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they’ve got their own man to worry about.
    That was Mel’s inflexible philosophy, the one he played out in college and the one he lived by as a coach. He was inarticulate when it came to explaining how a defense was supposed to work. He screamed a lot, but there was little teaching going on. Then the whistle blew again and we readied ourselves for the scrimmage game that took place toward the end of every practice.
    â€œHere’s the first team I want,” Mel said. “Mohr, Bridges, Zinsky, DeBrosse,” and he paused and looked at me and Tee Hooper. “And Conroy.”
    Rat threw me the blue jersey of the starting team, and my heart danced. My prayers to the gods of basketball ricocheted off the steel beams of the Armory. For the first time in my varsity career I had been chosen as a starter by a coach. The second team turned their shirts inside out and wore the green jerseys of shame. But with pride, the second team called themselves the Green Weenies.
    Danny Mohr jumped center against sophomore Al Kroboth, and Al won the tap. My final year began in earnest. The Green Weenies played like their very salvation was at stake. I led a fast break at full speed down the court and heard Johnny DeBrosse filling the lane on my right, Bill Zinsky on my left. I turned my head toward Johnny, picked up the ball, made a motion to feed it to him, then flipped it to my left, right into the hands of Zinsky, who laid it in off the board.
    â€œQuit hot-dogging it, Conroy,” Mel growled at me. I tossed the pass to Zinsky while looking at DeBrosse, but that was why it worked. I knew it even if my coach did not.
    The first fifteen minutes of our first scrimmage of the season, the Green Weenies played like five All-Americans. The old pattern was reconfiguring, with Mel riding the sophomore Zinsky with irritation bordering on obsession. Nothing Zinsky did pleased our impatient and caustic coach. Zinsky began to look tentative and unsure of himself. I slapped him on the behind and whispered, “Don’t let him get to you, Zeke.” As a senior, my job was to protect the sophomores from melting under our coach’s crossfire of criticism. I called it the “Mel Test.”
    But when the test suddenly came to me, out of nowhere, I wasn’t prepared for it. Seeing Johnny trapped by Halpin and Hooper near the baseline, I sprinted down to help DeBrosse out. He lobbed the ball to me, and I took two dribbles to the right, then went up for a jump shot. My shot went in, but a whistle blew. Mel said, glowering at me, “Conroy, what do you think you’re doing?”
    â€œShooting, Coach.”
    â€œShooting? That’s exactly what you’re not supposed to do, Conroy. You can’t shoot. Everyone knows that. I bet even you know that. Trade jerseys with Hooper.”
    I turned my jersey inside out and rejoined the second string, my native tribe. I huddled the guys together and I said, “Okay, Weenies. I’m back where I belong. Let’s kick their asses and make Mel go wild.”
    The Green Weenies broke from the huddle with a mission. For the rest of the afternoon, we trounced the first string. It was clear to me from the first practice that I would play second-string guard for my entire senior year. I fought against despair. But I was a team player and was devoted to my sport and knew my responsibilities. I would make the first team better and make John DeBrosse and Tee Hooper better than they were supposed to be, by trying to stop me. Dressed in the color green, I made that vow.
    We had practiced for one week when a camera crew arrived to report a piece on the upcoming season. I was one of the players Coach Thompson asked to appear on camera with him. We were dressed in our game uniforms, and Coach Thompson put his arm on my shoulders and said, “Pat Conroy is the finest dribbler and passer on this team. If Pat scores one or two points a game and runs the team well, we can’t