Dec. 19, 2003

Tennessee assistant coach Ed Conroy didn't get added satisfaction Wednesday night when the Vols humbled The Citadel, where Les Robinson is the athletic director. But there was certainly a time when beating Les was more.

Perhaps second only to their love of basketball, Conroy and Robinson are intertwined with irony. Conroy enrolled at The Citadel in the mid-80s when his first cousin, popular author and Citadel alumnus Pat Conroy (class of '67), was public enemy No. 1 because of his novel "The Lords of Discipline."

The book's setting was the fictitious Carolina Military Institute, and within its gist were loyalty and the harsh treatment of freshmen. So naturally, some two weeks after Ed Conroy signed with The Citadel in 1985, nearly entirely because of his fondness for Robinson, the coach left The Citadel for East Tennessee State.

Suddenly, Ed was headed to the place his cousin portrayed as a dysfunctional world of intimidation, hazing and secrecy concealed within a package of honor, courage and tradition's might. "The Lords of Discipline" was made into a movie, as was another Conroy novel published in 1976, "The Great Santini." It also showed the warts of military life, including thinly veiled autobiographical allusions to growing up with a violent father who was a Marine fighter pilot. The Citadel brass wasn't fond of Pat Conroy.

"Pat wasn't a popular soldier here at the time I was recruiting Ed," Robinson said. "I didn't want to upset the people at The Citadel by recruiting another Conroy. But it also seemed like that wasn't being fair to the student-athlete. And Ed was a young man who really seemed like he was beyond his years."

Conroy flew to The Citadel from his Davenport, Iowa home basically as a curiosity.

"I distinctly remember when I was on the plane for my visit thinking I was wasting their time," Ed said.

But Robinson captured the young recruit's imagination and, when Robinson visited Iowa, Conroy's instincts were further buoyed when he saw "that trust factor" in his parents' eyes.

"I'd say Les was at least 90 percent of the reason I was going there," Conroy said. "Hello, I must be going. Before Conroy had his "Sir, Yes Sir" down pat, Robinson was going AWOL.

His successful run at The Citadel landed him a better offer from fellow Southern Conference member East Tennessee State.

"I recruited Ed and then left probably two weeks later," Robinson said.

"You can blame that on (ETSU boosters) Bill Green and John Howren." Conroy couldn't make sense of it initially. Robinson had a 20-37 record at ETSU by the time point guard/savior Mister Jennings left high school in Culpeper, Va.

"I remember playing them and thinking, 'Why would he leave us to coach this team,'" Conroy said.

It felt especially good to make 3-pointers against ETSU. Conroy made six one night against the Bucs in Charleston and fondly remembers beating ETSU 78-75 in Johnson City during his senior season of '89. The Bucs wouldn't lose at home again for three years, and lost by a point to Mookie Blaylock's No. 1 Oklahoma in the NCAA tournament a month later.

"I was happy beating ETSU up there and it felt good the night I hit six 3s on Les and them," Conroy said. "I was mad at (Robinson) for a long time. He was the reason I went to The Citadel."

Man in uniforms Once he'd enrolled, Cadets at The Citadel quickly found out who Ed Conroy's cousin was. It added obstacles. So this was the blood of the left-winger whining about racism and sexism? Conroy said it might've been a good thing, as the brunt of his mind games were played at the beginning of his four-year journey.

"They all took their best shot at me the first week or so," Conroy said.

"There was a lot of screaming and hollering. I was able to get that fear out of the way early on."

Conroy won the mind games. Along with becoming a three-year starter on the basketball team, he achieved the ranking of Lt. Colonel in the Corps of Cadets, the highest ever by a basketball player.

There were obviously plenty of push-ups and sit-ups, but Conroy said that the most grueling part of The Citadel was psychological. Still, he didn't see the dark world some readers might've conjured by reading his cousin's book.

"It was tough and demanding," Conroy said. "But I didn't see anything that shouldn't have happened that didn't go unpunished."

Maybe that was because of reactive alterations after the negative publicity of "The Lords of Discipline."

"People ask me that all of the time," Conroy said. "Of course I don't know because I wasn't there before the book. But there's probably better awareness everywhere compared to when Pat went there. That was a tough time with Vietnam and segregation and everything."

Today 14 percent of the 1,800-member Corps of Cadets are minorities, including a five-percent makeup of women.

Mile-high reunion Conroy went to work for IBM when he was through at The Citadel in 1989. But he wanted to coach. So he went to the Final Four in Denver the following year and one of the first people he remembers seeing was Robinson.

"I ran into Les and (his wife) Barbara talking to (Stanford coach) Mike Montgomery," Conroy said. "I told him I was interested in coaching and I guess he just filed it away."

Robinson had just finished his fifth season at East Tennessee State with a 99-83 NCAA tournament loss to Georgia Tech. He wouldn't begin another in Johnson City, as he was hired by North Carolina State. And shortly after he left for Raleigh he invited Conroy to move there too as an assistant coach. Also joining Robinson's staff were Buzz Peterson and Al Daniel, another current Tennessee assistant.

"Ed's time at The Citadel was impressive," Robinson said. "I'd say he's as impressive as any when considering all aspects - academics, athletics and military."

Conroy was with Robinson three years at North Carolina State, then spent four years with Joe Cantafio at Virginia Military Institute and Furman. In 1997 he began a three-year head-coaching stint at Francis Marion before joining Peterson when he became the head coach at Tulsa in 2000.

A family's black sheep

Pat Conroy might've been as surprised as anyone when his younger cousin chose The Citadel. The author joked that Ed must've been ignorant to current events and all of the turmoil Pat's memories of The Citadel had triggered.

"I remember Pat joking that, 'The Citadel must be recruiting basketball players now who can't read,'" Ed said.

Pat's father Don, the real-life Great Santini, was the oldest of seven children, and Ed's father is the youngest (Don Conroy died in 1998). Pat Conroy once described his father in an interview as having been in three wars and loving each one. But Ed Conroy knew a different man than the Black Sheep squadron fighter pilot.

"I was born the year Pat graduated at The Citadel," Ed said. "So my uncle probably had mellowed. I remember Pat saying that his father went from being Darth Vader to Captain Kangaroo overnight.

"I never saw that man Pat wrote about. But I have no reason to doubt him. You could see my uncle's competitiveness, and the sarcasm and really sharp wit. He might say something to me like 'You really shot the lights out tonight' after a bad game."

Pat Conroy got a father's saltier version. In "My Losing Season," Conroy's 2002 bestseller about his senior year as an overmatched point guard during Citadel's 8-17 season of 1966-67, Pat recalls how his father cursed him and told him he was essentially worthless after one of Pat's proudest moments, a great outing in a victory against VMI. The book also suggests why Pat could've seen a father figure in the hateful disposition of coach Mel Thompson.

But the detailed book struck a deep chord with a diverse crowd, including, obviously, a lot of old players. The famous author stayed at Robinson's house while in Raleigh to attend the final game in Reynolds Coliseum in 1999. Robinson had a celebration set up with everyone from David Thompson and Tom Burleson to Pam Valvano and the late Norm Sloan, who scored the ceremonial last bucket.

"Pat wanted to get a feel for the event," Robinson said. "I actually had a lot of former North Carolina State players talking to me about (My Losing Season) at Coach Sloan's funeral (last week). We have a good relationship with Pat now."

Robinson and Ed do too, despite Robinson, an NCAA tournament selection committee member, not giving Tennessee a ticket to the Big Dance last spring. "He's so well connected that any team could (probably take not getting in personally)," Ed said.

Robinson said you have to eliminate emotion from the equation when picking NCAA participants, in part, because people's jobs can weigh in the balance. His one concern about Buzz Peterson becoming a head coach was whether or not Peterson could suspend such emotions.

"My only reservation about Buzz being a head coach was that (he was too nice)," Robinson said. "But he proved quickly that was not the case at Appalachian State."

And it might've taken nearly five years and a Final Four trip to Denver to finally sink in, but Conroy realized Robinson was the genuine man his 18-year-old eyes had promised. Not some wheeler-deal lost in a coaching haze.

"Les, Joe Cantafio and Buzz are all great people," Conroy said. "They are genuinely good guys. But they have that competitive fire too that a coach has to have. Coach Robinson taught me my first lesson in coaching: you trade guards like me in for guards like Mister Jennings."