kind of perseverance and effort he has put in to help the team go through the troubling period they are encountering. Pat encounters a voice that allows him to recount the different challengers he has undergone in his basketball career and the different accolades he attained in the end of the struggle. He recounts the many games which scored more than 25 points, being appreciated by coaches from opposing teams. Also, he realizes the “different times his own coach had bypassed taller players and instead selected him to start (Conroy 396).”
Moreover, Pat learn of the value of losing as he illustrates in his memoir. Losing is highlighted as a practice which not many people can go through. Often, losing makes most people depressed as they ponder on their next course of action having failed in their previous efforts to attain specific objectives. An example of the negative feeling associated with losing is seen in Pat’s team members losing hope after what emerges to be a bad season coupled with numerous loses. It is the different losing results realized during the period that makes Pat describe it as a “trainwrecked mediocrity” season. It is a season which the team would score poorly with the eventual record at the end of the year standing at 7-18 (Carson and Walsh 115). One particular value that Pat learns from failure is resilience. He views failure of part of life and as events which people should rise above to succeed in life. He realizes that most people have the desire to win. The desire is seen in Pat’s statement “there is no downside to winning;” The statement thus reveals the wishes of many people to always succeed in life. The desire is so strong that they often fail to look at the repercussions that might arise in the case they fail to achieve their winning ambitions. It is for this reason that Pat provides his sentiments on losing.
Loss is portrayed as something which puts people through pain. “Loss hurts and bleeds and aches. Loss is always ready to call out your name in the night (Conroy 396).” The statement indicates the kind of emotional difficulties that Pat went through in his life as a result of the various losses he has endured in life. According to Pat, losing is the ideal way through which people get to learn of important insights about their lives. He states that “there is no teacher more discriminating or transforming than loss.”
Pat views loss as making people think about various incidences in their lives and the necessary steps to take to alter its course. The importance of loss in making a person discover him/herself is seen in Pat’s words “Loss invites reflection and reformulating and a change of strategies.” Here, loss is portrayed as something which makes people analyze the different courses of their lives. It is in understanding what transpires in a person’s life that an individual finds the appropriate way to handle it. Accepting loss is one such way through which people are able to get over the different failures they have encountered in life. Accepting that we have failed in life is one such process which we counter the feeling of failure we get from experiencing different losses. It is by becoming open about our loses that we gain the courage to face different failures which we experience allowing us take new insights on how to tackle life. The need to recognize loss is seen in Pat’s words “You have to take the word “loser” and add it to your resumé and walk around with it on your name tag as it hand-feeds you your own shit in dosages too large for even great beasts to swallow” (Conroy 395).
Understanding the value of loss is again seen in helping people discover their real self. Loss subjects’ people to situations that make them question their lives’ objectives. The significance of loss in a person’s life is seen in helping Pat discover his writing career. Pat states that he discovers his call to writing in the middle of a game at Loyola University in New Orleans. It is after hearing the voice while in the middle of the match that Pat identifies that he has a writing passion. He states that “this voice knew nothing of shyness or reserve or shame or despair. This voice rang with authority and spoke with a blazing, resonant accuracy, with the clearness and certainty of church bells heard on bright Sundays” (217). Pat demonstrates that one of the first things that he heard from the voice in his head was to stop listening to his coach Thompson. He realizes that Thompson “was my coach, but I was my master. Whenever I got into the game for the rest of the year, I would play it as I was born to play it, I would play it with reckless abandon” (Conroy 185). It is the voice that changes Pat’s mindset allowing him to view his life from different points and embark on a new journey to make decisions he regards as adding relevance to his life. “I had done many things in my life but this marked the first time I had felt myself change” (Conroy 185). Loss is therefore, viewed as something which adds value to an individual’s life depending on how one handles it as seen in Pat discovering his writing desire from the numerous losses he went through in life and the last season of his senior college life playing basketball.
In conclusion, love, perseverance and finding value have been highlighted as key themes that one realizes in facing losses. Pat Conroy’s book My Losing Season is highlighted as a good indicator of the kind of influence loss has on someone’s life. Pat’s last season at the Citadel Bulldogs College basketball team is marred with a lot of losses which eventually allows him discover his real self as seen in his writing passion.
Works Cited
Carson, Fraser, and Julia Walsh. “Every Day’sa New Day: A Captain’s Reflection on a Losing Season.” Sports 6.4 (2018): 115.
Conroy, Pat. My Losing Season: A Memoir. Bantam, 2003.
Hamblin, R. (1993). Sports Imagery in Pat Conroy’s Novels. Aethlon, 11(1), 49.