Free My Losing Season by Pat Conroy Page B

improved at a faster rate than it ever had because I was playing against juniors and seniors every day. My teammates never teased or hazed me because of my size or age; rather, they took me in and cherished me and helped me get better in my chosen game.
    The point guard was the matchlessly named Johnny Brasch who was cocksure and arrogant the way the good ones are supposed to be. He took care of the ball and directed traffic and got the ball to the guy with the hot hand. The other guard was Bud Wofford, the boy I had watched dancing on the first day of school, whose game had a touch of elegance and who possessed the best jump shot on the team. No one on the team was over six feet two inches tall; Sam Carr, Ted Frazier, and Buddy Martin made up the front line. Nicky Vlaservich was the sixth man and he and Buddy served as the team co-captains.
    Though Coach Crunkleton knew very little about the game of basketball, he knew a lot about bringing a team together. He let us in on the fact that he found it a pleasure to coach us, and thought we might surprise some teams that year. In the first game of the season against Cherryville High School in their gym, we beat them so soundly that even I got into the game with a couple of minutes to play. Wofford passed me the ball at the top of the key and I threw up the first jump shot of my high school career. It swished through the net and Wofford cuffed me on the back of the head in celebration as we ran down the court.
    Though the Sacred Heart Ramblers started out fast that year, we entered a phase of ennui and uninspired play in the winter months. We were 13–8 entering the Knights of Columbus Tournament in Charlotte that would bring some of the best Catholic schools in the South together, including the habitual powers Bishop England of Charleston and Benedictine of Richmond.
    Coach Crunkleton prepared us for this tournament in the oddest, most unconventional way imaginable. At some time toward the end of the season, he became convinced that our team was not in shape, so he spent the week before the tournament running us up and down the country roads around Belmont. We never touched a basketball once and looked more like a cross-country team as Ted Crunkleton would call out of the window of his car, “Meet me at Belmont Abbey.” Then he would scratch out of his parking spot and drive to the college to wait for us. When the team ran up to his car at the Abbey, our coach would yell out, “Meet me in Mount Holly.”
    â€œMount Holly!” the team would scream, and our coach would scratch off toward the small town three miles to the west. We bitched and cussed and grumbled for the next three miles. By the fifth day, Crunkleton had us doing ten miles of roadwork every afternoon and none of us touched a basketball during that crucial week leading up to the tournament. Only God’s name was taken in vain more often than Crunkleton’s as we jogged along country roads without a sign of life except the encroachment of impenetrable forest that crowded them.
    â€œThis isn’t basketball,” Bud Wofford said. “It’s track and field.”
    â€œGod, I could use a cigarette,” Johnny Brasch said, causing the whole team to laugh.
    Sam Carr said, “Let’s go up to Charlotte Catholic and challenge them to a footrace.”
    Vlaservich and Martin led us down the back roads, upbeat and enthusiastic, and taught me how the captains of teams should act when the bellyaching got too loud. Always, Coach Crunkleton would drive to a spot several miles ahead and park his car on the shoulder of the roadway. When we would reach his parked car he’d be smoking a cigarette and would allow us to rest for five minutes. Then he’d say, “You know where that old stone quarry is? Run past that quarry and I’ll meet you at the Old Gastonia Road.”
    With great symphonic moaning, the ten of us would start the four-mile run as Crunkleton’s car