Oct. 4, 2002

Charleston, SC - It has been a good couple of weeks on the national publicity front for The Citadel.

On Wednesday night, MSNBC's Chris Matthews hosted his "Hardball" talk show from Mark Clark Auditorium on campus. Commercials aired on MSNBC during the day featured marching cadets.

Last week, former Citadel point guard Pat Conroy wrote about his senior basketball season in Sports Illustrated magazine in an excerpt from his forthcoming book, "My Losing Season."

And this week, another former Citadel basketball player - current Bulldog defensive end Cliff Washburn - is featured in Sports Illustrated's Faces in the Crowd section. Washburn's feat of becoming the first Southern Conference athlete to win player of the week awards in football and in basketball was noted by SI in its Oct. 7 edition.

Conroy's four-page article in the Sept. 30 issue of Sports Illustrated recalls his senior season at The Citadel in 1966-67, and even quotes a couple of articles from the old News and Courier. Conroy, who also wrote "The Lords of Discipline" based on his Citadel experiences, writes about his days as an under-sized point guard on an underdog team.

"I think he summed it up very nicely," said Citadel basketball coach Pat Dennis, who said Conroy remains an avid supporter of Bulldogs basketball. "The Citadel is always the underdog. I don't think that's changed or ever will change. Even when our teams are pretty good, like they have been the last couple of years and is right now, we still always feel like we're the underdog in every game."

Former Citadel coach Mel Thompson was quoted in the News and Courier as saying Conroy got "more mileage out of his talent than any player I've ever coached."

That reminded Dennis of his former point guard, Mike Roy, who led the Bulldogs to a 16-12 record in 2000-01. The Citadel's 17-12 record last year gave the Bulldogs back-to-back winning seasons for the first time since 1979-80.

"Mike sounded like the same kind of point guard that Pat Conroy was," said Dennis, who used to work at the same Camp Wahoo in Virginia that Conroy writes about in his book. "The way Pat worked at camps to get better, the way he gave everything he had, that sounds like Mike Roy."

Dennis said that Conroy, who posed for photos at McAlister Field House recently for another article about his book, has been known to show up unannounced at Citadel games, and has contributed financially to the program, particularly when the team made a trip to Chile about five years ago. He spoke to the team in the locker room at the end of Roy's senior year.

"He walked in and said to the freshmen, 'Doesn't this place stink?' Everyone cracked up. He told the team how proud he was of what they did that year," Dennis said.

And though Dennis probably would prefer a title other than "My Losing Season," he likes the way The Citadel basketball comes across in the book.

"It's pretty impressive, that the school has an alumnus with the clout to get a positive article in Sports Illustrated," Dennis said. "I think it's a very positive profile of his life in basketball here."

Washburn, the 6-7, 270-pound defensive end, played four years of basketball for Dennis before turning to football this season. He was named SoCon football player of the week after making 11 tackles in a win over nationally ranked Delaware on Sept. 14, adding to the basketball player of the week award he earned two years ago after making 11 of 12 shots in a game against South Carolina.

Neither The Citadel nor the College of Charleston made the top 200 in SI's rankings of the top sports schools in Division I this week. SI's blurb on The Citadel noted school president John S. Grinald's habit of doing pushups with the cheerleaders after Bulldog touchdowns. The magazine's note on the College of Charleston mentioned the Cougars' "hoops tradition" and "tiny snakepit gym."

Schools of note that did make the top 200: No. 5 South Carolina, No. 27 Clemson, No. 82 Furman, No. 86 Georgia Southern, No. 136 App State, No. 174 Coastal Carolina, No. 180 Wyoming, No. 187 Chattanooga, No. 195 Davidson and No. 196 Winthrop.

The last time The Citadel made Sports Illustrated was in August of 2000, when Post and Courier photographer Alan Hawes snapped a picture of football players Aaron Capps and Corey White beating the heat in an ice cooler at Johnson Hagood Stadium.