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American Morning

Lessons From Losing

Aired December 26, 2002 - 08:37   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SANJAY GUPTA, CNN ANCHOR: He's known for writing novels, but Pat Conroy's latest book is a true story about himself, and not about winning, but about losing. It focuses on Conroy's senior year in college, when he played basketball for The Citadel. The book is called "My Losing Season."
Bill Hemmer recently talked with Pat Conroy about the experience and what he learned from losing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: You say this was one of the most important times in your life, during this basketball season here at Citadel. Why so important? What was so critical about that year for you personally?

PAT CONROY, AUTHOR, "MY LOSING SEASON": Well, it was a year my entire team fell completely apart, and it was also the year I found myself as a basketball player. It was a year I found myself as a writer. So it became an extraordinarily important part of my life. I think it was my team's worse year of their life, but I was so used to dysfunction, that it felt very normal to me.

HEMMER: So you write a book, essentially, about a mediocre team with a losing record.

CONROY: A bad team.

HEMMER: A bad team? Really? You go even further than that.

CONROY: Yes.

HEMMER: What is the life lesson then and there?

CONROY: You know, to me, here is what I came away with it, Bill. I think you learn more from losing than you do from winning. It's a completely un-American attitude, but, you know, losing feels more like life to me, you know. How does winning prepare you for losing your mother, losing your father, losing your job, having a child die? The tragedies that come your way. But losing and being on a losing team, I think, prepared me for much of what is very bad about life and what is tough about life.

HEMMER: So I would think you would agree how you respond to that adversity in the face of losing helps to form yourself as an individual.

CONROY: I think so.

HEMMER: What happened that year that made you a better writer?

CONROY: Here's what happened to me as a writer that year, is coming from my background, my father was in the Marine Corps.

HEMMER: What was he like? Tough guy?

CONROY: The toughest guy that ever lived. And going to The Citadel, military college in South Carolina, it was the year I decided to become a novelist, and at The Citadel, that was like an open admission that I was gay to my teammates. They were stunned that I read books that weren't assigned to me. But it was the year that I decided I was going to become a writer. It was the year I became the best I could be as a basketball player. And the year I think that shaped my entire young manhood. And so when I wrote this book, all of these things come to life to me.

HEMMER: Your relationship with your father, is it true that in a sense, you performed on the basketball floor in order to impress him, in order to make him happy, in order to please him?

CONROY: Yes, one of the weak tragedies of my life is my father was a great basketball player. I was a mediocre basketball player. I think I played basketball to impress my father, and my father made it just one more way to humiliate me.

HEMMER: Ever come to your games?

CONROY: He came to one game my entire college career.

HEMMER: Really? What happened that game?

CONROY: Well, here is what happened in the game. It stunned me. After the game, what I remember is -- you have to translate this, but only slightly. My father after the game, put me up against the wall with his hand and said, "Son, you were crap. Your team is crap and your coach is crap and you couldn't hold my jock strap on the best of your life." When I went back to research that year, I found out I scored 25 points that game against East Carolina. I was a high scorer on both teams, and I realized that, I said, I had a father that could not be impressed by a kid that scored 25 points in a college basketball game.

What was I going to do, Bill?

HEMMER: How did that relationship unfold then, going forward?

CONROY: The relationship became better. When I wrote "The Great Santini," which was about my father, he was stunned by the portrait, he spent the rest of his life trying to prove that I was a liar. I think he became a good father after that, I do.

HEMMER: Really? So you learned lessons in that, too?

CONROY: I think he took the lesson from that. The thing that surprised dad is one time, dad said I should have beaten you more, son, you would have been a better writer. I said you beat me much more, dad, I would have been Shakespeare. But he took the lessons from "The Great Santini," and I told him all the good things that "The Great Santini" did, this Marine colonel did, I made up.

And what my father did for the rest of his life, I think he tried to follow the good things. He tried to change his life by being good to his children. It stunned all of us.

HEMMER: Quickly here, I understand that you normally go into some sort of personal deep depression when you finish your book. I don't know why. I'm sure you might. But apparently you do not have that reaction when you finished this one?

CONROY: No, this book felt exultant to me, this book felt happy to me.

HEMMER: Pat Conroy, "My Losing Season," thanks for stopping by.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: All right, sometimes I think you need to lose a little to understand the value of winning even that much more.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired December 26, 2002 - 08:37   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SANJAY GUPTA, CNN ANCHOR: He's known for writing novels, but Pat Conroy's latest book is a true story about himself, and not about winning, but about losing. It focuses on Conroy's senior year in college, when he played basketball for The Citadel. The book is called "My Losing Season."
Bill Hemmer recently talked with Pat Conroy about the experience and what he learned from losing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: You say this was one of the most important times in your life, during this basketball season here at Citadel. Why so important? What was so critical about that year for you personally?

PAT CONROY, AUTHOR, "MY LOSING SEASON": Well, it was a year my entire team fell completely apart, and it was also the year I found myself as a basketball player. It was a year I found myself as a writer. So it became an extraordinarily important part of my life. I think it was my team's worse year of their life, but I was so used to dysfunction, that it felt very normal to me.

HEMMER: So you write a book, essentially, about a mediocre team with a losing record.

CONROY: A bad team.

HEMMER: A bad team? Really? You go even further than that.

CONROY: Yes.

HEMMER: What is the life lesson then and there?

CONROY: You know, to me, here is what I came away with it, Bill. I think you learn more from losing than you do from winning. It's a completely un-American attitude, but, you know, losing feels more like life to me, you know. How does winning prepare you for losing your mother, losing your father, losing your job, having a child die? The tragedies that come your way. But losing and being on a losing team, I think, prepared me for much of what is very bad about life and what is tough about life.

HEMMER: So I would think you would agree how you respond to that adversity in the face of losing helps to form yourself as an individual.

CONROY: I think so.

HEMMER: What happened that year that made you a better writer?

CONROY: Here's what happened to me as a writer that year, is coming from my background, my father was in the Marine Corps.

HEMMER: What was he like? Tough guy?

CONROY: The toughest guy that ever lived. And going to The Citadel, military college in South Carolina, it was the year I decided to become a novelist, and at The Citadel, that was like an open admission that I was gay to my teammates. They were stunned that I read books that weren't assigned to me. But it was the year that I decided I was going to become a writer. It was the year I became the best I could be as a basketball player. And the year I think that shaped my entire young manhood. And so when I wrote this book, all of these things come to life to me.

HEMMER: Your relationship with your father, is it true that in a sense, you performed on the basketball floor in order to impress him, in order to make him happy, in order to please him?

CONROY: Yes, one of the weak tragedies of my life is my father was a great basketball player. I was a mediocre basketball player. I think I played basketball to impress my father, and my father made it just one more way to humiliate me.

HEMMER: Ever come to your games?

CONROY: He came to one game my entire college career.

HEMMER: Really? What happened that game?

CONROY: Well, here is what happened in the game. It stunned me. After the game, what I remember is -- you have to translate this, but only slightly. My father after the game, put me up against the wall with his hand and said, "Son, you were crap. Your team is crap and your coach is crap and you couldn't hold my jock strap on the best of your life." When I went back to research that year, I found out I scored 25 points that game against East Carolina. I was a high scorer on both teams, and I realized that, I said, I had a father that could not be impressed by a kid that scored 25 points in a college basketball game.

What was I going to do, Bill?

HEMMER: How did that relationship unfold then, going forward?

CONROY: The relationship became better. When I wrote "The Great Santini," which was about my father, he was stunned by the portrait, he spent the rest of his life trying to prove that I was a liar. I think he became a good father after that, I do.

HEMMER: Really? So you learned lessons in that, too?

CONROY: I think he took the lesson from that. The thing that surprised dad is one time, dad said I should have beaten you more, son, you would have been a better writer. I said you beat me much more, dad, I would have been Shakespeare. But he took the lessons from "The Great Santini," and I told him all the good things that "The Great Santini" did, this Marine colonel did, I made up.

And what my father did for the rest of his life, I think he tried to follow the good things. He tried to change his life by being good to his children. It stunned all of us.

HEMMER: Quickly here, I understand that you normally go into some sort of personal deep depression when you finish your book. I don't know why. I'm sure you might. But apparently you do not have that reaction when you finished this one?

CONROY: No, this book felt exultant to me, this book felt happy to me.

HEMMER: Pat Conroy, "My Losing Season," thanks for stopping by.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: All right, sometimes I think you need to lose a little to understand the value of winning even that much more.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com