That Championship Season

That Championship Season is a 1972 play by Jason Miller. The play made its off-Broadway debut at the Estelle Newman Theatre on May 2, 1972, where it ran for 144 performances. After moving to the Broadway Booth Theatre, it ran for an additional 844 performances, totally of 988 closing on 21 April 1974.

Plot synopsis

Characters

• The Coach
• George Sitkowski
• Phil Romano
• James Daley
• Tom Daley

The setting is 1972 at the Coach's home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. On the twentieth anniversary of their victory in the Pennsylvania state championship game, four members of the starting lineup of a Catholic high school basketball team have gathered to celebrate. The coach is terminally ill, and this reunion may be their last chance to reminisce with him.

George Sitkowski, the town mayor has proven inept and unpopular, and is likely to lose his bid for re-election. That his challenger is Jewish is particularly galling to him.

Phil Romano has become a millionaire in the strip-mining business, using his close ties to Mayor George Sitkowski to obtain mining permits. He helps George financially, but may be carrying on an affair with George's wife.

James Daley is a local junior high school principal, and his brother, Tom is an unsuccessful, embittered, cynical alcoholic and ne'er-do-well writer

The fifth member of the starting lineup, Martin, has refused to attend the reunion. He bears a grudge against the coach, for reasons that do not become clear until late in the play.

None of the men's lives has turned out as they'd hoped, and, on some level, all still look to their coach for guidance. The Coach has always been the embodiment of old-school Catholicism (Senator Joseph McCarthy and Father Charles Coughlin are heroes of his), the one person in their lives who was sure of everything, and his absolute certainty and confidence gave them a sense of security. While the Coach thought he was teaching his players how to be men, it appears that these middle-aged men are still emotional adolescents who need the Coach to tell them how to live their lives. But the Coach's pep talks, which had always inspired them, are beginning to sound hollow. Only now, these many years later, do the men begin to suspect that their coach was a bigot, a bully, and a bit of a fraud.

History and Reception

From its earliest productions, That Championship Season was widely praised by critics, though a few dissenters had problems with certain aspects of the play. Those who like the play compliment its humor, dialogue, and characters. Reviewing the Broadway production, Clive Barnes of the New York Times writes, "Mr. Miller has a perfect ear and instinct for the rough and tumble profanity of locker-room humor. The coarsely elegant gibes go along with Mr. Miller’s indictment of a society, which opens with an ironic playing of the National Anthem and then lacerates the sickness of small-town America full of bigotry, double-dealing, racism and hate."

Film adaptations

Miller wrote and directed the film adaptation of the play that was released in 1982. In 1999, Miller wrote another screenplay for television that would be directed by Paul Sorvino.

Awards and nominations

• 1973 Tony Award for Best Play
• 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

References

• WPKN Today / That Championship Season

External links

• That Championship Season at the Internet Broadway Database
• That Championship Season (1982 film) at the Internet Movie Database
• That Championship Season (TV film) at the Internet Movie Database