Citadel’s unlikely leader

CHARLESTON, S.C. – The Citadel is enjoying a basketball revival under the unlikeliest of leaders – a Conroy.

With third-year coach Ed Conroy at the helm, the Bulldogs (17-10, 12-4 Southern Conference) have posted their most victories in seven years. Their 12 conference wins are the most by a Citadel team.

As they head into tonight’s game at first-place Davidson, the Bulldogs are on a nine-game winning streak, their longest since they won 13 in a row in 1927.

All this success comes under the cousin of author and former Citadel pariah Pat Conroy, whose scathing accounts of the military school in his books made the family persona non grata at the South Carolina campus.

Ed Conroy, also a former Bulldogs player, recounts that tale whenever he settles into a living room or slides a chair up close to a kitchen table to talk with a high school player and his family. Sometimes it sounds more like one of Pat’s best-sellers than a recruiting pitch.

“And it’s a great story, too,” echoes former Bulldogs basketball coach and athletic director Les Robinson.

But unlike Pat’s memoir “My Losing Season,” about his senior year playing Bulldog basketball in 1967, this story could have a victorious ending.

It’s a remarkable turnaround – Citadel lost 23 and 24 games in Conroy’s first two seasons – accomplished by a man nearly run off the parade ground a quarter century ago.

Conroy’s path to Citadel basketball success seemed blocked forever by Pat’s triumphs as an author, which were coupled with stinging words for South Carolina’s military college.

But in 1984, Robinson, then Bulldogs basketball coach, had heard of a hard-working, smart point guard from Davenport, Iowa. His only drawback? He was named Conroy.

“That wasn’t all that great,” Robinson said.

The coach took the unusual step of vetting Conroy’s recruitment with the head of the school’s Board of Visitors. Robinson had some inside help from the Conroy family, particularly Pat’s father, Donald, made famous as the hard-driven, insensitive, parental bully, Marine Lt. Col. “Bull” Meechum in Pat’s novel, “The Great Santini.”

Donald Conroy, whom Ed described as a “favorite uncle,” encouraged his nephew to move South and embrace the challenge of military school life, no matter what his older cousin wrote.

Things did not always go well for the plebe with the polarizing name. But Conroy leaned on supportive teammates and several accepting cadets to make it through.

The younger Conroy excelled as a three-year starter at point guard, was a gold-star student and rose to lieutenant colonel in the corps of cadets – the highest rank achieved by a basketball player.

Robinson continued tracking Conroy after he left the Bulldogs and hired him at North Carolina State in 1990. Conroy spent the next 15 years in the coaching ranks, waiting for his chance when Robinson picked him again in 2006, this time as Citadel coach.

Robinson and Conroy acknowledge the return would not have been as smooth had Pat and the school not settled their estrangement in the early 2000s.

Conroy has seen the field house fill up bit by bit as the Bulldogs keep winning. He’ll get shouts of “Keep it going,” from cadets happy to cheer for basketball success.

The Citadel’s coach has enjoyed the ride to the top.

Within reach is the Bulldogs’ second 20-win season, and first since 1979. Maybe there’s a shot at the NIT.

“I wouldn’t want to put a lid on those guys,” Ed Conroy said.