Maybe the Best Basketball Book I've Ever Read

I just finished reading My Losing Season by Pat Conroy. He's the guy who wrote the Prince of Tides, Beach Music, and some other books (including, I just noticed, a cookbook).

In other words, he's a serious novelist (who's not above the occasional cookbook). But he's also a former starting NCAA division one point guard, and it's clear that basketball is the great passion of his life.

This book is about his childhood, especially his senior year hooping it up at the Citadel. His life then was full of abuse. Physical and mental abuse from his nightmarish father, physical and mental abuse in hazing at the Citadel, and mental abuse from his boneheaded coach. It's a wholly depressing pile of hopeless tragedy and sadness. There is no joy in this book whatsoever, except in four of life's finest things: friendship, writing, reading, and basketball.

And he's a very good writer, and I don't think there's a better book out there to give a true, first-hand account of the joys and anxieties of being on a sports team. This book is the star of my fledgling collection of good books about basketball.