My Losing Season

Mr. Conroy,

I’ve just finished your book, "My Losing Season." In the inescapable clutch that my life has become I cannot help but grip your words and memories as if they were my own. I too, was a basketball player, having only reached the high school level and quite humbly, finding myself on the bench with the "Green Weenies." My athletic prowess loomed in my head, never showing itself to my coach and only occasionally to my teammates in a pick up game. We lost the championship my senior year, beaten by three man screens and a sharp-shooter named Simpkins. Our team was better than his was, but in no way did we have anyone who could match him.

I want to write Mr. Conroy. I’ve much to share, having realized this only now in the past months. If I may, I want to share a moment with you; a moment in my senior year, a bizarre series of events that lead to this moment I chose to represent the many years I spent as a young boy idolizing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, John Lucas, Dan Issell and Earvin Johnson.

As tradition would have it, our Senior Ditch Day was coming up and we made plans to escape to Mt. Charleston, north of Las Vegas. Both of my parents were educators and strong disciplinarians in their own right. As the day approached, I began to feel uneasy about my compliance to tradition and decided not to go. At least 4 members of my team did tempt fate, speeding down the slopes of the only snow within 100 miles of Vegas.

The school administration didn’t understand the need for Senior Ditch Day and like administrations past they calmly suspended the 4 members from our next home game. They were allowed to practice but they couldn’t suit up. It was a league game against a lesser-skilled opponent, but one that might be in jeopardy now that all of our leading scorers and our tandem of six-four big men other teams came to fear would be absent.

The coach put me into that game at the start of the second period: a reward of necessity and a nod of desperation, even though we were ahead by at least 8 points. The play that would define, in my own eyes, the abilities I possessed began with a rebound I grabbed near the opponent’s free-throw line. I spun around the opposing player to my back that I had deftly blocked out. I then proceeded up the court dribbling with my left hand. I was right handed but knew early in my junior year that I needed a left to be competitive at all. I used this left-handed dribble as a trick to catch opposing players off guard as I switched to my much more confident right. The young boy in front of me assumed the crouch position in his defensive defiance of me getting by him. I dribbled a couple of times with my left, faked left, crossed him up and started to shoot by him with my favored hand. He staggered and did what most would do and widened his stance as he began to fall backwards and gave me his bladelike leg firmly into my thigh. I grimaced and was by him.

I don’t remember if it was the speed with which everything had happened once I rebounded the ball but there was only one man to beat. I had two players, organizing themselves on each side of the lane. Perfect, just perfect. One of the players was a first teamer, a junior who would repeat the mistake of his brother the next year. The other was a senior, a"Green Weenie" whose saving grace on this basketball team was that he was tall. I picked my spot and you know it well – right down the middle. I baited the opposing player to come out on me or I was going straight down his throat. Instinctually, as I had done from the time I rebounded, I dribbled with my right hand and looked straight at the "Green Weenie" loping down the left side of the lane. I saw his eyes grow to saucers and he knew this fellow bench rider was going to get him the ball. The player bit on my eyes and leaned in his direction. Without hesitation, I flicked the ball from my right hand to the junior first teamer. I had decided going up the court he was my man, my best chance at an assist or a shot, as they would be focusing on him. They weren’t because of my move (I like to think) and my no-look pass fell softly to him and then even more softly off the backboard and in for an easy two. I swooped to my right already hearing the clamor on the bench. I ran up next to my teammates, dressed out and not dressed out to the cheers of “Magic, Magic.” My coach, unlike Mel Thompson, didn’t appreciate the play, maybe even feeling slightly embarrassed that his bench warmer showed up the other team.

I tell this story to you now because I have a sense of that basketball season so long ago. I never had the gift or the talent to get out of my own neighborhood but for one play I was Magic. The seniors, sitting and resting almost too comfortably whooped and hollered and made me feel qualified to be a part of this team. I knew I wasn’t and cheering as hard and willing my team as hard as I did only forged the reality that this would be my only function that much more secure.

My teammates cried and wailed in agony that night we lost the championship. I tried to console my team but this was greeted with a “You don’t know how it feels, you’re a bench warmer.” I didn’t know how it felt for them, this was true. I realized I wasn’t good enough to lose that game. However, I knew how I felt in my own "Green Weenie" way. I recoiled back to my locker, beaten by the comment of the team I had wanted to become a part of ever since we were in grade school. I was ashamed to want to show them how important they were to me, how they helped me, in ways unknown to them, have a basketball history in a sport I would never again play competitively.

I sum up this recounting by understanding that my time will come as long as I’m prepared. I had prepared my whole life for that moment that would define my short and anemic career. Life is preparation and being able to perform when the time comes. That’s my lesson learned. I know it will serve me as I attempt to grapple with the thoughts that seem to be pouring out of me lately, to tame the expression onto paper. I have written my whole life in preparation for what lies ahead. If I never make it I can say that I wrote the man who strengthened my conviction to be prepared. The man who helped me, in ways unknown to him, to endure My Losing Season.

Thank you sir,

David Sherman