Month: November 2010

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Deflections: Road-Trip Preview (Part 1), Power Rankings, Our First Made-Up Trade Scenario

Surveying the Griz landscape, one week in:

Z-Bo Might Go: Good news out of Grizzlies practice today, as an MRI on Zach Randolph’s injured tailbone came back negative, revealing no fracture and confirming the original diagnosis of a bruise. Randolph is being called a gametime decision for tomorrow night against the Los Angeles Lakers and even if he doesn’t suit up tomorrow night, he’s expected to return to the lineup sometime on the team’s four-game West Coast trip. Additionally, rookie Xavier Henry, who missed Saturday’s game with a neck strain, has been cleared to play. Marc Gasol continues to nurse his sore ankle, but you’d imagine he’ll play.

Some Gasol-on-Gasol action on tap for Tuesday night.

  • Some Gasol-on-Gasol action on tap for Tuesday night.

Road Trip Preview (Part One): A road test against the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers isn’t likely to result in a win, but should be a very interesting game regardless. With Andrew Bynum out for the Lakers, Pau Gasol is starting at center, and was just named Western Conference Player of the Week after putting up a 25-10-5 in the first week. He’ll match-up directly against little brother Marc and should see much more time checking each other than they would if Bynum were playing.

Perhaps more interesting is seeing what the Grizzlies do with their guard rotation against the Lakers. New signee Tony Allen guarded Kobe Bryant very well in the Finals this past summer and with O.J. Mayo giving up several inches to Kobe, should be called upon to check the Laker star for a good chunk of tonight’s game. But with Mayo in a groove right now, you’d think the team would want to keep him on the floor too. Given that the Laker point guards — Derek Fisher and Steve Blake — aren’t exactly dynamic pressure defenders and given how little Acie Law has given the Grizzlies in the back-up point guard role, this would be the perfect match-up to test out a Mayo-Allen backcourt when Mike Conley goes to the bench. (Which may not be for long, as this is also potentially a very good match-up for Conley.) Another possibility is to go small, with Rudy Gay matching up with Lamar Odom at the power forward spot and Allen and Mayo manning the wings. Mayo would be guarding Ron Artest in this alignment, and though Artest would have a considerable size/strength advantage, that might actually work in the Grizzlies favor, baiting the Lakers to give more touches and shots to Artest at the expense of Kobe and Pau. I’ll be interested to see if the Grizzlies use either of these lineups or if they stick to a more conventional rotation.

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Daily Photo Special Sections

blind mississippi morris

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News

MATA Board MIA?

Mary Cashiola writes about the curious case of the MATA board. Just how many members are there these days?

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

“Hell’s Kitchen” Casting Call

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Hell’s Kitchen, the cooking reality show led by super-screamy chef Gordon Ramsay, is holding a casting call for its 9th season on Wednesday, November 17th, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the Hard Rock Cafe on Beale.

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News

The Case of the Missing MATA Board Members

Officially, MATA has a nine-member board.

But its most recent meeting, on October 25th, was the first time in four years — at least — that even seven commissioners were at the table.

Looking back at data from 2006 to October of this year, the board has never included more than seven commissioners in recent history.

MATA spokesperson Alison Burton says the board changed to from a seven-member board to a nine-member board by city ordinance in August 2000. But in her more than two decade tenure with the transit authority, she says she can’t remember a time when it had more than seven board members. (In fact, she says she always writes that it’s a seven-member board.)

Of course, it’s had fewer than seven members much of the time.

In 2007, board member Dick Walker passed away after the second meeting of the year and was never replaced, leaving the number of commissioners at six.

Vicki Cloud then resigned in 2007.

Both Marion McClendon and Reo Pruitt were appointed in February 2008, but Pruitt resigned two months later. No one was appointed to take his place.

Ray Holt then resigned at the beginning of 2009, and with no one being appointed to take his place, either.

But Cliffie Pugh, whose term ended this September, hadn’t attended a meeting since April 2009.

Call it the case of the missing MATA board members (or one of those complicated word problems you see on the math portions of state tests).

With Pugh’s long absence and the resignation of Holt, the MATA board dwindled to only four effective members for much of 2009.

Maybe it’s a result of “out of sight, out of mind.” MATA’s headquarters are on Watkins, north of Chelsea, and built on an old landfill. Maybe no one wants to be on the MATA board. But I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t more evidence of a general negligence coming from city government at the time.

After Memphis mayor A C Wharton was elected, he appointed former City Councilman John Vergos to the board. After interim Mayor Myron Lowery appointed former City Councilman John Vergos, mayor A C Wharton appointed The New Teacher Project staffer Sheila Redick and Memphis Regional Design Center head Chooch Pickard, and there are still two open spots.

MATA’s board and staff are scheduled to have a retreat later this week.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Memphis and the Stewart/Colbert Rally

CREDIT: Douglas Gillon

What sanity looked like on The Mall, Washington, D.C., October 30, 2010

  • Doug Gillon
  • What sanity looked like on The Mall, Washington, D.C., October 30, 2010

WASHINGTON — Standing in front of a crowd that stretched almost across the entire national mall, Jon Stewart had one very important message for his supporters at the beginning of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.

“Don’t litter.”

And so it went. Stewart and his partner Stephen Colbert headed a star-studded three-hour show that included Ozzy Osborne, Mavis Staples, Sheryl Crow, Sam Watterson, the Roots and a gaggle of other celebrities in which everyone was told to be polite, be respectful, and be sane.

J.S.

Some attendees were funny, some were serious, some had signs, and some had costumes, but, importantly, everyone managed to stay sane.

“It was amazing to have this out there today,” said Jay Zapf, a 27-year-old from Memphis attending the rally with friends. “My parents generation got to be involved in so many of these rallies and social events, and we normally didn’t get to do it.”

Zapf and six other friends drove to the rally from Memphis. Their presence, plus that of this reporter,accounts for at least eight Memphi- area folks at the event.

The biggest takeaway from the event for this sane Memphis seven?

“The crowd. Wow was it big,” said Steven Strang, a 27 year-old server at Amerigo’s. “We wanted to see how many people out there thought like us, and it turns out that it’s a lot.”
Back home, a group of about 25 “reasonable” locals held a satellite in Overton Park, where they gathered around a car speaker plugged into a smart phone picking up the rally stream from the Internet. Comedy Central reported that the live webcast of the event attracted around four million viewers.

“It went great, we thought Stewart did a real nice job out there today and we had a lot of fun,” said the event’s organizer Bob Huddleston.
At the end of the event, Stewart gave an impassioned speech to the crowd, blaming the 24-hour cable news cycle for much of our woes as a country.

“When we amplify everything, we hear nothing,” he said.

After the speech, Stewart was joined on stage by everyone who had played a part in the event’s performance as they sang a version of the Staple Singer’s “I’ll take you there.” The original song was recorded at Stax records in Memphis.

So at the end of the day, a Memphis message helped bring sanity home.

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News

Josh Pastner Speaks

Frank Murtaugh has a Q & A with Josh Pastner. The Tigers play their first exhibition game Wednesday night.

Categories
Sports Tiger Blue

Q & A: Josh Pastner

CREDIT: Joe Murphy

The 2010-11 Tiger basketball team — ranked 19th in the AP’s preseason poll — takes the floor Wednesday night for an exhibition tilt with Lemoyne-Owen. Aside from Memphis Madness, it will be the first chance for fans to see the likes of Will Barton, Joe Jackson, and Tarik Black in a Tiger uniform. I sat down last week with coach Josh Pastner to discuss the upcoming season. (Opening Night is November 12th, against Centenary.)

You’re a veteran coach now. What’s different in your preparation for this season compared with your first?
I still have a lot to learn, still growing daily. I am more comfortable. You’re just going to be better in year two than in year one. As you should be better in year three than in year two. I’ve learned a lot. I always appreciate advice, constructive criticism . . . it helps me grow.

The summer and preseason have been extra busy, because we signed eight new players. We have a whole new team. We may be ranked, but a lot of that is based on recruiting expectations, not productivity on the floor. Having them understand the structure and discipline . . . the only difference this year is that I was the head coach who recruited them.

This job is nowhere nearly as important as a surgeon or a doctor, but it’s the same in that you’re on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can go home at 5:00, but you’re still on.

Josh Pastner

Tell us something you or the team achieved last season that you’re especially proud of . . . and something you’d like to see changed in the season ahead.
We stabilized the program. We kept it relevant nationally. It could have taken a nosedive in the transition, but we stayed at a high level: 24 wins, played in the postseason. Obviously, the one thing I’d like to change is to get to the NCAA tournament. That’s what this city wants. It’s not easy to do, but we’re going to give it our best shot every year to do that.

You have a relentlessly positive vibe. Is there any development that would make you “go negative”?
No. Fundamentally, I’m a positive guy by nature. I’m always looking at the glass as over-flowing. I wear loose-fit clothing, I don’t micromanage things, I understand people. I appreciate the positives and negatives with the job. When things don’t go well, and people criticize you on the radio, I appreciate that, because people care. They should; they’re emotionally invested. This job is a gift, and at any split second it could be taken away. I’m making sure that when I’m 65, I’m not looking back wondering why I didn’t enjoy it more back then.