Month: April 2001

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

U of M SPRING GAME TODAY

New U of M head football coach Tommy West will oversee his first Spring Game at 1 p.m Saturday afternoon. The contest, which will pit the Tiger offense against the Memphis defense, if free and open to the public.

Usually the defense dominates the offense, at these affairs, but this year the Tigers will unveil a spread, no-huddle style when they have the ball. The new offense has provided a challenge for the defense all spring. The offense is similar to the one Arkansas State and Tulane used last year. Both teams gave the Memphis defense problems. The Memphis offense is under new coordinator Randy Fichtner, who held a similar position last year at Arkansas State.

Most fans will probably focus on the battle at quarterback, a position featuring three different players who started at one time or other last season along with a promising freshman who was redshirted last year. Travis Anglin, Neil Suber, and Scott Scherer all got opportunities as the starting quarterback in 2000. Danny Wimprine has Tiger fans buzzing, based primarily on his high school career at John Curtis High School in New Orleans. Wimprine missed part of spring drills because of academic problems.

But West faces a number of questions besides who will be his starting quarterback. He has to replace the entire middle of his nationally-ranked defense. Nose guard Marcus Bell and middle linebacker Kamal Shakir were seniors last season and are expected to be drafted later this month by the NFL. Junior free safety Idrees Bashir opted to go early to the pros. Also cornerback Michael Stone is also gone. Stone and Bashir were the fastest players on the defense and will be difficult to replace.

When West was hired he said that rebuilding the offensive line would be his first priority. The Memphis program went through six offensive line coaches in six years under ousted coach Rip Scherer. Rick Mallory is back as coach for a second season and will build a line anchored by senior left tackle Artis Hicks (6-5, 315), senior left guard Josh Eargle (6-2, 292) and junior center Jimond Pugh (6-3, 300). Eargle is coming off a serious knee injury that sidelined him early in the 2000 season. Several players will be looking to nail down the two spots on the right side, including juniors Trey Eyre (6-3 300) and Joey Gerda (6-6, 307, redshirt freshman Travis Triplett (6-5, 328), and converted tight end Wade Smith a 6-4, 250-pound junior.

The spread offense will utilize three or four wide receivers. The team has many wide outs, but except for junior Ryan Johnson, they have not been able to sustain solid play over a number of games. Speedy sophomore Darren Garcia and redshirt freshman Tavarious Davis are the most promising. Senior Bunkie Perkins and junior Trip Higgins are also expected to see a lot of playing time.

Other Tiger players to watch include: senior defensive end Tony Brown (6-3, 274) who needs to be a dominant force in the defensive line; promising sophomore Eric Taylor (6-3, 283), who played last year as a true freshman and redshirt junior Boris Penchion (6-4, 269) will man the tackles; junior defensive end Stanley Jackson (6-6, 235) will back up senior Andre Arnold (6-4, 238); sophomore tackle Albert Means (6-4, 335) a transfer from Alabama is awaiting word from the NCAA about his eligibility for the 2001 season; linebackers Derrick Ballard (6-2, 205) and Robert Douglas (6-3, 215) are promising linebackers, Ballard is a sophomore who occasionally started in 2000 while Douglas is a redshirt freshman who excelled on the scout team last year as a fullback.

One of the major advantages Memphis will have when it opens it season on Labor Day evening at Mississippi State is the surprise factor. The Bulldog coaches will not have any film to watch on the new Tiger offense. So, donÕt expect the Memphis staff to display too many wrinkles with its new offense today. A few razzle-dazzle plays to give the hard-core fans something to remember over the long hot summer, but not too much for Jackie Sherrill to disect.

Categories
News News Feature

WE RECOMMEND (THE GOOD PART)

Boy, did I score some great junk the other day. The kind that makes you feel all warm inside. Makes you happy. Makes the world seem like a better place. NO, not that kind of junk. Yard sale and estate sale junk. My Saturday hobby. The thrill of the find. That elusive search for the $20 table that turns out to have been made by Pennsylvania Shakers in the 1800s and is worth far more than my house and other worldly goods put together. Haven’t run across that one yet, but this past weekend’s finds were a small but beautiful painting of the Madonna (not the singer), a hand-carved wooden cigarette box, and a certain kind of corkscrew. I figured between the three of those I might get some kind of relief when I wake up in the middle of every night in the midst of a full-blown panic attack. I did, however, pass on a giant painting of a ham. A ham. In the dining room of one of those beautiful mansions on Belvedere. Go figure. My other great find of the day was a headline in The Commercial Appeal that read: PUTIN SHAKES UP STAFF, PUSHES STALLED REFORM. Couldn’t someone there please rerun that with a typo so it reads STALL REFORM? Is that asking too much? I think not. BUT the most wonderful find of the week came in the form of a tidbit of information passed along to me. It seems that the Memphis Airport Authority has contracted with a photographer to find the perfect away-from-their-desks settings to photograph each member of the Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission for a display to be installed at Memphis International Airport. This is too good to be true. And such an easy one that I almost hate to take a potshot. I mean, c’mon. Barbara Swearengen Holt posing in front of The Pyramid? Please. Maybe a photograph of her on the toilet (speaking of stall reform) at the City Council calling someone at The Pyramid from the bathroom’s $800 telephone that you and I paid for. Or she could be calling to have Ricky Peete paged at Shoney’s to tell him to put down the bread. And of course the exhibit must include County Commissioner Michael Hooks at home in the kitchen sweating over a hot stove. Sorry, couldn’t help but make that crack (and neither could he, apparently). And what photo exhibit of our celebrated officials would be complete without a photograph of City Councilwoman Pat VanderSchaaf on a shopping spree at Marshall’s in Raleigh? Oh, wait. There are already photos of that, aren’t there? Poor Pat. I still love her. Anyone who skips a council meeting because of a sick pet is A-okay in my book. At any rate, all remarks made in fun, as I am certainly not perfect myself. I wish only the best for the photo exhibit, for the City Council and County Commission members, and for everyone, because I am just that kind of guy.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

SEDUCED

In the Mood For Love lures American audiences to Asian films.

The world moves on a woman s hips, David Byrne sang with the Talking Heads, and so it is with director Wong Kar-wai s In the Mood For Love, which finds its central image in the delicate sway of actress Maggie Cheung s gait. In this laser-focused chamber piece, the image is appreciated for its pure formal beauty, but it s also a central image of longing in a film predicated more on ineffable desires than on direct actions.

Over the last decade, Kar-wai has emerged as one of the most exciting and most exalted filmmakers in the world, but In the Mood For Love will be the director s first film to grace a Memphis screen. Filmgoers who wish to see more global cinema shown locally should turn out in droves to assure that it won t be the last.

In the Mood For Love is a radically different film from the three great works that have earned Kar-wai his reputation in the U.S. the chaotic companion pieces Chungking Express and Fallen Angels and the farewell to Hong Kong colonial rule, Happy Together. In form it would seem to be the most accessible of his works, but with its slower pace and lack of giddy humor or action, it is probably a less likely candidate to find a major audience than his previous films.

For most film buffs familiar with Kar-wai, those three prior films embody the last decade s most definitive film style a universe of fluid, handheld camera; quick editing; loud pop music; and young, quirky characters who form a frenetically romantic New Wave vision of modern urban life. In the Mood For Love is as mannered and in its own way every bit as rapturous as those films, but it is marked by a different visual strategy. A period piece, In the Mood For Love recreates the Hong Kong of Kar-wai s early-Sixties childhood with a largely stationary camera, slow tracking shots, and deliberate editing. Though much of the film was improvised (as is standard with Kar-wai), it feels painstakingly designed, whereas films like Chungking Express and Fallen Angels feel completely off-the-cuff.

In the Mood For Love centers on Mr. Chow (Tony Leung) and Mrs. Chen (Cheung), who, along with their spouses, rent adjacent rooms in a crowded apartment building. The film s central location is the building s narrow hallway and staircase, in which Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chen are constantly meeting and, through decorum or simple shyness, taking great pains to avoid physical contact.

Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chen gradually figure out that their spouses (heard but never seen on screen) are having an affair. This draws the pair together in a romantically sublimated union, where they act out how their spouses may have begun their affair and rehearse confrontations that may never actually happen. Their relationship grows close but remains mostly unrequited and, as far as we know, unconsummated. The two protagonists hardly even touch, so the slightest mingling of fingers or clasp of hand to wrist break the tension with unbearable force.

The film s ending is a putting-things-in-perspective stylistic departure similar to the one Kar-wai deployed in Happy Together. It s a finale that s almost too mysterious and lovely, a bit of solemn, hushed closure that may throw off some viewers but it is no less monumental than this film deserves.

Kar-wai is the most fetishizing and romantic major director on the planet, and this minimalist film is where he winnows his obsessions down to their essence resulting in a tense pas de deux around the kind of unrepresentable desires all his films are infused with.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon which I adored exposed a lot of people to the gloriously fertile world of modern Asian cinema. With In the Mood For Love those same viewers will have a chance to sample a different kind of Asian film, one that may be less crowd-pleasing but no less moving or vital. Chris Herrington

Categories
Book Features Books

AMY TAN’S LATEST

Amy Tan’s latest novel, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, is a novel in three parts, the first of which is fine enough, the second of which is very fine, and the third of which is I don’t know what.

We’ll start, as Tan does, with the “fine enough” part, which has as lead character Ruth Young, a ghostwriter in her late 40s in contemporary San Francisco who deciphers the scribblings of self-help, New Age, and cyberspace-loving authors who haven’t the time or talent to put word to thought themselves. Young lives with Art (a university linguist) and Art’s two teenage daughters (full-time whiners), and things are tense. Because? Young is getting on Art’s nerves. Young is too “accommodating” when it comes to hand-holding her spaced-out clients. Young too easily makes easy matters difficult. Young elects to slide into mutism every August 12th. And Young’s mother, LuLing (in the early stages of Alzheimer’s?), is getting on Young’s nerves too. These scenes add up to what has become in too much fiction these days a dependable and upper-middle-class “to do” list that may be convincingly rendered but not especially of interest to you or anyone.

Skip to the “I don’t know what” and third part of The Bonesetter’s Daughter: LuLing gets a boyfriend. (Impossibly.) Young gets back on track with Art. (Quickly. Unconvincingly.) Young starts writing her own, instead of others’, stuff. (Predictably.) And LuLing and Young get back in touch and back to basics, way back, then out of one another’s hair. (Inconceivably.)

Which leaves us the middle and “very fine” section of Tan’s book: LuLing’s girlhood in China in the Thirties, and what went down in a small village called Immortal Heart, at the edge of a cliff overlooking a ravine called the End of the World, inside the household of an extended family of quality inkmakers, and before LuLing’s birth, inside the thought of LuLing’s biological mother and inside the events she put up with as tradition dictated. Then back to LuLing and what she went through during the war and after in her efforts to reach California.

This is complicated, verging on mystifying, but satisfying storytelling on Tan’s part, rich in custom and richer in telling, human detail, detail the author puts more to her disposal than the latter-day observations that litter and detract from her book’s parts one and three.

What modernist claimed his story lines had a clear beginning, middle, and end, but not in that order? The Bonesetter’s Daughter makes that order easy, and it’s this: go for the middle, double-back to the beginning, end up last.

Body and Soul

In 1987, the Church Health Center opened its doors with this goal in mind: to bring quality health care in Memphis to the working poor, their families, the elderly, the uninsured, the homeless. Fourteen years later, the center has grown to become a model of its kind– treating over 30,000 patients per year and staffed by over 400 physician volunteers, in addition to nurses, dentists, optometrists, and office workers. It receives no government funds; the current annual budget of $6.5 million is based on the contributions of over 200 congregations throughout the city.

Dr. G. Scott Morris, the United Methodist minister who founded the center, is now author of a book that tells the stories of 14 patients and through those stories, Morris’ own. The introduction to Relief For the Body, Renewal For the Soul (Paraclete Press) covers the author’s personal response to the biblical injunction to treat the sick and care for the poor, then moves briefly to his seminary and medical training, then to his experience in Zimbabwe with village health-care workers and a witch doctor, a man who taught him to look for the spiritual source of disease, not just the scientific. But by far the greater share of the book is given over to the individuals who sought help from Church Health, got it, and in turn helped underscore Morris’ understanding of his own ministry Ñ to treat body and soul by putting belief into action.

To body and soul add mind in the case of The Bonesetter’s Daughter Building the Therapeutic Sanctuary (1st Books Library) by Ron McDonald, pastoral counselor at the Church Health Center. The subtitle reads, “The Fundamentals of Psychotherapy: A Pastoral Counseling Perspective,” which gives you some idea of the author’s blueprint approach to setting up “a sanctuary of healing,” one that is centered on the relationship between therapist and patient and built on “the boundary between religion and psychology.” His starting point, however, is faith, and in what may come as a shock to some, that applies as much to the counselor as it can to the patient. The book is a basic how-to on therapeutic principles that are so basic–Lesson One: Humility– not a few strictly secular psychotherapists would do well to have themselves a look.

[Dr. G. Scott Morris will be signing copies of his book at Burke’s Book Store on Thursday, April 5th, from 5 to 7 p.m.]

Categories
News News Feature

ASK VANCE

Dear Vance: Look what I purchased on eBay — a stereopticon card showing President William McKinley in Memphis. So when did he come here, where is this scene depicted on the card, and why did he visit? — M.F., Memphis.

Dear M.F.: So many questions, and such a limited amount of space I have these days — not like those book-length columns that we used to run back in the 1930s, before the terrible shiny-white paper shortage — so I’ll get right to the point.

Our 25th president had been elected to a second term in office in 1900 and, for reasons that he never really made clear to me, decided to embark on a goodwill tour of the country the following year, taking with him five of his cabinet members. The party left Washington, D.C., by train in mid-April and made a looping journey through the sunny Southland. Newspapers reported that the individual railroad cars, “among the handsomest ever constructed in this country,” were given names: The president’s coach was the Olympia; others were Omena, Guina, St. James, Pelion, and Charmion. I just thought you should know that. After a brief stop in Corinth, Mississippi, the train arrived at the Calhoun Street Station — site of today’s Central Station — on Tuesday afternoon, April 30th.

An artillery squad fired a 21-gun salute, and Company A of the Confederate Veterans formed an honor guard as McKinley and his entourage filed into fancy carriages for the drive to Court Square. The newspapers of the day noted the irony, “as the men in gray with the western sun beaming fiercely on their gray heads and stooped forms marched as a guard to the former leader of the blue and the Grand Army of the Republic.” Nearly 40 years had passed, but we were still cranky about the way it ended, you understand.

At Court Square, “the masses of humanity filled every available space” to see the president, and “every time he changed a pose, the camera fiends took a snap shot of him.” Even then, you see, the paparazzi were making themselves a nuisance. But if they hadn’t been there, M.F., you wouldn’t have your nice photo, which provides a three-dimensional image of the event if you can find one of the viewers the old cards fit in.

McKinley stepped up on the makeshift platform you see here and made a brief speech, thanking Memphians for “the warmth of your welcome and the generosity of your greeting” and paying special tribute to “the valor of the Tennessean [which] has been conspicuous upon every battlefield of the American republic.” I’m sorry I don’t have space to reprint it here.

Afterwards, the president and his staff attended a small reception at the Nineteenth Century Club, when it was located downtown on Third Street, and after that they attended a gala banquet at the Peabody Hotel. Not the hotel readers know today, but the first one, which stood at Main and Monroe. The Commercial Appeal devoted six pages to the banquet, even running a diagram showing where each person was seated “At the President’s Table.” Among other things, anyone wishing to squint long and hard enough at the accounts preserved on microfilm (as I did) will learn that the dignitaries dined on lobster cutlets and “teal ducks,” the president sat with his back to the north (hmmm — is that significant?), and a two-foot-wide ribbon of American Beauty roses stretched down the middle of the main table. But what’s really interesting is that all this hubbub was for the men only. The women, including Mrs. McKinley and her escorts, attended a smaller reception in the Peabody Cafe — sort of like the menfolk attending a grand party in Chez Philippe while the women lunch at Cafe Expresso. In fact, newspapers reported, “No toasts were proposed, as it was desired to shorten the dinner in order to give the ladies opportunity for looking in on the banqueters and hearing the president’s speech.” As long as they stood outside in the hallway, I suppose, and kept quiet.

The parties, big and small, wrapped up around midnight, and instead of staying in Memphis, McKinley and Company returned to the train, which departed around 1:30 in the morning. The Olympia, Omena, and the rest were sleeper cars, you understand.

Memphis’ brush with greatness was over. Only one element hinted at a later fate. The Commercial Appeal observed that McKinley was followed everywhere by detectives and Secret Service: “These precautions are always taken as a safeguard in the event of any possible attack.” The tour headed west to California, then looped back east. Then, on the afternoon of September 6, 1901, while attending a reception at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, McKinley was shot down by Leon

Czolgosz, whom the papers described as an “anarchist.” He died eight days later.

Holiday Inn History

Dear Vance: I know that the first Holiday Inn was on Summer, but I understand that founder Kemmons Wilson also built others at the main entrances of our city. So where are they today? — D.T., Memphis.

Dear D.T.: One thing you must remember is that the main “entrances” to our city in 1952, the year the first Holiday Inn opened, were different from what they might be today. After all, this was before the expressways, and before Poplar became the main east-west corridor.

As you mentioned, the first Holiday Inn, with 120 rooms, opened at 4941 Summer, just east of Mendenhall, in August 1952. Wilson then built three more, as he told reporters, “one on each corner of the city, so you couldn’t come into Memphis without passing one of my hotels.”

The locations today may surprise you. Holiday Inn North, also 120 rooms, was located at 4022 Highway 51 North, at the corner of Watkins. Today it’s a scruffy vacant lot.

Holiday Inn South, with just 76 rooms the smallest of the original four, was built at 2300 South Bellevue, or Highway 51 South. The buildings are still there today, little changed, but now it’s called the Elvis Presley Blvd. Inn.

Holiday Inn West, at 132 rooms the largest of the group, opened at 980 South Third, which is also Highway 61. Both the South and West locations, you see, were designed to draw sleepy travelers flocking into town from Mississippi. The main building (a postcard of it in its heyday is shown below left) that contained the office and restaurant is still there today, but much changed, and now houses the City of Memphis’ Traffic Signal Maintenance and Construction Department.

And the first Holiday Inn in the whole wide world? The one on Summer was converted into a Royal Oaks Motel, then torn down in 1995 and replaced the next year by a funeral home. In a way, then, that address still offers a place of rest for weary travelers.

Curious Carvings

Dear Vance: Several years ago, my husband and I bought several carved wooden figures (right) from an artist working in Grand Junction, Tennessee. We’ve never been able to find out much about him. Can you help? — J.L., Memphis.

Dear J.L.: I’m afraid you’ve stumped Vance with this one. At one time, some of my own family members — whom we lovingly referred to as the “black sheep” flock of Lauderdales — actually lived in Grand Junction, a little railroad town that is grand in name only. None of them knew anything about these carvings, or the person who made them. So I decided to include a photo of them here, for two reasons: 1) Perhaps a reader can help solve this mystery, and 2) it means less work for me.

[“Ask Vance” appears every month in Memphis magazine.]

Categories
News News Feature

BACK TALK

Re: WHY WHlTES KILL

Kudos to you for telling it exactly the way it is. As a white person, I too find the colorblindness of whites not only racist and inconsistent, but dangerously myopic as well. I am circulating your article far and wide.

J. Sherman

(jsherm1@midsouth.rr.com)

NO CONFLICT BETWEEN U OF M AND NBA

I really don’t understand why you think the impending conflict will be between U of M and NBA. Currently, I don’t think it can be denied that there is a lot of local support for Nashville’s major league teams. Perhaps not from the readers of your column. I think when the NBA comes, it will siphon significant local support away from the Predators. It will also siphon support from the Titans. The effect on the Titans (the # local fans who will be converted to the NBA) will be larger than that on the Predators, simply b/c more Memphians are fans of the NFL than NHL. This is the support that the NBA will compete for, and, assuming that these fans aren’t already concurrently Tiger fans, the U of M cannot entice this sector of support b/c it is a different field of competition. College sports are appealing for different reasons than pro sports, and taps into a different aspect of a fan’s loyalty than pro sports.

I have not seen any argument to demonstrate that competition between the U of M and NBA is anything but a figment of pessimistic imagination and will preempt the more likely and more impending conflict between the NFL/NHL and the NBA. Please, I’m willing to hear these arguments!!

Ant Styles

(awhite02@midsouth.rr.com)

THE MEDIOCRE NBA

Enjoyed your thoughts on the possibility of the Memphis area getting an NBA franchise. When I left Memphis in November I thought that the Memphis area deserved a franchise and would and could support one if it became available to the city. After spending the last 4 months around the Nuggets franchise (not one of the better run franchises, but not as low as the Grizzles either) I have awoke to a realization that I did not have before. The NBA product sucks. Sorry for being so blunt, but facts are facts. Even the so-called best of the NBA are truly mediocre. I have had the pleasure (if you want to call it that) of covering the Knicks, Lakers, Heat, Blazers, Kings and other teams games against the Nuggets for free. I feel after the games that my 4 hours of time was worth more than what I got. Imagine how people who actually spent their hard earned cash on tickets felt. This does not mean the city wouldn’t support a team and the money spent to upgrade the Pyramid wouldn’t be well spent, but if it only to attract an NBA team, my belief is the money could be spent on a greater good. Memphis sports fans know a good product when they see it (re: Tiger football), and after being around the NBA for a short period, my thoughts are that 20 bucks is too much to ask for people to watch what they put on the floor.

Dan Frazier

(dfrasier@fan950.com)

The Fan- AM 950, Denver

(Ed. Note: Dan Frazier is a former Memphian who previously worked at Sports 56.)

PYRAMID ILL-PREPARED FOR TOURNAMENT

If you had followed your team to Memphis from as far away as Washington state, wouldn’t you expect that the facility would be able to properly operate during the event? Wouldn’t you be upset, mad, and disappointed that you had to wait 30-45 minutes to get a bite of food (especially for a game starting at 11:30 a.m.) Wouldn’t you go back home saying that the Pyramid is a good place to stay away from? Wouldn’t you be upset and angry if you rushed out to the restroom to find many of them closed? Wouldn’t you feel worse if you rushed to an open facility and had to stand in a line because of overcrowding? Wouldn’t you expect the manager of such a facility to be able to handle a crowd of 9000-10000 in a facility that will seat 18,000? Wouldn’t you expect that manager to be prepared for the maximum crowd the 1st day of a single elimination tournament? Wouldn’t you expect that manager to catch hell from his superiors if he wasn’t ready for the crowd and lost thousands of dollars of revenue?

I would .

Mike Crone

(mcrone@midsouth.rr.com)

Memphis

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

MANIAX WIN BATTLE, LOSE WAR

When Tommy Maddox took a knee to run out the clock in the final minute of Sunday’s game between the Memphis Maniax and his Western Division-leading L.A. Extreme, the message couldn’t have been more clear. Maddox, whose shocked team just lost to the Maniax by a final score of 27-12 could only say No Mas.

However, even with the sweep of L.A. (6-3), Memphis (4-5) was eliminated from play-off contention since the San Francisco Demons beat out the Las Vegas Outlaws, 14-9. The combination of wins and losses ironically clinches the Western Division playoff spots for Los Angeles as well as San Francisco, with the division title up for grabs in their show-down next weekend.

In front of a crowd of 21,191, Maniax QB Jim Druckenmiller threw 19 passes with 13 completions for 150 yards, 3 touchdowns, and no interceptions. The Maniax also scored on a 30-yard run by Ketric Sanford, a Maniax re-acquisition from training camp who ran for 82 yards on 9 carries. Sanford replaced injured running-backs Rashaan Salaam (out with shoulder injury) and Brent Moss, out with a groin injury.

The Maniax had Maddox’s number all day, with defensive back Corey Sawyer intercepting one pass for a 20-yard return and later with corner Tyrone Bell intercepting another on the next L.A. drive. Both interceptions resulted in Maniax touchdowns. Maddox, the league-leading QB threw for just 17 of 38 passes, 150 yards, and no touchdowns. The Extreme’s only offense came from two Jose Cortez field-goals from 31 yards and 25 yards out, and later on a 14 yard run by Saladin McCullough.

This was the Maniax’ final home game of the regular season. They play their final game at Las Vegas Saturday night. The Maniax lost their last match-up with the Outlaws, 3-25.

Categories
News News Feature

MEMPHIS: GOOD ENOUGH

I remember my first date with the girl of my dreams, when she finally decided to give me a try and took me up on an offer for dinner and a movie. I remember how indescribably afraid I was, petrified of being on the verge of successfully embarking on one of the major goals of my life — a date with destiny.

Sound familiar? It should. The city is on the cusp of something big in the form of the NBA dribbling at the chance of calling Memphis home.

Are those NBA owners shooting at the wrong goal? Let’s see. Corporate support? Check. Big enough community to support it? Check. Enough citizen interest? In Memphis? Basketball popular here? Double check.

A community that believes it not only can have a professional and successful sports franchise but that it deserves a franchise … Um … well … Not really.

In all the talk of referendums, what we really should be doing with our money, and the potential pitfalls of a new stadium, no one has stepped back for a moment and said, “Gee. This is really friggin’ cool.”

And it is. Forget about all the negative publicity. Forget all the doubts and the what if’s and the maybe’s. Just for one moment, forget about all of the bad things that could be said about the NBA.

Now, remember what it was like in 1974 and again in 1993 when the NFL said that Memphis wasn’t good enough. Remember Nashville getting not one, but two professional teams. Remember W. Bush calling Tennessee a “minor league” state [before Nashville’s successes].

Take all that memory … and throw it away. Push it off the counter. Flush it. It’s all gone. Memphis has pulled off one of the major coups in professional sports history by luring not one but two franchises from the same league to its doorstep. The NBA wants to give us a try.

Are there major questions to be answered about funding? Sure. Is the matter of building an arena downtown without a formal referendum a valid one? Absolutely. And the big question: Should there be skepticism that Memphis cannot or does not deserve a professional franchise all its own? Absolutely, certainly, most definitively not.

Not convinced? Need some numbers? Fine. Let’s look at numbers. In February, 2001 the Memphis Chamber of Commerce (MCC) issued a report titled “Memphis and the NBA.” Among many findings, the report showed that Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal demonstrated Memphis’ ability to support an NBA team. In comparison, St. Louis and Nashville, both cities with their own professional teams, scored a 71 percent and 7 percent respectively. Though Memphis’ population of 1.1 million would make it the NBA’s smallest market, it has experienced a 10.5 percent growth since 1990 (very large in comparison to national numbers though Nashville’s growth was bigger). Looking past just the people who live here, according to the MCC, Memphis hosts 8 million tourists a year who stay at least overnight for a total of $1.8 billion annual revenue. The Travel Industry Association ranked Memphis tied for 5th in destinations for people traveling to see a sporting event in 1999. Even with the delayed improvements to the Memphis Convention Center, Memphis is considered one of the top 10 growing convention destinations by Successful Meetings.

While Memphis has an average family disposable income comparable to or surpassing many of the other cities the NBA considered for relocation ($27,511), it also has the lowest cost of living (10 percent below the national average). That means that we make as much money on average but have less costs to spend it on. That per capita grew 69 percent in the last 10 years — a bigger growth than Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, Indianapolis, Louisville, or Birmingham.

The Memphis Business Journal reports that Memphis had 41 billion dollars in total personal income in 1997. Taking into account Memphis’ love of U of M basketball (i.e. accounting for the money that flows there), that 41 billion is 40 percent above the base level of income that NBA owners want to see. Memphis also showcases four of the top 50 wealthiest city neighborhoods in the country: Central Gardens, Galloway, River Oaks, and Chickasaw Gardens, and is ranked 8th among America’s top-40 real estate markets.

In terms of corporate money, Memphis has 143 businesses with over 100 million in sales and another 105 between 50 and 100 million. Memphis’ three biggest corporations, FedEx, AutoZone, and International Paper are all Fortune 500’s. Memphis has one of the biggest banking operations in the country, with more total banking assets than Dallas or Atlanta.

And Memphis’ businesses are growing with Inc. magazine voting Memphis the 7th “Best Place to Start and Grow a Business” and ranked 3rd for most improved business climate among large metro areas. Research by the Brandow Company rates Memphis first in tech start-ups in the last three years, possibly because of Memphis’ status as one of America’s largest distribution centers.

All this adds up to the Sports Business Journal naming Memphis as one of two top NBA sites (Norfolk, VA was the other). And apparently the city wants a team. According to Scarborough Sports Marketing, 14 percent of the adult population in Memphis is “very interested” in the NBA. The national average is 11 percent. Among those cities with more reported interest are San Antonio (28 percent — increasing from 19 percent during 1999 title run. Like Memphis, it’s the only game in town), Indianapolis (24 percent), and Salt Lake City (24 percent–a singular pro sports entity). In other words, Memphis is a potential vacuum waiting for a sports team to fill it up.

Head spinning yet? So were the heads of NBA commish David Stern, Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley, and Hornets owners George Shinn and Ray Wooldridge. The point of all of this is that Memphis deserves an NBA team. It deserves to reward itself. Yeah, this is a rosy view. But is it really so hard to believe?

Memphis’ dream date is at the door. The question now is whether the city will go out for a night on the town or hole itself up watching old movies of things that might have been. Regrets of the past and uncertainties of the future are truisms in life, an opportunity like this is not. Memphis must take advantage of the good things it has done so that its success continues.