Month: November 2000

Categories
News

IT’S WEST!

Tommy West was named the new head football coach at the University of Memphis in a press conference Thursday. West was hired as defensive coordinator earlier this season by former head coach Rip Scherer. Scherer endorsed West for the head job.

“I don’t care what names are bantered around, there is no better candidate for this job than Tommy West,” Scherer said at his final press conference. “The players believe in him. He is a heck of a football coach.”

West set a goal of making the Tiger defense tougher against the run. They finished the season with the number-one rushing defense in the country. Overall, Memphis ranked sixth in total defense.

Throughout the season, West was a valuable sounding board for Scherer. West knew what his boss was going through because he had been in Scherer’s position. From 1993 to 1998, West was the head coach at Clemson. During that time he had only one losing season. It came in 1998 and it cost him his job. He took the Tigers to four bowl games (becoming only the second coach at the school to go to three consecutive bowl games). Twenty players at Clemson went into the NFL under West and 29 were named to the All-ACC team.

West is from Carrolton, Georgia. He played tight end for Bill Battle in the mid ‘70s at Tennessee. He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant to Battle in 1977. Most of his career has been spent in East Tennessee and the Carolinas (at Appalachian State, South Carolina, and Clemson). He has been both an offensive and defensive coordinator.

(You can write Dennis Freeland at freeland@memphisflyer.com)

Categories
News News Feature

A SQUARE THAT’S COME FULL CIRCLE

I think it hit me when she was descending the staircase. Makeup perfect. Every hair precisely in place. Sequins applied carefully to her aging but still beautiful face. She moved like a Twyla Tharp-trained dancer. She looked like a star. A real star. At the foot of the stairs, a crowd awaited her. She thought it was a movie crew, there to film her comeback role, when instead, she had committed a murder and the onlookers were the press, along with the police, who were there to arrest her and take her from the seclusion of her fabulous old Hollywood mansion. She had gone insane.

No, not real life. But real big, on the Big Screen. It was Gloria Swanson during her final “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille” scene in the classic film, Sunset Boulevard, and I was watching it at Malco Theatres’ new Studio on the Square, at 2105 Court Street, the parking lot of which I can see from my front yard.

I was so taken with the fact that I could now walk out of my front door and within 30 seconds be in this wonderful new movie house, with a wine and coffee bar and leather sofas and a patio, that I felt a very gripping sense of pride and satisfaction. I don’t know if it was the nostalgia of the movie or my own, but memories came flooding back of Overton Square, the entertainment district launched in 1970 that was once — that has been for so long — my stomping grounds of sorts. And now I own a home just on the Square’s edge. Something seemed to feel, I don’t know, as if it had come full circle. Like a reunion someone else had planned.

Two decades ago, I sat just a block away watching Marlene Dietrich as the owner of a male brothel, her face draped with a black veil, singing as a tuxedo-clad David Bowie played the piano in the wee hours of the morning, the two of them alone in an old ballroom. Her raspy voice crooned Just a Gigolo, from the title of the film, set in a grim post-war Berlin, and it was like magic to see her on the screen again in her last role. The movie played at the Memphian Theater, before it became Playhouse on the Square, which at that time was around the corner in the middle of the Square. I once did an impersonation of Richard Nixon on the stage there while auditioning for a part in the play Lenny, the story of Lenny Bruce. When I sit on my front porch now, shielded intentionally from the world by a wall of out-of-control shrubbery and wild vines, I shake my head when I think of how much blind courage I had then. How so much has changed. How so much, in some ways, though, has remained the same.

I think my introduction to the Square was sitting upstairs in the cool dark room on a sofa one night at what was then the Hot Air Balloon with my high-school buddies ordering, I’m sure, a Tom Collins or a Singapore Sling. How sophisticated we thought we were. How those bartenders must have thought, What a pack of imbeciles. We were, after all, just a bunch of Parkway Village kids trying to get out of the suburbs and find our way to the fun and cultured land.

Where the Blue Monkey is today, at 2012 Madison, I recall sneaking in with a friend when it was Mugsy McDougal’s Sports Parlor (unless I’m dreaming). A few years later, when the place became Trader Dick’s, I would be ousted for, well, some shenanigans in the women’s bathroom with about 20 other people all crowded into a stall. It’s amazing that, today, the same mammoth bar with its ancient marble accents and beveled mirrors still occupies an entire wall, though a different one. So mammoth that it had to be taken outside to be turned around and reinstalled when the Blue Monkey owners were renovating the space.

Across the street, there’s Melos Taverna, in a circa 1890 building that in its lifetime has been, among other things, a drugstore, a sandwich shop, and the original location of the venerable P&H Cafe, now a legend just down the street. I remember the first time I met Mr. Tom, Melos Taverna’s owner. He adamantly refused to take credit cards because the Visa companies had gotten his dander up. Today, Mr. Tom does take credit cards, but doesn’t take all the credit for the food, which has gotten only better over the years. In fact, he attributes much of it to his chef of 17 years, Anthony Parks, and to his 16-year-old son, Charles Stergios, who might appear from the kitchen at any time to ignite a dish of some mysterious breaded cheese with Greek cognac, as the entire restaurant applauds at the flaming work of art. But Melos is anything but showy. It is, and has always been, cozy, intimate, warm and laid-back, made even better by the Greek music floating through the air, which Mr. Tom says is the inspiration for the food. (“You just have to have Greek music to be able to cook good Greek food,” he says.) I recently had dinner there at a table in the front window overlooking Madison Avenue as rain washed down the glass. The appetizer platter alone — with its hunks of feta cheese, kalamata olives, chicken livers broiled to the consistency of pate, stuffed grape leaves, and an eggplant salad that I eat by the serving spoon full — is a joy to linger over for hours with a bottle of red wine. Sitting there, talking with Mr. Tom, I felt like I had gone back in time, yet I was glad it was the present. With all due respect to the other fine eateries in town, Melos Taverna is, quite frankly, my favorite restaurant in Memphis. And now I can stroll there from my house any night of the week.

Further east, at Cooper and Madison, where the Loony Bin comedy club is today, there once was a La Baguette (before that and before my time, unfortunately, it was the site of the famed Burkle’s Bakery). In those days La Baguette (which still has a location in Chickasaw Oaks) was the closest thing in Memphis during the late 1970s to a hippie-haven coffeehouse. A nice French restaurant by night but something else by day — on cold winter afternoons, hordes of people who all knew each other gathered for the savory lentil soup and coffee and rabid conversation. I can still see the swirl of sour cream that topped the pureed legumes. At night, I waited tables there, with a crew who would later go on to become well-known artists and chefs and jewelry designers. We are much older now, but still spry. And many of us keep in touch.

And then there are the buildings that seemed to be cursed somehow. In its early ‘70s heyday, the site most recently occupied by Cancun was the Mississippi River Company. It would later be named after a new owner, Wink Martindale, whom my mother dated in high school. Once, while eating dinner there with my father and stepmother about 20 years ago, I pulled a cigarette out of a pack and lit it at the table — only to realize that it wasn’t your standard kind of cigarette. Busted. . . . Between various incarnations, that building would sit empty much of the time.

There’s also the “French Quarter-looking” building at Florence and Monroe. Nothing stuck for very long, until Side Street Grill came along a few years ago, and took off like wildfire with its martinis, cigars, steaks, and very loyal crowd.

And let’s not forget the old Bombay Bicycle Club on Madison near Cooper, which since its demise in the late ‘80s has had more than its share of “for lease” signs. It’s been a sports bar, and housed a couple of failed restaurants, including Ciao! in the early ‘90s. Recently it became the swank home of Boscos Squared, a welcome addition.

But when it was Bombay it was a magnet. There are enough stories about that place I’m surprised no one has written a book. In the kitchen, a sign on the door of the walk-in refrigerator announced: “Anyone caught with whipped cream cans not serving a table will be fired!” It seems that employees and regular patrons alike had developed a fondness for inhaling the nitrous oxide from the cans, copping a one-minute state of euphoria, and thereby leaving the “whip-ped” cream a can of useless, messy drool.

Other memories that come to mind: The early-1980s rave nights at T.G.I. Friday’s — a mainstay on the Square from the start — where Midtown ingénues and female impersonators modeled everything from leather sheaths to hats made from detergent boxes during impromptu fashion shows; and nights at Palm Court, where I worked for a short time as the maitre d’. Before the restaurant opened, it had been an ice skating rink. I can’t tell you how many times customers asked me if the ice was still underneath the newly carpeted floor, to which I always replied, “Why, of course it is. We peel back the carpet every night after closing and skate the night away!”

There was and still is Le Chardonnay, perhaps the darkest, coolest restaurant in Memphis. There was and still is Paulette’s, famous for its crepes and popover rolls with strawberry butter — not to mention the addition it took on a few years ago when the owners finally acquired the tiny white frame cottage next door that for nearly 20 years remained a private residence in the middle of all the hubbub. And its neighbor to the east, Yosemite Sam’s, has held on with the same kind of grip.

Overton Square was a great place to grow up. Today, it’s a great place to be a grown-up. I can walk out of my front door and have Indian food, French food, East-West fusion cuisine, Mexican food, great steaks, Cajun food, Greek food, gourmet pizzas, down-home food, and my favorite — Le Chardonnay’s escargot in a bath of cream and garlic and tomatoes and herbs. I can hear rock-and-roll or live jazz. I can buy antiques or futuristic furniture. I can see plays and live comedy. Or I can just sit in the dark coolness of a movie theater, watching blockbuster new releases or off-the-wall films about British croupiers or old classics with Gloria Swanson in all her glory.

When people from out of town ask me why I stay in Memphis, I usually simply tell them that it’s a hard thing to explain; that they don’t live in my neighborhood. I usually don’t go into what I really think and feel: That there is something to be said about a present and a future that’s so tightly, so endearingly, wrapped in the past.

[This article originally appeared in the October issue of Memphis magazine.]

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

TIGERS WIN BIG; CAL NOT HAPPY

John Calipari was mad.

Really, really mad.

He didn’t care that his basketball team had just beaten its opponent 81-49. He didn’t care that they outscored UT Martin 52-21 in the second half. He didn’t care that the Tigers limited UT Martin to 25 percent shooting in the second half.

He was still thinking about the first half when Memphis only led by one — 29-28, about all the soft play, all the poor shots and selfish play.

“I’m not worried about the opponent. I’m worried about this team,” Calipari said. “We’re scared to death to play. I want to throw up, I’m so sick.”

Kelly Wise led all scorers with 15 points. Four other Tigers scored in double figures: John Grice 12, Shannon Forman and Modibo Diarra 11, and Scooter McFadgon 10. Wise added a game-high nine rebounds, four blocks, and two steals.

After leading for most of the first half, UT Martin was completely shut down in the second half, hitting just 8 of 31 shots in the period. Calipari said he lost his temper in the locker room at the half.

“You wouldn’t have wanted to have been in there at halftime,” the first-year coach told reporters. “If we go to Arkansas and play this way, we will get beat by 40.”

Memphis, now 2-3 on the season, plays at Arkansas Saturday and then travels to Knoxville to take on Tennessee on Tuesday.

“I just want five tough guys, the tough guys are going to play. If I have to play five guys 40 minutes at Arkansas, that’s what I will do,” Calipari said. “We have the ability to be better than we are. We should be 4-1. We should have beaten Utah and Temple. I’m not used to losing.”

The coach singled out Forman and Diarra for praise. “If we don’t have Shannon Forman in the first half, we’re down by 10 at halftime,” said Calipari. “We have to find more playing time for ‘Dibo.”

The win over UT-Martin was Calipari’s first at The Pyramid, but the coach was in no mood to celebrate.

(You can write Dennis Freeland at freeland@memphisflyer.com)

Categories
News News Feature

ALL THAT GLITTERS…

587*. So reads today’s Newsweek cover, the large numerals alongside an anxious-looking photo portrait of the Republican presidential candidate, declared the winner in the Sunshine State Sunday night by the Florida Secretary of State, his sometime state campaign co-chair. Shortly thereafter, Governor Bush came on the screen to do his best Al Haig imitation, assuring us that he was indeed “in charge,” asking America to embrace his presidency-in-waiting. The Gore people, predictably, winced, and vowed to fight on.

Let’s focus a moment, however, on the asterisk above. Yes, we all know why it’s there; those ephemeral, on-again-off-again, start-if-you-dare recounts in three Florida counties. Only one — Broward — actually passed muster with Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Dade County found the time constraints imposed by the Florida Supreme Court theoretically impossible, Palm Beach practically so, as that county missed its turn-in-your-term-paper deadline by two hours. “Professor” Harris meant business, rejecting the extension pleas of the wayward “student.”

Not that the Secretary had any real option. Really. The Florida Supreme Court, in unmistakeable terms, had foisted the November 26th deadline upon Harris, and she was, as they say in the South, “pleasured” to follow through on their instructions, refusing to cut any slack for the Palm Beach County canvassing board. Poor Judge Charles Burton and his colleagues found they had drunk all that coffee and popped all that No-Doz for nought, although their all-nighters did enable them to finish the recount by 7 pm: too late for Secretary Harris, but in plenty of time, at least, for the history books.

Which will give Al Gore some 180 more votes than she did. Future historians will also be sure to mention the 150+ more votes the Vice President earned in partial recounts in Dade County before that county’s canvassing board, citing time constraints, abandoned ship last week, letting their earlier machine totals be the ones that Ms. Harris “certified” Sunday evening.

But don’t set those Election 2000 chapters in stone just yet. James Baker’s imperial statements notwithstanding, Yogi Berra is now the driving force behind Election 2000. As the more famous Yankee always said, “It ain’t over, til it’s over.”

And who knows when that will be? I think the answer to that question is simple: when the seven gentlemen and two ladies in black robes in Washington, D.C. say so. Come what may, I think the Fat Lady sings only when the Supreme Court does. Bush can strut, Gore can whine, but it’s all white noise for the networks to play with until the proverbial “highest court in the land” rules on the biggest case it may well ever adjudicate.

And I have this odd feeling they will pull a surprise that will make life difficult, ironically, for the plaintiffs that were so anxious that they be consulted in the Florida mess. No, I’m not a consitutional lawyer, so the advice you’re about to get is worth what you’ve paid for it. But here’s what common sense — something the Supreme Court’s decisions, historically, have usually embraced wholeheartedly — tells me about how the Justices will rule:

* The Florida Supreme Court, they’ll tell us, got the theory right in upholding the right of any statewide candidate to petitition — within the legal time constraints — for manual recounts in whatever counties that candidate chooses. Further, the federal Supremes will concur with their Florida counterparts’ admonitions that Secretary Harris should be constrained from “prematurely” certifying the state’s totals before those recounts were undertaken.

* But they’ll find one part of the Florida Supreme Court’s November 17th decision peculiar, illogical, and downright awful. Agreeing (ironically) with the Bush team’s assertion that courts have no business legislating the conduct of elections, the federal Supremes will rail, in no uncertain terms, against the Florida high court’s setting of a specific time and date by which a recount should be completed. They will find that court’s November 26th deadline as legally indefensible as the November 17th one in the statutes. What business does a judicial body have, they will har-umpph, deciding how long a legally-mandated manual recount should take? (“Did somebody slip something into their coffee?” they will muse to each other, behind closed doors, for this decision will be unanimous, or close to it.) Courts can only interpret the law, they will opine, not provide the bells-and-whistles by which those laws can and should be implemented. While the Florida Supreme Court behaved responsibly by interpreting state law in a fashion they felt appropriate, they screwed up by mandating a “closure” date as artificial in its own way as the earlier one of which Secretary of State Harris was so fond.

* Clearly, they’ll tell us, this was judicial encroachment into the affairs of the executive branch of government. The court should have simply asserted that the manual recounts be completed “with all deliberate speed,” warned the Secretary of State (again) not to behave capriciously, and let the counties involved in recounts get on with the job at hand, as expeditiously as humanly possible.

* Events may prove this column to be among the silliest I’ve ever written (don’t worry; it’ll have plenty of company), but I can’t help but think that the circumstances described above are the only logical ones that can explain why the Supreme Court decided to hear this particular case. Federal district and appeals’ courts, remember, had thrown out the Bush campaign’s assertions of judicial tampering with hardly a passing glance at the particulars. Why, then, did the Supremes choose to get involved?

* Simple; circumstances changed dramatically on November 17th. Before then, no state courts had overeached; after that, the state’s highest court had done so in reckless, arbitrary fashion. States have near-complete control over the election process, unless the courts’ behavior is so capricious as to merit federal judicial intervention to guarantee the civil rights of involved parties. Bingo. The Florida Supreme Court’s November 17th decision, with its court-imposed recount deadlines that imposed artificial and severe hindrance on the entire process, did just that.

* So what happens next, if and when the Supremes rule in the manner described above? Sad to say, this is where Swami’s crystal ball gets more than a little foggy. Time marches on, and by the date the Supreme Court rules (say Monday, December 4th), there will be precious little time left for Dade County to recount manually its nearly 700,000 ballots before the Electoral College meeting of December 18th. The Supreme Court will need the wisdom of Solomon to figure a practical solution to the legal fix the Florida Supreme Court has gotten the country into.

Regardless, here’s a practical game plan for the week just beginning. The two candidates should now each take well-deserved vacations. Take themselves and their partisans off our television screens for the next week or so — and with them the myriad “talking heads” who have given us all bad cases of vertigo — at least until the Supreme Court hands down its decision.

At that point, however, the candidates, the talking heads, and yes, we the people, should all pledge to agree that their decision — made by nine individuals with nothing at risk in the enterprise — is probably as close to a final solution as we’re ever going to get with this mess. At that point, we need to unite behind the Supremes. Let’s tell the Governor to stop transitioning, and the Vice President to stop pontificating, and to pledge to accept the Supreme Court’s verdict, even if it’s not the one best suited to their purposes. America will easily survive a Bush or Gore presidency; it cannot survive the loser’s failure to accept the considered judgement of the highest court in the land.

(You can write Kenneth Neill at MEMFLYKEN2@aol.com)

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

JOHN JAY’S STOP-BUSH PLOY

Erstwhile gubernatorial canddidate John Jay Hooker went into U. S. District Court in Nashville over the weekend and threw a temporary monkey wrench into the machinery that was to declare that Gov. George W. Bush carried Tennessee in the November presidential election. A long-shot appeal could possibly place that wrench back in the machinery later.

About sunset Friday, after the courts had closed for the week, gadfly Democrat Hooker filed a suit in the overnight depository challenging the constitutionality of the presidential election in Tennessee. Judge Robert Echols called an emergency hearing on Hooker’s suit at about sunset Monday (Nov. 27).

The judge, after a thorough hearing on the matter, said he considered this a serious suit which raises serious questions. However, Echols said he felt he must deny Hooker’s motion to enjoin Tennessee Attorney General Riley Darnell from certifying Bush as the winner in Tennessee. Hooker said the judge indicated to him that he was ruling from the bench so Hooker could immediately begin his appeal to the Sixth U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

Hooker’s move delayed by at least a day the certification of Tennessee’s 11 electoral votes for president. Unless Hooker prevails in his suit, those 11 votes go to George W. Bush, who received 1,057,586 votes to 978,189 for Vice President Al Gore in the Nov. 7 general election.

A supporter of Gore, Hooker asserts in his suit that the U. S. Constitution gives the various state legislatures, and only the state legislatures, the right to appoint presidential electors. Alleging that any certification of popularly-elected electors is null and void, Hooker asserts that a legislature cannot delegate to the people its responsibility to appoint the electors.

Although Bush carried the state in the popular vote, he would likely lose if the matter were left to the Tennessee General Assembly. Democrats control both houses in the Tennessee Legislature.

Hooker is hoping that his suit will be joined to the other presidential election suits now pending before the U. S. Supreme Court. If that were to happen, the election dispute could take on an entirely new dimension.

Across the nation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Democrats and Republicans control 17 legislatures each, and 15 legislatures are split with one party controlling the house and the other the senate. Nebraska has unicameral, non-partisan legislature.

The U. S. Constitution, in Article II, Section 1, reads: “Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the State may be entitled in Congress. . .” Hooker argues in his suit that since the early 1800s the state legislatures, in violation of the Constitution, took it upon themselves to delegate this appointment to the people.

Hooker asserts in his suit that the Legislatures did this “in direct violation of the plain language of the Federal Constitution, above cited, which circumstance has been ignored by both the State and Federal Courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States for all these years.”

In recent years, Hooker has filed and lost a number of federal and state lawsuits attacking campaign financing and the retention election of judges on the Tennessee Supreme Court. Hooker has twice won the Democratic nomination for governor in Tennessee and lost each time in the general election. This past August in the Democratic primary for U. S. Senate, Hooker lost a close election to college professor Jeff Clark, who in turn lost in the general election to incumbent U. S. Senator Bill Frist.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

ALI STEVENS: A CONVERSATION PART II


What do you think of WCW releasing a lot of talent, especially older talent?

Well, my honest opinion of that is that you have to look at the person, the individual themselves because there were people who said that I needed to step aside in power pro. There are people who said that, but as the champion, whenever I came out there was a packed studio and I had 200 kids in my face, that’s who makes the decisions.

As far as the older guys, I don’t know. I don’t know how big a pop Kevin Nash gets. To me I will always be a Hulk Hogan fan. Whether I think hulk Hogan can wrestle, I don’t know and I’m not really going to comment on that. But I will say the man has sold out buildings and the man puts butts in the seats. But whether or not I think he deserves to step down so somebody else can step up, even he said on his interview, yes he would if a person came along who could do what he did, what he does which is put butts in those seats. I think the people who dogged Hogan out forgot the fact that Hogan had no problem stepping aside for Goldberg. Matter fact, he’s one of the only ones who did at first, so now I think it’s a point that do I think the older guys need to step aside or do they need to step up the pace; that’s the question. For instance everybody’s looking at Rock and HHH for instance the matches they’ve had; you take that match and you look at a WCW main event. But now you got Booker T. and Jeff Jarret, guys who will go and they will go and they will you know, Booker T. will work his ass off and Jarret will work his ass off, so can you compare that main event to a Rock and HHH main event? Yeah, so I don’t know if that’s an older guy stepping down if you take Kevin Nash out of the picture or Rick Steiner out of the picture I don’t know; I guess it depends on how you look at it?

Do you have any idea when we’ll see you on TV with WCW?

The story was supposed to be things were supposed to happen mid- to late-September probably after the Pay Per View, but something a lot of people don’t know I blew out my knee and I have a torn Lateral Meniscus that has to be repaired. That’s why I’m home now. I got the MRIs yesterday and they’re going to look at them and let me know if I have to be operated on so I could be out for 2-3 weeks. Which will pretty much blow my September start date. There was an opportunity that looked like it may have happened soon but it probably will be moved back until I’m completely healed, so it’s hard to say. But I can definitely say will be before the end of the year. Put it this way: after the knee is healed I’m going to push even harder and do everything I can to get that spot going, so I don’t plan on waiting any longer than I have to.

Everybody in Memphis knows you’re going to be on TV in no time!

I’m hoping so, I mean they pulled me off of TV there so, I’m hoping so. I’ll admit I’ll miss working down there–the fans are great there and like I said in my last interview, I think we shocked a lot of people, by we I mean myself and the fans, and PPW we shocked a lot of people being able to keep our heads afloat and things built up with what we were up against. I would like to see how things go now with the PPW and the MCW situation. Competition is good.

I would like to give an opinion on something:

This has been totally bothering me that I’ve been reading about and I don’t know how many people are into your newspaper or whatever, but you know this is something …

First of all, a lot of people nowadays say that Randy and MCW certain older people from wrestling are talking about Randy and MCW are killing of this business. That’s a bunch of bull. First of all they’re killing off the business by saying these things. The fact of the matter is, wrestling is show business it always has been from Day One; way back to the days when it was a shoot, it was still entertainment.

When wrestling first started it was a carnival attraction and a guy first had to let one or two people beat him before they put the big bets out there. It was a wrestling attraction back then — then he kicked the guys butt. The fact is this: as we grow up, as you and I have grown what we saw and caught our attention does not catch the eye of the fans these days. You know, we got up the guy worked a hold for 20 minutes worked up, got back in the hold, if it was a good guy We were totally in that phase of good guy/bad guy. These days it doesn’t work like that because half the people nowadays cheer for the bad guys more than they cheer for the good guys.

And I heard about an interview that a certain person did on one of these major Internet things and everybody talked about. If we went out there. I do think there’s not enough wrestling in pro wrestling these days but I also know that without those high spots and stuff like that it wouldn’t be no different than it was 10 years ago and people wouldn’t watch it. Its like a car; there are people out there saying they made a new Corvette they messed it up but if you say that to a 16 year old kid, he’ll say what the hell you talking about? The new corvettes are the funk!! That’s the same thing here. The people who barely watch wrestling anymore — you got to think about wrestling is geared to people 16-35 or 40 years old people. And they try to keep the wrestling in it for the 25 and up. But the rest of the biggest people who buy those t-shirts are kids. And they want to see stuff that’s going to make them go ooohhh and ahhhhhhhh so that crap about we’re killing wrestling; no the reason why Randy ‘n’em can’t draw is because there are two national TV shows, and when these guys are talking all that shit, what’s his name Kenny Wayne or whatever his name was–Buddy Wayne, I told Buddy to his face the fact is “I’m not the Rock.”

You’ve got to give people what they want to see, yes that is true, but Lawler doesn’t even pull anymore. And that’s in Memphis! MCW’s been running shows with Lawler’s name on posters forever and they don’t draw. The fact is, if you’re not an national TV; if you’re not something that people want to see with the posters up in their rooms and all that kind of stuff, it’s hard to draw down there. That’s all there is to it. There’s a lot of competition now.

When they talk about how many people they used to draw, that’s where there was territories; they didn’t’ have the WWF to deal with…I’d like to see Buddy Wayne — now remember Buddy Wayne has drawn some shows, his own shows. I suppose he was putting the shows together the way he said they should be down. He doesn’t draw shit. I know; we worked some of them. He didn’t draw nothing! That’s the bottom line to it. When the WWF of the WCW comes somewhere you’re talking about thousands and thousands of dollars of advertising money. Randy doesn’t have that; MCW doesn’t have that. You’re also talking about what you’re you going to do, you’re going to save your $10 and have $20 to go to a WWF show or spend your $10 to go to a PPW show? You’re going to save and go to those WWF shows and get you a front seat ticket. And that’s the bottom line to it.

So all these people going around talking that crap about, you know they forget back then it was territories and people waited for it because it wasn’t on national TV. I think there were only two shows out: Wrestling at the Chase, AWA, and USWA. Neither of them was on national broadcast. So when you came to a town it was something to see. That’s why they drew back then. And Harley Race will tell you that; that’s where I got it from. Harley Race, Jake the Snake any of those guys will tell you the difference now than the difference then. So when all those people are talking all that trash, No–that’s a bunch of trash. They make it sound like the young guys are killing off the business because we do–shit man come on, that made me mad, I’m sorry I was just venting on that one cause I keep hearing about this stuff and it’s like man we’re not killing anything, we’re trying to keep it alive.

Yeah, it’s pretty obvious that people’s tastes have changed otherwise there would be no ECW.

Ain’t that the truth I mean people want realism, and if I don’t like you and you and I are really fighting and we’re fighting for the title, I’m going to hit your ass with a chair. Buddy Wayne refereed a match I did in Nashville and he got real upset about the sleeper hold. Well, first of all, Buddy, people don’t go to sleep on a sleeper hold anymore. First of all nobody is going to sit there and let you hold them long enough to do it. It’s just my opinion, but it seems to be the opinion of a lot of the young wrestlers coming up and as far as when they’re talking PPW and MCW suck and they draw fleas its not a point they can’t draw fleas. It’s the fact that most towns you go to people don’t know about the shows #1 there’s not enough advertising out there. #2 depending on what else is going on, PPW you can watch that stuff for free on TV. It’s a whole different. I don’t know, that’s just my opinion. I would like to see everybody quit dogging the independents out saying that they can’t draw; no you can’t draw compared to the WWF and WCW and I would love to see any of those guys who are talking all that trash about how they used to draw because, shit, Ohio Valley doesn’t draw like they had how many WWF stars on their last big show and what did the draw 5 or 6 hundred? Building will hold 3000?

So do you think independents are still needed with the popularity of the WCW and WWF?

Oh yeah, cause without them where would we come from? Your new stars if you look at both of the shows there’s a lot of new talent and there’s a lot of people who never wrestled before. I mean look at Kurt Angle he did Olympic wrestling, but where did he learn his trade? Last I remember he was down there at power pro with us? Where did he learn to work the mike? Last I remember he was down at Power Pro with us. Where would I come from? Where would half those guys come from? You know. You need independents, even though both of the big two have their own wrestling schools, they really don’t like the idea of starting fresh with somebody. Kevin Northcutt and me came into the Power Plant and were proud to be there. But we’re also helping guys that are new learn, so you need that, you know? You need guys that have been around and know that basics, that way, the coaches themselves, Like the Sarge, would be going through a lot if he had to deal with all the guys that come through there by himself. He’d be taking bump, after bump, after bump, after bump.

So there’s definitely a place for Indies. Without them, you wouldn’t have the superstars. But the problem is, there people that run independents that need to understand that, “Hey look, when I’m looking at something on TV, when I go to an independent show, that’s what I want to see — not some fat ass ‘Jug-a-lug’–” When a woman comes to a show, she wants to see a Rock, or a HHH–you know, a well built man! She doesn’t want to see her husband.

That’s the problem with Indies nowadays. The only people I know who [really encourages the wrestlers to get in shape] are Harley Race–and Bert [Prentis] –And down South, you have so many wrestling groups that think they know something–They all think they have what it takes to be a star–but ask they how many times they have been to a gym. You see them in the locker room smoking cigarettes, and drinking in the locker room–and they can’t cut a promo to save their life!

(You can e-mail James Haley at jhaley@memphisflyer.com)

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

ALI STEVENS: A CONVERSATION

I met Ali Stevens back in February, 2000, when Randy Hales, the founder, owner, and president of Power Pro Wrestling (PPW) invited the fans from the Memphis Wrestling Internet Mailing list to attend a TV taping at the WMC-TV studio, and to come backstage after the show and meet the wrestlers. He is not only one of the most talented wrestlers to come through the Memphis area, but also one of the most down-to-earth people you will ever meet. I got a chance to talk to Ali while he was at home recovering from an injury. We talked about a variety of subjects including his start in wrestling, Memphis Championship Wrestling (MCW) becoming one of the World Wrestling Federation’s developmental territories, and how he made it to the “Big Time” with World Championship Wrestling (WCW).

How did you get started?

I went to a family reunion and Sylvester Ritter was there … and he gave me the names of some people running shows in ST. Louis. I was trained by those guys for about a year. Then I went on the road with a guy by the name of Bill AsheÉand from there that was it.

Back in St. Louis, did you work with any wrestlers that anyone would know now?

No, it was an independent circuit. King Kong Brody was one of the main guys that helped put the group together before he died. The only person who had actually made it out of one of the groups I worked in St. Louis was Kane (Glenn Jacobs) but like everyone else he had to go down to Memphis to make it.

How did you get to Memphis?

Now you have a story! I went down to Power Pro a year or so ago. Not long after they got started. On older tapes with Jackie on them, you can see me sitting in the audience. It was really weird because I came to meet [Jerry] Lawler and [Bill] Dundee, but I never got to meet Randy [Hales]. Dundee told me — and this is after I had been working for Harley Race, Jake Roberts, Bill Ashe, and of course, Sylvester — but Dundee told me I didn’t have what it would take to make it in Memphis. He told me if I wanted to work for Power Pro, I’d have attend his school, his training center, and pay him money to train there. So I ended up going to Dyersburg with those guys, and I was doing Atomic Dog gimmick. Then after Lawler and Dundee left, I went down [to Power Pro Wrestling] again and I got in touch with Brandon [Baxter], and I actually got to meet Randy this time and we talked to Jim Cornett, and we talked about a gimmick that had been kicked around up north for a while, and Brandon had a good idea as to how it should go, and Ali just came out of there.

What was it like working with the WWF guy when Power Pro had the development deal?

A lot of people have their different opinions on it, but to me, it was great. I saw it as an opportunity to meet people like Jim Ross, and Bruce Pritchard, and get an opportunity to work with Jim Cornett closely, and the talent — I don’t think you can get any better than [Steve Bradley] on the Indy scene — and the same goes for some of the others. So, to me, it was a learning experience. When you get with guys like that, who’ve been around, who’ve been trained up North by people like Dory Funk — it was great! I know there were a lot of rumors about problems. I think the guys that were not happy were not unhappy about being in [Power Pro,] but they were just not happy about being in Memphis period, you know? They wanted to be at home, like I am here [in Atlanta].

Do you keep in touch with the WWF guys who just got promoted?

Here and there. I talk to Viscera on a regular basis. I pretty much do emails with the guys up in Ohio Valley. I have not talked to Kurt [Angle], but if I see them at a show or at the airport we’ll sit down and talk and grab a soda or something. We do that a lot. I’ve run into a lot of those guys at the airport. Everybody’s pretty cool, but we don’t call each other just to shoot the shit a lot; it’s not that kind of situation. I thought me and Bradley would have kept in touch but they sent him to Puerto Rico. So I haven’t heard from him since

Yeah I miss him in Memphis —

[Laughter] I think everybody does, That was a talented dude. He knew all the aspects. I wish I knew why he’s not on TV now.

Yeah I’d like to know myself. How do you think this move, the WWF taking the development deal away from PPW affect it?

I think it was for the better. I read a lot on the Internet that a lot of the guys give Randy a hard time about Randy not running house shows. But see, what they don’t understand is that regardless of what anybody has ever told you, house shows don’t make money. If you don’t pull 2,000-3,000 people, you don’t make money. If you got a guy like Bill Dundee or somebody like myself coming from St. Louis, who you’re paying 150-200 bucks or you have 5-6 guys you’re paying 50 bucks, and 2-3 you’re paying $150 or more, then you’ve got to pay for the building and the ring rental. If you’ve done any type of advertising you’ve got to pay for that. What people don’t understand is just because you’ve put 300 people in a building doesn’t mean you’ve made your money. If you only put 300 people at $8 a head it’s a good chance between all your rental stuff and paying your guys the set up the ring, and your concessions and everything else, you’ve probably lost money.

Randy right now is trying to make a little bit of money, so see if he’s making money from the sponsorship he’s actually making some money. Compared to how we were doing, it’s not that you can’t make money on house shows but like I said, if you’re not drawing nice numbers you’re not making any money. So in my opinion when they took the deal from randy they took a lot of the pressure off. If you had been there the second week after it was done, it was a whole new locker room. We all had fun, nobody was bitchin’, it was like a whole new set up. I’ll admit I miss Jim Cornett being there, I miss the wrestlers, but I don’t miss the politics. And of course, they are people who will say ‘yea, he didn’t miss it because it shot him up to the top.’ Wrong, because I was being shot up to the top anyway; but it really didn’t matter.

But I think for Power Pro itself that was the best thing that could happen because no matter what anybody says — I’ve seen the sheets — if you got look at the sheets of the ratings PPW has more than held their own against the WWF farm league who is using WWF TV talent, and that’s pretty good if you ask me. That’s pretty good. I think without the pressure of having to put on house shows and that kind of stuff it just made for a better. We were all happy. If you had been backstage a couple of times it was horrible.

Speaking of sheets and all, what do you think of the Internet and it’s impact on wrestling?

I am not one of those guys who thinks the Internet has hurt wrestling, but I don’t think it has made it any better. The widespread use of cable has made it what it is today. I do think that like what they call the ‘smart marks.’ I think a smart mark is nothing but a person who has common sense. A person who is smart enough to know we’re not really out there to kill each other. Just like a person who likes soap operas is smart enough to know that a person didn’t really die last week — you know that type of shit. But I also think you got a lot of guys out there who couldn’t make it in this business because they’re too lazy and they tell stuff that nobody should know. And it’s the same thing; I feel the same way about those TV shows, what are those shows? “The Secrets of Pro Wrestling,” about how we do stuff. See that’s the same thing.

But I think the widespread Internet thing where you can look on here and see what happens on a show and you guys can give your opinions, so I think that’s great. I think the wrestling boards are some of the biggest ones out there, right? I mean, I think it’s good because I’m not going to lie; I get a lot of press. So I think it’s great. I do think the problem is not guys like you or guys like Chris Bell or things like that, I think it’s wrestlers who worked on Indy scenes and couldn’t make it or they come down to places like the Power Plant and they couldn’t make it and they get on there and they tell a bunch of crap or that type of stuff.

Speaking of the Power Plant, tell us how you got hooked up with WCW?

In all honesty, it was Jim Cornett [that helped me get to WCW.] I owe everything right now to Jim Cornett, Harley Race and Terry Taylor. Through Jim Cornett, I got to speak to Terry Taylor when he was leaving the WWF. And my situation with the WWF — when they switched over — it blew my situation with them. And Terry stayed in touch and Cornett stayed on top of Terry and from what I understand I was invited down to the Power Plant; Terry Taylor brought me — you know everybody builds their groups — so Terry came in and wanted to bring in as much good talent as he could and he wanted to do a lot with new talent and I was one of the first ones that he picked to bring in as one of his boys, so to speak.

I’ve seen a few of specials on the Power Plant, saying how it’s so tough and how a bunch of people start in the class, and it ends with a few. Is it really that bad?

Well, let me tell you, the first day, I had to call home and my girlfriend had to talk me into staying — that’s how bad it was. The second day, I called her and she tried to talk me into staying and I about told her to kiss my ass. The first day I was like ‘Man I’m not doing this’ because when I came down I’m thinking I’ve been wrestling for seven years; I shouldn’t have to go through this.

But let me tell you; at that time I turned into the same guys I just told you about. They come down, they come into places now and they talk about how bad WCW is right now, but when you look at what’s happening now — a lot of new faces, a lot of new hungry guys, a lot of new guys who are going to get in there and you know what? We will do whatever it takes. Will come off a 20 feet cage; you know what kind of stuff I would do in PPW, and they wouldn’t even let me do half the stuff I wanted to do. So, you know we’re not making $1 million a year, yet. Stuff like that so, you can look for a lot of changes to happen and that’s what they wanted. So when they run you through those drills they’re running you through those drills for one thing: number 1 stay. number 2 you have the drive, and that’s what it’s about. Anybody can walk into a place — you guys don’t know enough about wrestling — you could walk into a wrestling thing and get a job if you wanted. But does that make you a wrestler and will that make you a star? Hell, no. You’re just another guy on the card.

Whom have you worked with in the Power Plant?

Today, all the girls were down there, we see them on a regular basis. David Flair, on my web site there will be a picture of me and David Flair. Johnny “The Bull” as soon as he finishes up his rehab, he should be back [wrestling] soon. I talked to Scott Steiner a few days ago and showed me his new motorcycle. [Laughter]

Pretty much all of the new talent is on a deal where they have to come to the Power Plant at least once a month.

I’ve been hearing rumors about you and a guy named Tony Norris.

Ahmed Johnson. I really can’t answer that right now. For one, I really don’t know what the game plan is; I understand there could be three different scenarios: there’s a tag team situation of course, and I guess that might be that one that everybody’s talking about. And in my opinion that would probably be my choice, because I know tagging with him, with our size and everything we would surely rocket to the top. You’re definitely talking about it Doom…with the way they did the Road Warriors I mean you’re talking about; I mean that would be my first choice. But they there’s this thing going on with the Power Plant guys, [The Natural Born Thrillers stable] and they’re missing a little color in that group, [laughter] so that could happen. Then of course there’s the whole thing that when I first came in there’s the possibility of Ali staying and doing the same character I was doing at PPW, so it could go 3 or 4 ways and it could go another way. I don’t want to say anything and then it changes or switches and I look stupid…

Yeah, stuff could change at a moment’s notice–

[Laughter] that’s the truth. That is the truth…

Tell me, how have you improved since you walked in the Power Plant?

Well, basically, I feel my improvement more in my attitude #1 because there are no superstars in this company anymore, they tell you that when you walk in the door — not that I thought I was a superstar while I was in Memphis or nothing like that — but you have to have a totally different attitude. It’s more of a working attitude. I’m here to work and have a great time you know and that’s it.

Basically my style of wrestling has changed. I’m sure you saw my last couple of matches in PPW they were a bit off. The one I had with Spellbinder was really off because if you notice at certain points I was getting ready to go into wrestling compared to the brawling style that I was doing before and that he does. At one point I think I even went into a Russian Suplex. I was getting ready to go into a hold and work some stuff and I had to catch myself and say ‘wait a minute this ain’t right now.’ Basically now I consider myself more of a worker and if I get the opportunity to actually work a match on Memphis TV I would like that, but I mean I do a lot of stuff now like I do that Spring Elbow that Bradley used to do off the second turnbuckle out of a corner. I do that now. Summersault leg drop, I did get to do that on PPW before I left.

I’ve got a new finisher which I think I got to do on that one kid but Spellbinder was coming in the ring that day, so there are a hand full of new moves that they’ve put together for my character that way you’re looking at a big guy, 275-280, who can wrestle and can also brawl. Compared to now most of WCW guys the big guys, they’re coming in and they’re brawling — it’s the let’s kill — they look like finna come kill somebody. But to a wrestling fan like yourself, you’re seeing 275 pound Rock and HHH wrestling so then when you see Brian Adams or Kronik yeah, they in there kicking ass but can they ‘work’? Don’t get me wrong, now when you’re talking about Brian Adams or Brian Clarke they can work their asses off. That’s the sense of how people talk about WCW talent; Kevin Nash doesn’t do nothing; Hulk Hogan didn’t do nothing; that type of stuff. So we’ve building the big guys who can work an arm drag if I have to. That’s pretty much they way that they’re making everybody in the power plant work now.

[TOMORROW: Older wrestlers, WCW and TV, and the problem with “Indies.”]

(You can e-mail James Haley at jhaley@jhaley.com)

Categories
Music Music Features

AN INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL HOUSER

Standing in front of the Peabody Hotel 10 years ago, Widespread Panic guitarist and vocalist Michael Houser phoned his parents and told them that he just found out he was going to be a father for the first time. He was in town to perform in a Panic show at the now defunct Antenna club. Several months later he had his first son, Waker, and in May of this year his first daughter Eva was born.

“That’s probably my biggest Memphis connection, finding out here that I was going to be father for the first time. We (the band) all love the Memphis shows. We love coming here,” Houser says in an afternoon telephone interview from Louisville, Kentucky, where the band was preparing to give a show at the Louisville Palace.

“The music history of Memphis is important to everybody,” says Houser. Widespread Panic plays in Memphis to a sold-out house, along with the North Mississippi All-stars, Friday and Saturday, November 24th and 25th for their first Mid-South Coliseum concerts. Houser says he regrets that the weather is too inhospitable to play at the Mud Island Amphitheater, one of his favorite venues, which is becoming too cramped for their ever increasing roll of fans.

The Athens, Georgia-based band plays a unique Southern influenced brand of rock-and-roll, which is also rooted in blues, country, and jazz at times. It is impossible to put a label on their style of play. Some group them together with groove bands such as the Grateful Dead and Phish. The in-your-face guitar rifts from Houser and John “J.B.” Bell (guitar), coupled with the speed-demon keyboard work of John “Jo Jo” Herman, and the driving bass of Dave Schools, all laying on top of a thumping bed of percussion laid down by Domingo “Sonny” Ortiz (congas and varied percussion) and the tireless drum work of Todd Nance is enough send the crowd rolling into the aisles.

“You can’t really compare us to Phish. I think they are just totally a different style of music,” explains Houser. Although he is right that the musical styles between Phish and Panic are different, it is the eagerness of both bands to stray from the music sheets and explore new territory that links them in some minds.

When asked if the demise of Phish might bring the Panic a bigger following, Houser responds, “Well, it’s just like when Jerry [Garcia] died. I don’t think people wake up one morning and say, ‘Hey, well I really liked the Dead, but now I am going to start following the Panic because the Grateful Dead aren’t playing anymore.’ I don’t expect to wake up in a different world tomorrow because Phish isn’t playing anymore.”

Pollstar rated Widespread Panic 51st in the magazine’s top 100 touring bands of 1999. That came without MTV hype or consistent top-40 radio play. “We live off of word of mouth,” says Houser, whose band’s open taping policy sends digital copies of their concerts streaming over the Internet.

“I really don’t have any problem with sites like Napster who give out discs for free. I can see how a band like Metallica, who relies mostly on record sales to make a living, might have a problem with it, but our fans are going to buy our C.D.’s anyway, even if they have all the live shows, or if they were available off the Internet for free.” Houser says that the band sells about 100,000 to 200,000 copies of each disc — low levels by industry standards. However, what they lack in C.D. revenue is more than made up for during their tireless 100-plus shows yearly. They set a one-day New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival record in 1999, attracting 63,000 concertgoers to their show. Their 1998 Athens, Georgia Light Fuse and Get Away CD release party set the outdoor concert record with over 100,000 people in attendance.

Houser, heavily influenced by the guitar rock of the Seventies, recently had one of his dreams fulfilled when they when they were joined on stage by Robbie Krieger of the Doors for renditions of Light My Fire and Stop Breakin’ Down, in Los Angeles last November. When asked what music he is listening to these days, Houser laughs, “I listen mostly to my kids! I don’t really listen to much rock these days . . . I listen to a lot of ethnic music and classical. I usually just tune it to N.P.R. (National Public Radio) and listen to whatever they throw at me.”

He explains that most of the band is married and several of them have kids now. “It’s always hard to leave my family, but it’s what we do,” he continues. “And we have kind of grown up on the road. It’s what we love.” His wife and children join him for some of the more interesting venues, including their European tour last year.

Panic will spend this Thanksgiving on the road in Nashville while Houser’s wife and children will be having dinner with her parents at his home in Athens. “We [the band and crew] will all have a Thanksgiving dinner together in Nashville while getting ready for the Memphis shows. We always have big Thanksgiving dinners together since we are always on the road.”

Widespread played a Memphis show at the Orpheum in 1994 during the night of the infamous ice storm. “We thought briefly about canceling the show, because we just didn’t think anybody would be able to make it, but our manger insisted we go on . . . and we got ready to play, and a lot of people had made it through the ice, which was pretty fearsome that night. That was a good night,” Houser says. “Memphis was one of the earliest cities where we could go and expect a crowd, having a good time. We had some good times at the Antenna Club, that’s where I told the rest of the band that I was going to have my first child.”

The Panic comes to Memphis on this tour with a new soundman who had not even heard about the Panic a month ago. They completely replaced their sound and light crew recently, reacting to feedback from the fans. “That was our whole motivation for changing. We were getting a lot of comments about the sound. People were writing and calling saying ‘I can’t hear this.’” Houser says that the recent feedback from fans indicate that the sound problems have been cleared up. The staff at the Widespread Panic office, the Black Cat crew, peruse the multiple Internet chatrooms and message boards dedicate to the Panic, reading the fans’ comments and relaying them to the band.

Widespread Panic started a new recording project which they will focus on beginning in January at John Keane’s studio in Athens. They have some songs already recorded, “but you never know what’s going to happen. Sometimes you end up with something totally different than what you started with.” Houser says the production of the new album shouldn’t delay their Spring 2001 tour. The album is a collaborative work with the songs written by all of the band members.

“We usually end up with too many songs,” Houser says. “We usually have more songs than the discs allow.” Panic Producer John Keane’s input is crucial at this stage of the creative process. Another Joyous Occasion, Panic’s latest release, came out earlier this year and featured live cuts of the band joined by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band from New Orleans.

“Come with your party hat on,” he says. “Each Memphis show has been special to us in different ways,” explains Houser. They have certainly been special to the Panic crowd lucky enough to see them in Memphis. One thing for certain, when the Coliseum lights go down Friday night and the Panic sound rolls out, we are all in for another joyous occasion.

Categories
News News Feature

HIGH SCHOOL HELPFUL

She doesn’t consider herself a typical teenager. And maybe she shouldn’t — at the Help for Hope House 5K on Saturday (November 25th), she’ll be the one wearing the “Race Director” t-shirt.

Caitlin Steiger, a 16-year-old White Station High School student, started the Help for Hope House 5K last year.

Steiger, who has been running since she was in eighth grade, was participating in road races almost every weekend when she decided it might be fun to put on her own race. It was while she was in the girls’ service club at White Station Middle School that she was introduced to Hope House.

“Do you know about Hope House?” she asks, exuberantly. “It’s amazing.”

Hope House is a daycare for children infected or affected by HIV/AIDS. Started by the Junior League in 1995, Hope House picks the children up from the homes, feeds them two meals a day, plus a snack, and tries to help their families through education and better written perhaps.

“When I decided I thought it would be really neat to direct a race,” says Steiger, “it just kind of fit in perfectly that Hope House needed publicity.”

She says her parents thought she would get discouraged when she saw how much work she’d have to do. But she didn’t. Instead she started sending out letters to corporations asking for sponsorship.

“I followed all the letters up with phone calls, lots and lots of phone calls.”

Steiger is modest about her accomplishments. She shrugs and pushes a lock of shoulder length brown hair behind her ear. Anyone can do a race.

She says her experiences at road races paved the way for her to direct the race. “It’s really easy to see what to do and what not to do when you’ve gone as a runner.”

Steiger also gives credit to her parents for their support, driving her places before she got her license. “They help a lot with the whole thing. And I always ask their opinions on things.”

Last year, the fundraiser took in about $22,000 before expenses, and netted about $13,000. So far, this year’s total before expenses is $19,000.

As for how much money she wants to raise this year, she laughs and says, “As much as possible. We’re hoping to get more than last year.”

Right now, Steiger is keeping a sharp eye on the weather. “If we have bad weather, our expectations drop dramatically,” she says. So far, the weather forecast looks good; it’s supposed to warm up a little, which Steiger says will be perfect.

“Last year, we couldn’t have asked for a better day.”

Steiger, who began planning for the 5K about five or six weeks after the last one finished, says that it wasn’t easier to direct the race just because she had done it once before.

“The logistics part was easier, because we knew from last year. Plus I’m not as nervous. But money raising this year was really hard.”

The race lost a $5,000 corporate sponsor, as well as some smaller donors.

“We didn’t gain a $5,000 sponsor this year,” says Steiger. “So even though I’ve raised more than I had last year, it took a lot more work. I guess we were expecting it to be all the people from last year, and then some. That was really hard, realizing it wasn’t going to be that way.”

But Steiger’s used to challenging herself. This past summer, she was a counselor at Camp Dream, a camp for underprivileged, special needs children. After that, she spent two weeks in the Minnesota Boundary Waters with Outward Bound, being bitten by tiny bugs and carrying a heavy canoe over her head. All of which she described as fun.

In some ways, she is a typical teenager. She loves music, although not pop fare. She likes older stuff. Her eyes light up when she talks about the David Grisman Quintet, the Grateful Dead, and Dar Williams.

And she’s gotten her friends involved, passing out brochures and working at Shelby Farms the day of. The phone rings and she talks to one of them briefly about running the 5K.

But this will be her last year directing the race.

“I’ll always be involved with Hope House at some level, but I’ll be applying to college at this time next year,” says Steiger, “I just don’t think It’d be possible time-wise.”

Not that she’s going to let the race die. Not after all her hard work.

“It’s established. It’d be a shame for Hope House to lose this fundraiser. We’re definitely going to find someone to take it over.”

(You can write Mary Cashiola at cashiola@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

WHY RIP SCHERER FAILED

Rip Scherer called me last Thursday. “I don’t know how the next few days are going to play out,” he said, “but I wanted to call you and apologize for the things I said to you.”

The coach was referring to a conversation we had three weeks previous. Scherer had been upset after I wrote a column saying that maybe it would be better for him to resign than to go through the ordeal of being fired. But here he was, two days away from the last game he would ever coach at the University of Memphis, calling to apologize.

Even at the end, Rip was Rip.

Monday at a press conference to announce his firing, Scherer wanted to make it clear that he had not quit. He wanted in the worst way to remain the Tigers’ head coach. Nothing could make him give up. Not six straight losing seasons, not talk radio shows calling for his ouster, not newspaper columnists speculating on his future.

“I know it will be an upset if we are allowed to come back,” Scherer said during that telephone conversation, “but upsets do happen.”

Not this time, Coach, not this time. His team that had played so gallantly all season long ran out of steam against a Tulane squad playing for a winning season and a possible bowl invitation. When Memphis scored a touchdown in the first quarter on a 25-yard pass from Scott Scherer to Ryan Johnson only to see it nullified by a penalty, what little wind left in the Tigers’ sails dissipated. By halftime the score was 17-0. There was nothing left to do but fire the coach. U of M Athletic Director R.C. Johnson did that on Sunday morning.

Monday the coach stayed and talked to reporters, trying to put the past six years in some kind of perspective.

“It’s been a tough four weeks, it’s been a tough week, and it’s been a tough 24 hours,” Scherer said. “You put your heart and soul into something like we have here — so much of your existence, your family, every waking moment for the last six years. It is frustrating that you couldn’t bring it to fruition.”

Why did this coach– whose work habits are as unquestioned as his integrity — fail? Here are three reasons:

* QUARTERBACK

Scherer started eight different quarterbacks in six seasons. He staked his future on Westwood’s Kenton Evans and by the end he was playing his son, a 5’8” walk-on, at the position. But it is Bernard Oden who sums up Scherer’s quarterback problems.

Recruited by Chuck Stobart’s staff, Oden had to sit out his freshman season as a non-qualifier. When Scherer arrived in 1995, Oden was a sophomore battling Qadry Anderson and Joe Borich for the starting quarterback job. Oden entered the first game of the Rip Scherer era at Mississippi State as the third-string quarterback. But when Anderson went down with a knee injury and Borich had trouble moving the team, Oden came in and almost sparked the team to a come-from-behind victory.

The next week, at Michigan, Oden again came on in relief of Borich and put on a magnificent display of courage. He took a physical beating; they kept carrying him off the field, but Oden kept coming back.

The next week, Oden got his first start and Scherer got his first win over Southwest Louisiana, 33-19. It was an ugly win, the kind Memphis fans would see often — although in retrospect, not often enough — during the next six years. Scherer was disappointed that Oden made several mistakes and did not start him for the next 19 games. The next season Oden was moved to flanker, but rarely played. He pouted and talked about quitting.

But in the spring before his senior year, Oden had a change of heart and won the coach over with his hard work. He started every game in 1997 — the only quarterback to do so in the past six years — and set the single season passing mark with 2,249 yards. Memphis went 4-7 but three of the losses were by a total of nine points and Oden was voted a team captain.

Oden had a chance to play another season because he would graduate in four years (a NCAA rule allows non-qualifiers to regain the year that they lost if they can graduate in four years). But Scherer said, “No thanks.” The coach told associates that Memphis would never be better than a 4-7 team with Oden as their quarterback. The next season the Tigers were 2-9 and started three different quarterbacks.

Scherer could have had the same starting quarterback for his first four years. Who knows how good Oden would have become if he had been given the chance to play early in his career? But Bernard Oden was not a Scherer-type player. He wasn’t poised and articulate. He was tough and athletic, but that wasn’t enough for Scherer and they both suffered for it.

Scherer wasted a lot of time hoping that Evans would be his quarterback. It didn’t pan out. Evans would repeatedly disappoint Scherer before transferring to Tennessee State. Last season Neil Suber and Travis Anglin played musical chairs at quarterback. Scherer kept concentrating on what they didn’t do well — running for Suber; passing for Anglin. Coming into this pivotal season, Scherer’s sixth, the quarterback position was still unsettled.

Add Danny Wimprine to the mix. During the first week of practice it was clear the freshman from John Curtis High School in Louisiana was the best quarterback on the team, even Scherer said so privately. But the coach thought that the contract extension he received in 1999 meant he would not be fired this season, so he redshirted the best quarterback he’d ever recruited to Memphis.

“There is a saying among coaches that you don’t redshirt players for the next coach,” Scherer said on Monday. “Had we had any idea that this was a possibility, I might have played some of those guys. By the end of the year, they might have had an impact on some of those games. I had made a commitment to Danny Wimprine and I just couldn’t renege on that.”

Scherer said he promised the player and his parents that he would only play him in an emergency. Thus the dilemma for the coach. Keep your word or keep your job. For Scherer that was an easy call.

* OFFENSIVE LINE

Other than quarterback, no position was as difficult for Scherer as offensive line. The primary reasons for this were: 1) a lack of talent at the position when Scherer arrived; 2) an inability to recruit to the position; 3) an unwillingness to move some of the excellent defensive linemen to the other side of the ball; 4) six offensive line coaches in six years.

Of these the last is by far the most devastating. Scherer had trouble keeping a staff together in general, but six offensive line coaches is ridiculous. The worst may have been this summer when Joe Susan left after being in Memphis less than six months. Rick Mallory was brought in and had to pull a line together with little time. The players had been under three different line coaches in the past 12 months! No wonder they had trouble.

The strong suit of the team this year was defensive line, with eight or 10 quality players. If Scherer had moved guys like Jarvis Slaton, Patrick Willis, and Boris Penchion to offense when they were freshmen, who knows how good the line could have been? It seemed a waste to have so many good defensive linemen on the bench when the offensive line was suffering.

Without a good offensive line, Memphis could not run or pass. They finished 111 out of 114 teams in total offense. If the line play had been better, Scherer might have won an extra two games a year. In that case I wouldn’t be writing this column and Scherer would still have a job.

* LOCAL RECRUITING

With his first full recruiting class in 1996, Rip Scherer pulled in as good a group of Memphis players as the Tiger program had seen in a decade. Highlighted by Damien Dodson and Kenton Evans, the record-setting passing duo from Westwood, the class also included running back Teofilo Riley from Central and tight end Reid Hedgepeth from CBHS.

Dodson became the second leading receiver in school history and Riley, when he got a chance to run the ball, was excellent. But Evans was a bust and Hedgepeth left the team suddenly because of a dispute with one of the many offensive line coaches, Dave Magazu. After 1996, Scherer was unable to get the big-name local kids to sign. Only Willis and Marcus Bell, both from Kingsbury, and DeCorye Hampton from Westwood were key local signees and two of them, Hampton and Willis, had to sit out their first year because of academics.

After that Scherer seemed to give up on Memphis and instead turned his sites on the lucrative high schools of Georgia and Texas. But the program suffered because Memphis could not be competitive in its own city. Of course every Tiger coach has had this problem, but probably none to the extent Scherer did.

In his typically classy final press conference Scherer talked about how with a few more wins they would have drawn more fans and created the kind of winning atmosphere it will take to lure the local high school stars. He still thinks it can be done.

“I really think this has a chance to be a turnaround program like a Tulane, an Arkansas, or a Louisville, where someone comes in and is able to have success early. And I hope they do,” Scherer said. “These kids deserve to be successful.”

The former coach had this piece of advice on his way out. “Put a 10, 12, $14 million facility over there [on the South Campus]. Put more money in the budget,” he said. “And I am saying this not as a bitter person at all. I am saying do it for the next guy so that you are not sitting here five or six years from now with the same kind of meeting. That’s the only way this cycle will stop.”

Rip Scherer is no longer the head football coach of the University of Memphis. His constant optimism and steadfastness will be missed. It is easier to write about what went wrong under his regime than it is to fix the inherent problems. R.C. Johnson has an important job in finding a replacement for Scherer. But that is just the beginning. To be competitive, even in Conference USA, the university needs to make a lot of changes. But it all starts with winning. It’s a cliché, but after all is said and done, that is the bottom line.