Loyalty versus Betrayal

At the center of That Championship Season is a tension between loyalty and betrayal among the five characters. Coach both wants and believes he has the absolute loyalty of the four members of his former team. Coach acts as if he is still their coach, the coach of their life. The loyalty comes from their shared experience as the 1952 state champion basketball team. Only George is truly blindly loyal to the Coach and thinks he (George) has the loyalty of the others. The other three are loyal only to a certain degree, to each other and the Coach. They acknowledge the ties of the past, but they have their own life agendas.

These agendas are what create betrayals between them. George and Coach are the ones who feel most betrayed by the others. Phil has an affair with George's wife, Marion, an act that George regards...