That Championship Season was only the second full-length play written by playwright Jason Miller and was by far his most successful. Miller was primarily an actor (The Exorcist), who wrote plays on the side. In 1973, by winning a Pulitzer Prize for the play, Miller was lifted out of obscurity. Jason Miller’s That Championship Season was regarded as one of the more important plays of its time.

Setting

The Coach's home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the year 1972.

Characters

The Coach

George Sitkowski

Phil Romano

James Daley

Tom Daley

Plot

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 at their old coach's home, to celebrate. The coach is terminally ill, and this reunion may be their last chance to reminisce with him.

George Sitkowski is the mayor of the town, but 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.

James' brother Tom is an unsuccessful writer, a bitter, cynical alcoholic and ne'er-do-well.

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 at some level, all of them still look to their old 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.

Stage

• That Championship Season made its debut off-Broadway at the Estelle Newman/Public Theatre on May 2, 1972, where it ran for 144 performances.
• The production was then moved to the Booth Theatre on Broadway, where it ran for an additional 844 performances.

The play ran for a total of 988 performances before it closed on April 21, 1974.

The original cast:

Tom Daley..............Walter McGinn

George Sikowski.....Charles Durning

James Daley...........Michael McGuire

Phil Romano...........Paul Sorvino

Coach:...................Richard Dysart

Awards

That Championship Season won numerous awards, including:

1972

• New York Drama Critics Award for Best Play
• Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Playwright
• Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Playwriting Award

1973

• Tony Award for Best Play
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama

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 and television

For years Miller worked on bringing his play to film.

• In 1982 he succeeded in both screenwriting and directing That Championship Season using top Hollywood talent of the time and filming on-location in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where the story takes place and Miller was raised and residing.
• In 1999, Miller wrote the screenplay and assisted friend Paul Sorvino direct and again star in (albeit playing a different role) a lower-budget TV version of That Championship Season.

External links

• WPKN Today / That Championship Season

•  • [ e] Tony Award for Best Play: Winners (1970–1989)

1970: Borstal Boy 1971: Sleuth 1972: Sticks and Bones 1973: That Championship Season 1974: The River Niger 1975: Equus 1976: Travesties 1977: The Shadow Box 1978: Da 1979: The Elephant Man 1980: Children of a Lesser God 1981: Amadeus 1982: The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby 1983: Torch Song Trilogy 1984: The Real Thing 1985: Biloxi Blues 1986: I'm Not Rappaport 1987: Fences 1988: M. Butterfly 1989: The Heidi Chronicles