Author: Dennis Freeland

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Art Art Feature

SOUTH TOWARD HOME

Taps

By Willie Morris

Houghton Mifflin, 338 pp., $26

Willie Morris died in 1999, which makes his novel Taps posthumous but not unfinished. His widow, JoAnne Prichard Morris, who oversaw every aspect of the manuscript’s preparation, who honored every change Morris indicated, has seen to that.

Taps took the author decades to write. Morris began toying with the idea of a fictional work based on his own experiences growing up in Yazoo City, Mississippi, as far back as the late 1960s, the same period (1967-71) he served as editor of Harper’s. When he returned to Mississippi in 1980 he returned in earnest to Taps, a labor of love obviously, a work to join My Dog Skip in popularity possibly.

The story is a year in the life of Swayze Barksdale (age 16), the season opener is early summer 1951 (with the Korean War at its height), the place is Fisk’s Landing (Yazoo City stand-in, pop. 10,184, staple of conversation: hearsay), and life there goes this way: divided — between hill country and flatland; between planters and plain folk; between blacks and whites; between the living and the dead; and between what these citizens, good or bad, show of themselves and what they don’t or can’t, which, in the book’s violent climax, makes for a matter of life and death. Heavy-duty? Sometimes yes, more times no. Heavy-handed? In spots.

“I began to see that everyone in the town seemed troubled,” young Swayze observes after perhaps observing more than most 16-year-olds in a town he goes on to describe as “a warehouse of tormented souls.” His object by the time he reaches college at Sewanee? To “remember with surging clarity how passionately I was trying to give a little sense and design to the things I had felt and learned and experienced.” It’s a tall order, but consider:

1) A fatherless boy on the brink of adulthood who “worries about everything,” who is “miserable in the very tributaries of [his] soul,” which prompts in or on him “a sturdy trace of paranoia — warts and rash and angst … dread of the open grave and the mother … perverse predilection for the Ricks Funeral Home … and along with all this a proclivity for the desolate, the insufferable, the troubling.”

2) A widowed, indomitable mother, a teacher of tap dance but with “aristocratic” forebears, who is “fraught with an inordinate propensity for intrusion,” a woman “obscurely troubled” and driven to search and research her son’s every move.

3) A girlfriend, Georgia: “spoiled, irreverent, unpredictable,” “stubbornly self-reliant and free,” source of Swayze’s joy, then sorrow.

4) The half father, half big brother to Swayze, Luke Cartwright: a man of “truncated queries and unembarrassed silences,” “half redneck and half coat-and-tie,” “iconoclastic,” “ironic,” a man who sensed “the essential malevolence of things and aberrant behavior and other people’s limitations.”

5) Rich boy Durley Godbold, whose limitation is being born the monster son of a “feudal grandee” of a father, his limit crossed when he learns of Cartwright’s affair with Godbold’s wife Amanda, “daughter of a failed yeoman turned small time entrepreneur” yet blessed with “an essence of honor” to go with her iron sense of self.

And 6) Potter Ricks, owner of the local funeral home, “a central figure in those days, the talisman and necromancer and conjurer of the tale, the sad, the gruesome, the funny,” “custodian of our past.” It is Ricks, along with Cartwright, who enlists trumpeters Swayze and his misanthropic friend Arch to play “Taps” for the town’s multiple war dead over the course of these 12 months.

If the prospect from Fisk’s Landing looks gloomy, Morris’ story, for the most part, is not. And yet, early on we learn this from Swayze: “The ornately polite and elaborate society of that old small town rewarded the child for keen observation and encouraged him to listen — a society of extremes with secrets not easily honored” and with some secrets apparently more honored than others.

Swayze’s mother Ella, for one, is a case of barely contained hysterics. Swayze observes her but cannot justify, much less comprehend, her bizarre actions. And Swayze’s father, “a tall man … of gentle countenance” who died when the boy was 10, figures even less prominently in Swayze’s recollections. Unless by the tap of Ella’s feet we’re to hear of a husband and father (the author’s own?) being secretly, repeatedly mourned.

JoAnne Prichard Morris will be reading from and signing copies of Taps at Burke’s Book Store tonight, Thursday, April 19th, from 5 to 7 p.m. For more info, call Burke’s at 278-7484.

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Cover Feature News

Will Success Spoil Brian Parker?

CREDIT: Photo by Trey Harrison

Brian Parker has just picked up his media credentials at Madison Square Garden. And now, approximately an hour before the first semifinal game of the National Invitation Tournament, he walks to the arena floor.

“This is sweet!” he exclaims upon finding the seats that have been assigned to him and his colleague Jay Laney. As far as the NIT is concerned, Parker and Laney are in New York representing “Tiger Illustrated,” a Web site dedicated to University of Memphis athletics. (Parker operates the site.) But the real reason Parker has come to the Big Apple is to be seen. And his seat along the baseline of the historic court affords him plenty of visibility.

Two of the four teams in the Final Four of the NIT are Alabama and the University of Memphis — two teams that are part of Parker’s territory. He is partner and lead negotiator for Mid-South Sports Management. In other words, Parker, 25, is a sports agent.

His courtside seat is meant to impress the players from both Alabama and Memphis. It is done in the unobtrusive manner that Parker often employs. He isn’t flashy. He’s quietly persistent.

Sports agents have been both vilified and romanticized in recent years, the former by sports fans who blame them for the sky-rocketing salaries which they see precipitating the total destruction of sports and the latter in fictional characterizations such as the Oscar-winning movie Jerry Maguire and the HBO series Arliss.

To Parker it is a business, though, one that he has been involved in since college when he became a runner for Athletic Resource Management, the successful Memphis sports agency founded by Kyle Rote Jr. and Jimmy Sexton. There Parker learned the business from two of the most successful sports agents in the country. It was also where he formed friendships with Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant, two of ARM’s most visible clients. In fact, Parker traveled with the Chicago Bulls on many of their road trips during the glory days of Michael Jordan. In Parker’s home is a pair of Pippen’s sneakers from the days when he played with the Bulls. A pair from Grant is on display in his office.

But there is another side to Parker. He is a Christian who doesn’t drink or smoke. “My foul mouth is my only vice,” he says. Parker recently passed up an invitation to fly to Las Vegas for a friend’s bachelor party.

He tells of a mutual friend who did go and wonders how Parker could have passed it up. “It conflicts with my life goals,” he said. He has a knack for saying things like that. After a while it sounds natural, expected.

The conflict for Parker is to stay straight in the midst of all the temptation that is a natural part of being a sports agent.

“Anytime you have money involved there is the potential for corruption,” says Britton Wilkins, a longtime Parker friend. “When you have money and stiff competition like there is in the sports agent business, I think there is a tendency for people to bend or to put their morals aside. That is my encouragement for Brian, for him not to do that. And as far as I know, thus far he hasn’t.”

Wilkins, a former linebacker at the University of Memphis and, like Parker, a graduate of Evangelical Christian School, is one of several Christian friends the young sports agent turns to for what he calls “accountability.” Others include former UT running back Aaron Hayden and basketball player John Wilfong who played at Memphis in the mid-1980s.

Parker may have to enlarge his accountability board if he is to stay clean in what is universally considered a dirty business.

“There is a lot of cheating that goes on. Unfortunately, integrity is not a given in any business. All I can do is worry about my own actions,” Parker says. “Is it going on all around me? Sure. This business is like any other, you’ve got your good and your bad people in it. I just choose to be on the good side, or at least make an attempt to be.”

Dale Brown, the former basketball coach at LSU, is another Parker friend who helps keep him straight.

“When he told me he was going to become an agent, I said, ‘I am going to be honest with you. I don’t have real good feelings about a great number of agents. I just hope you never ever become flexible or compromise,'” Brown says. “One of the stimulants that made me retire from coaching was that I couldn’t find enough guys I wanted to hug and care about anymore. There was too much narcissism and delusions of grandeur and laziness academically. I told Brian, ‘I just hope your vision isn’t shattered,’ and he said, ‘Well, if it ever is, I’ll get out of it.'”

Parker says he thinks of Brown as a second father. And Brown sounds like a dad who is worried. “He loves sports. He is similar to me in that he has still got a kind of a Pollyanna attitude about it. He’ll get burned a few times, you know, somebody will say something, or lie to him, or cheat him, and then he’ll have to keep his spirits up because it is a dog-eat-dog affair. In Shaquille’s new book he mentions that an agent with a briefcase with $80,000 was ready to give him the money — no note signed, no nothing — and get his parents a new home if he let him represent him. And Shaquille said, ‘The guy must think I was stupid. I would never want to get hooked up with people like that.'”

Top pro prospects are recruited by sports agents, just as they were out of high school by their college coaches. To maintain an amateur standing with the NCAA, the players are not allowed to sign with an agent or accept any gifts — monetary or otherwise — before they play their final game. This sometimes puts coaches, who desperately want to safeguard their players’ eligibility, and agents, who want to win the player’s signature, in an adversarial position.

Parker says he wants to be known as an ethical agent and tries not to do anything that would get him crossways with a coach, especially at any of the Mid-South schools which he targets.

“Recruiting is obviously the dirtiest aspect of this business,” he says. “I’m a firm believer that if I bust my tail and do it the right way and work hard, if my actions honor God in all that I do, He promises that in the end He will honor me.”

When a player signs a contract with an agent, the agent receives, under union rules, a maximum 3 percent for an NFL player and 4 percent for an NBA player. The agent gets paid over the length of the contract at the same time that the player gets paid. A $10 million NBA contract is worth $400,000 to the agent who negotiates the deal.

The NBA minimum salary for rookies is $316,969. It will increase to $332,817 in 2002. In the more budget-conscious NFL the minimum is $209,000. Either way, an agent’s cut can be serious money.

Currently 1,112 agents are certified by the NFL Players Association (NFLPA). Meanwhile only 328 athletes are invited to the NFL combine where the highest-rated players are tested and evaluated. Just under 400 agents have at least one client. Only 110 represent five or more players.

The NFL draft this weekend is important to Parker and Mid-South Sports Management.They have four clients that Parker expects to be drafted, most in the fourth- to fifth-round range. They are linebacker Matt Stewart of Vanderbilt; Arkansas State’s Robert Kilow, a wide receiver; defensive lineman Ellis Wyms of Mississippi State; and Corey Holmes, a running back from Mississippi Valley State. Holmes and Kilow, skill-position players from schools that fly below the radar of TV, probably have the best opportunity to surprise in the NFL. Stewart is thought to be a solid player who could last a long time because of his experience as a deep-snapper.

The sports pages are full of stories about professional athletes who have squandered the money they made. Part of Parker’s pitch to prospective clients includes a reality check and the promise to provide a personal touch.

“The average length of a pro football player’s career is just over three years. It is my job to help him save as much money as possible in order for him to live a comfortable life once his career is over,” says Parker. “We help our clients maintain a budget and teach them throughout their career the value of what they have and how to manage it. It is a learning process for the player and the reward and satisfaction you get being an agent is knowing you have made a positive impact in someone’s life.”

Not having any first-round draft picks lined up doesn’t bother Parker. “My goal is to continue building this company with quality clients who have productive careers and are good citizens,” he says. “It really doesn’t matter what round they are drafted in. Terrell Davis [Denver Broncos] was a late-round pick and look at what he has accomplished. Isaac Bruce was a third-round pick and he is on pace to become one of the greatest wide receivers of all time. Evaluating talent is such an inexact science it is really difficult to tell who will be a player and who won’t.”

Stewart, a linebacker from Vanderbilt, will be watching the draft nervously. His parents will come down from Maryland to be at his house in Nashville. Projected to be a fourth- or fifth-round pick, Stewart will probably call Parker several times during the two-day draft.

Since signing with Mid-South Sports Management, Stewart and Parker have become close. Not surprising, since they are close to the same age. Parker traveled with Stewart to Montgomery, Alabama, where the linebacker improved his stock in the draft by being named the Gray MVP in the annual Blue-Gray Game. The two also traveled to the West Coast for the East-West Shrine Classic. Early last month Stewart came to Memphis where he worked out with fitness guru Dean Lotz.

“I got to meet his parents. It seems like they instilled some good values in him,” Stewart says of Jack Parker, the longtime CFO of Union Planters Bank Corporation and his wife, Gloria. “I can tell by the way he talks that he is a man of morals. He seems really honest.”

The fact that his agent is only a few years older than him did not give Stewart pause. “He seemed like he has a lot of experience even though he’s only 25,” the player says. “So that really didn’t enter into my mind.”

How do you define success?

Brian Parker believes in the old-fashioned definition. In fact he prefers the original Webster’s definition: “fortunate, happy, kind, prosperous.” Of course he knows that’s from 1806.

He drives a fully loaded 2000 BMW. For business, there’s the company car, a 2001 Black Yukon with leather interior and On-Star technology. He lives in Eagleride, a gated subdivision on the eighth hole of Colonial Country Club. He travels extensively and runs up large expense accounts, which his company expects. He’s movie-star handsome with the kind of twinkling eyes that make women hand him their phone numbers when they first meet him.

You keep reminding yourself, he is only 25. But his most productive days are still ahead of him. Already he is living the life of Riley. And he knows it.

Through Dale Brown, Parker has gotten to know John Wooden, the 90-year old who is universally considered the best college basketball coach ever.

“I had a dinner appointment with John Wooden and I asked Brian to come and he almost had a heart attack!” Brown says. “He and Coach Wooden really hit it off. I think John has a knack of seeing through people. He really seemed to like Brian.”

Parker is working the underclassmen at the schools where he believes his business will be made — Tennessee, Alabama, and the other SEC schools. He also considers the U of M a key school. He signed Marcus Moody last week. Most think that Moody is most likely looking at a career in Europe, but Parker didn’t hesitate to sign him. Because “he’s a good kid and a Memphis kid.” He doesn’t say it, but it might also give him an advantage when Kelly Wise needs an agent, whether it is this year or next.

On the day off in New York (between the semifinals and championship games) Parker dines at Mickey Mantle’s Restaurant then takes a stroll through Central Park. During the afternoon he is constantly getting e-mail messages on his toll-free beeper. One is from Lorenzen Wright, the former Tiger and Booker T. Washington High School star who signed a multi-year, $42 million contract with the Atlanta Hawks last year.

Wright is a friend but not a client. And though he had a good game the night before (getting a highlight on SportsCenter) it is his new look (an afro and headband to make him look taller) that he is writing to Parker about. It is the sort of exchange two teenagers might carry on. In fact, Wright and Parker first became friends during their teen years. Back in 1994, Parker was the only white player on the local team that finished as the third-best AAU team in the United States (they lost in the national tournament to Vince Carter’s Florida team). The center on that Memphis team was Lorenzen Wright. Last year Wright invited Parker to the New Year’s Eve party he hosted in Atlanta.

Although he thinks that it was unlikely that he could nab him this late in the game, while in New York Parker makes a pass at Rashad Phillips, the point guard who is the all-time scoring leader for Detroit-Mercy, a Jesuit school also in the NIT finals. Parker is rewarded with a chance to make a presentation in his hotel room (all the teams stayed at the Marriott-Marquis in Times Square). Phillips, who because of his size and quickness is often compared to Allen Iverson, eventually decides on a New York agent, but Parker knows that getting a chance to make a presentation to a player is the first step.

“You would not believe the amount of players we miss out on because of the market we are in,” he says.

But don’t expect Mid-South Sports Management to move to New York anytime soon. There may be advantages, but Brian Parker’s quiet determination and old-fashioned values probably play better in Memphis. Besides, this is where his family is. This is home. This is sweet.

Sports Agencies in Memphis

There are two firms in Memphis that represent professional athletes. Athletic Resource Management (ARM) is owned by Morgan Keegan and is the veteran agency, called by The Chicago Sun Times “one of the top 12 sports management firms in the country.” The principals are Kyle Rote Jr., Jimmy Sexton, and Reggie Barnes.

The other local firm is Mid-South Sports Management, founded by Duncan Williams, the president of Duncan Williams, Inc., a Memphis-based investment firm. Besides Parker and client service director Jay Laney, the firm employs Allan Wade as its attorney to handle tax returns and assist in contract negotiations. Wade, an attorney at Baker, Donelson, Bearman, and Caldwell, is also the attorney for the Memphis City Council. Mid-South has offices in the Falls Building downtown with a majestic view of the Mississippi River.

Parker started out as a 19-year-old “runner” for ARM. He worked for Sexton and Rote until 1999, when Williams made him an offer to good to refuse. “Competition is good. It’s healthy competition. I have a lot of fun going up against Jimmy and Kyle,” Parker says.

There is a rule in the sports agent biz: Never say anything publicly — good or bad — about the competition. So both sides are a little reluctant to discuss the rivalry which has reportedly gotten heated in the past few months.

“I think that is what America is all about — creating opportunity, dreaming dreams, and setting goals. It doesn’t bother me at all,” says Rote about Parker’s leaving.

“My experience working for Kyle and Jimmy is one I will always cherish,” Parker says.

“I am very thankful that he noticed and appreciated what Jimmy and I have tried to do with our company,” responds Rote. “We need as many good people in our industry as we can get. I am very hopeful that he will be able to follow that moral and ethical path.” — DF

THE NBA IN MEMPHIS:

Five questions for an insider.

1. In what ways will the NBA coming to Memphis help your business? Will it mean more competition?

PARKER: Having a pro franchise in Memphis will add validity to Memphis being a major-league sports city. There are already lots of positives about being based in Memphis. There are plenty of talented players from Mid-South colleges that are easy to target as potential clients, so an NBA team coming to town is icing on the cake for me. It will also be easier to keep a pulse on the day-to-day activities of the league, which is vital for a sports agent. I’m sure more competition will pop up as a result, but a little healthy competition never hurt anyone.

2. On the other hand, how will the NBA benefit other businesses and even ordinary folks?

PARKER: Long-term economic gain is the goal. Economists all tell us that the multiplier effect is approximately seven to one, which means every dollar spent will turn over at least seven times, which will eventually create more jobs in the city. Not only will this help the pursuit team, which represents a number of the large corporations based in Memphis, it will help all major businesses attract and retain top-notch employees. Those employees will then begin spending their money right here in Memphis starting with the purchase of a new home.

3. What about those who say there aren’t enough people in Memphis who can afford NBA tickets?

PARKER: All of the publicity about the high-priced ticket average is misleading and there will be more than enough low-priced tickets for everybody that wants to attend an NBA game. I think Memphis is currently experiencing the beginning of a sweetheart stage economically that cities like Charlotte and Nashville experienced a decade ago. There are so many positives taking place in our city, like the $2.1 billion expansion of St. Jude’s hospital downtown. That project alone will add 1,000 new jobs to the city. The expansion and improvement of the Cook Convention Center and FedEx’s new deal with the post office, which will bring a big number of new pilots to town, will only improve our economy. Along with the continued improvements in our demographics and the rise in per capita income, the dollars will be there to support an NBA team.

4. In your travels, can you tell the difference in cities that have big-league sports teams and those that don’t?

PARKER: No question. Having a pro sports team brings a city together. Take New Orleans for example; even when the Saints are terrible (and that’s most of the time), pro football is all people there want to talk about. People from different backgrounds have something to discuss with each other on the street or on the subway. Nashville and Jacksonville are completely different cities since the Titans and Jags came to town. If you visit those places enough you will see the impact the NFL has had on the city’s self-image. I think Memphis has struggled greatly in the self-image department and a pro team is just what we need.

5. What if we build the arena and the team doesn’t succeed here?

PARKER: There is no question it is better for Memphis to try. Fear of failure causes a lot of people to end up mediocre. We weren’t willing to step up to the plate and build a new stadium when we had a chance to secure an NFL franchise, and that hurt the city. All you have to do is look three hours down I-40 at what an NFL team can do for a city. Successful people are not afraid to fail, and I think the city of Memphis needs to take that same attitude.

Yes, this has risks, but it also has big rewards. If done properly there will be great economic rewards, but how do you put a price on the intangible reward of city pride and togetherness an NBA franchise can bring to the table? To me it’s a no-brainer. I can envision what Memphis will look like in 10 years. With the development of the riverfront in the works and the creation of Uptown Memphis [formerly the Greenlaw district], an NBA arena downtown near AutoZone Park would be the finishing touch.– DF

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News News Feature

LETTER TO THE IRS

Dear Mr. Tax Man/Ms. Tax Woman:

Perhaps by now you’ve noticed the invoice enclosed with my 1040 form and my W-2’s. After calculating my “taxes owed” amount and taking the standard deductions, it occurred to me that the amount I supposedly owe is hardly commiserate with the benefits I enjoy – so I took the liberty of adjusting that amount. Granted, when I began, I thought I’d only save myself a few dollars. But after an evening spent with an adding machine, I realized that you guys owe me a lot of money!

First, I automatically slashed the amount I owe by 35 percent to account for pay inequity. Being female, this is how much less I make than male peers who do the same work. I was going to let this one pass, but then remembered that my landlord still charges me full price, as do the utility and phone companies, auto mechanics tend to charge me more than men, and the clothes I have to buy to wear to that 35-percent-less job cost a considerable amount more than my male co-worker’s Dockers and button downs — and let’s not even talk about dry cleaning bills!

So, since nobody charges me 35 percent less for essential goods and services, I figured I’d let the government catch the check on this one. (Perhaps “no one” is a little hasty. If I get my oil changed at one of those instant places on a “Ladies Tuesday”, I can get a free wilted rose. Oh, and if I go to cheesy dance clubs before 8 p.m. on Wednesdays, I can avoid the $5 cover — all that just for being female!) After all, you guys are the ones who passed the Equal Pay Act of 1963, in well, 1963 and then never enforced it. While it was nice of you to also pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to further prevent wage discrimination — you didn’t enforce that one either.

Then I took off an additional 15 percent, though I admit that’s an arbitrary amount, because President Bush recently decided to close the White House Women’s Office. The way I figure it, the 15 percent is a drop in the bucket compared to all the money and opportunities that I’ll miss out on without that office. As it is, even though women make up 50 percent of the work force, 63 percent of all workers earning minimum wage or less are women. This despite the fact that women earn 55 percent of the nation’s baccalaureate degrees. So if we were making 35 percent less, despite making up half the work force and holding more than half of the degrees, with a national office looking out for our interests, these next four years can only get worse. You guys are really going to owe me next year!

The next few deductions are tricky, so bear with me.

I’m deducting seven percent of what your office claims I owe to pay for my gym membership. Yes, I use it . At least three times a week. I feel this is a legitimate deduction because being in shape is necessary to landing the 35-percent-less job. Fat girls are even less likely to be hired and more likely to be underpaid.

Another 20 percent has been taken off to cover the cost of free flowing Merlot and approximately 23 pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. These were necessary expenditures in that I had to do something to cope with sexual harassment at work — another law you guys passed but never enforced. (Sexual harassment, incidentally and ironically, is both the downside to the gym membership and the reason said membership is necessary.) I figure that deducting the amount spent on alcohol and Chunky Monkey would cost the government less than if I were to start seeing a therapist and deducted those expenses. Aren’t I patriotic?

I deducted another 25 percent because I don’t have children. Wait, let me explain. I spoke to my brother on the phone last night and he told me that he and his wife were able to deduct $13,000 from their taxes because they had twin babies this year. It’s hardly fair that I should be penalized by not getting some kind of child-related deduction when it’s my sister-in-law, and not me, who was irresponsible and forgot that antibiotics render birth control ineffective. Moreover, twin babies mean that one of them has to stay home from work. So, while I’m out here earning a taxable income, my sister-in-law is home taking care of the kids. (I’m tempted to deduct what I spend on birth control, too. Don’t push me.)

On a nicer note, I think it’s really great that the IRS is doing direct deposits for refunds this year. That sure saves me a trip to the bank and it’s one mile less for me to report for mileage next year! So, I’m enclosing a voided blank check so you can get my routing number right.

Thanks again and better luck next year!

Rebekah Gleaves

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News News Feature

JAMBALAYA

WEATHERING THE WEATHERMAN

In the days before cable, the weather could have an adverse effect on television. Especially where I grew up, in Paris, Tennessee. Everyone had an antenna on the roof pointed towards Nashville. If it rained or stormed or even if it was just cloudy you might get bad reception. I can remember going out to turn the antenna, trying to pick up stations in Paducah, Jackson, or Cape Girardeau when there was a storm between our house and Nashville.

But with cable, you don’t have to look at the skies to see if you can see your favorite show or the big game.

Or so you would think.

Last Tuesday night, I settled down in the easy chair to watch my favorite TV show, N.Y.P.D. Blue. Anyone who follows the show, knows that it was an important episode — Lt. Fancy was leaving the precinct (and presumably the show). But Memphians didn’t get the opportunity to see the episode, because it was raining in Cross County, Arkansas.

Actually it was storming in Cross County. Lightning, high winds — the works. There was even a tornado watch in the area. So, of course, Channel 24 preempted network programming to provide more than an hour’s worth of detailed reporting. Channel 5, Channel 3, and Channel 30 all did the same.

If I had not been so mad about missing N.Y.P.D. Blue, I would have laughed. The poor weathermen were having to scramble their brains to come up with enough prattle to fill the hour. They went to the radar every two minutes, but nothing was happening. They promised us compelling video as soon as they had some. They repeated what to do if a tornado touched down. About a hundred times.

You know, people who live in Eastern Arkansas surely know what to do in case of a tornado. They certainly see enough of them. Besides, since when is it television’s job to teach tornado safety? And what about the Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf effect? If they make a big deal every time a thunderstorm blows into the area, won’t viewers take it less and less seriously?

The real reason all of the Memphis stations presented wall-to-wall weather on this spring night was because they have bought expensive, sophisticated weather equipment and their consultants tell them that they need to use their weathermen to boost the station’s ratings. It is all about brand, ratings, and gadgets.

There is a weather channel for people who want weather all the time. For everyone else, a crawler beneath the picture should suffice. Local affiliates have some obligation to carry network programming. Making Memphians miss a fine show like N.Y.P.D. Blue because of a thunder storm in Arkansas is just plain dumb.

This was not an isolated incident. In fact, it is becoming more and more commonplace. It is a stupid trend. Somebody should stop it.

A friend at work made a tape of the program. He has Dish Network and was not affected by the injudicious decisions of the Memphis stations. He brought the tape to work and all of us N.Y.P.D. Blue fans were able to see Lt. Fancy’s last day on the job.

Other Memphians will just have to wait for the reruns and pray that it doesnÕt rain in Earle that night.

COMING TO TERMS WITH TIC

I had planned to write a scathing indictment of the McNeese State University administration for hiring former Tiger head basketball coach Tic Price. Price, who was forced to resign at the U of M before the 1999-2000 season, spent the past year as an assistant at McNeese. When the head job became vacant, he was promoted.

What could they be thinking? Don’t they know what he did at the University of Memphis? I was ready to let them have it.

Then I was eating lunch on Friday with an official at the U of M. He told me that Price had called him the day before. “I bet he wanted something,” I said suspiciously.

“No. He said he just wanted to thank me for everything I did,” my friend said. “He said that he was too ashamed to talk to me at the time of his resignation.”

Price reports that he has weathered the storm and that his marriage is stronger than ever. He told my friend that what he did in Memphis was wrong and that he was sorry.

I suppose everyone deserves a second chance. Even Tic Price.

SKINNY RADIO STARS

Is there anybody on the radio in Memphis that isn’t pitching that miracle product that Òburns fat and builds muscle while you sleep?Ó Do you think it is just a coincidence that the company picks personalities that we never actually SEE?

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “I saw the video. If I had come through spring practice last year, I would have cut my wrists. Any time I want to get in a bad mood, I just watch video from last spring.” — Memphis offensive line coach Rick Mallory on the abject state of the offensive line when he arrived in Memphis last August.

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News News Feature

COLLIERVILLE’S DOMESTIC VIOLENCE UNIT

Officer Joy Dominguez has a surprising reaction to the increased number of domestic violence reports in Collierville. She’s glad.

No, she isn’t glad that families in her community are suffering. Dominguez, who coordinates the CPD’s Domestic Violence Unit, is glad those families are seeking and getting help. She’s especially glad the Family Violence Council of Collierville continues to increase community awareness of domestic violence and offers its resources to combat and end the cycle of violence.

In 1998, the CPD was averaging about eight domestic violence calls per month. When Dominguez compared the average number of reports of domestic violence in Collierville with similar communities nationwide, she realized the occurrence of domestic violence was drastically underreported in the town of Collierville.

“I knew from experience there was a problem and that people just weren’t coming forward,” says Dominguez. “We knew we needed to increase awareness and educate the public.”

The department now responds to approximately 15 calls per month. Thanks in large part to the efforts of the FVCC, people in Collierville no longer look the other way.

In 1998, Dominguez made a plea for camera and video equipment to be used to document incidents of domestic violence. In response, a small group of concerned citizens organized themselves into an active force for change in the town of Collierville. Educating the public, creating awareness, and rallying community resources to assist victims of domestic violence has been their mission ever since.

FVCC President Sherrie Rinehart acknowledges the job hasn’t been easy, “It’s a little embarrassing for some people to admit this sort of problem exists in our community. We tend to want to stick our heads in the sand and pretend we don’t have those problems. After all, Collierville is a wonderful town, with many affluent, well-educated people.” Yet Rinehart, a business and community leader in Collierville who had worked with victims of domestic violence in her former job at a government agency, knew all too well that family violence can exist in any community, often without detection.

“It’s not the sort of problem you go to your neighbor with,” says Rinehart. Maintaining anonymity for the victims, while increasing awareness and educating the public, has been an especially difficult

challenge in a town that prides itself on its “small-town charm.”

“There’s still an element of shame and embarrassment associated with domestic violence,” says Rinehart. “And, while Collierville has certainly grown in size, it still feels like a small Southern town where everyone knows one another.” Rinehart says the fear of embarrassment contributes to the victims’ reluctance to seek help, which then further contributes to the mistaken perception that domestic violence doesn’t exist.

The founding members of the FVCC knew, if they were to improve their community, they must first get the problem of domestic violence out in the open. They would have to break through the barrier of denial. As a part of that effort, they have established an ongoing community awareness campaign.

Each fall, the FVCC holds a chicken dinner fund-raiser, primarily to fund various projects, but also to create public awareness for their cause. The proceeds are used, in part, to purchase equipment for the Domestic Violence Unit, which includes cameras and video recorders to document victims’ statements. According to Dominguez, approximately 80 percent of all domestic violence victims later recant, refusing to cooperate with the police or prosecutors. Having taped testimony and pictures of the victims increases the chances of a conviction, even when victims are too frightened or intimidated to press charges. FVCC funds have also provided additional training materials for the Collierville Police Department on domestic violence.

Also, the FVCC has provided funding for emergency shelter and assistance to victims. While in the past they have relied on agencies in Memphis for such assistance, the FVCC is currently working toward establishing an emergency shelter site in Collierville. Rinehart says, “Most of our victims don’t want to uproot and move into Memphis. Especially for those who have children in school, the upheaval would be very frightening and upsetting. We want to be able to help them without requiring them to leave town for that help.”

Emily Tooley, a licensed clinical social worker and one of the founding members of the FVCC, says the benefit of such a site would be to maintain some sense of normalcy and stability in the victims’ lives, while providing the help they need. “The most important thing is to get them away from danger and provide a safe place to seek help,” says Tooley.

Recently, the FVCC has branched into preventive efforts by sponsoring a pre-school program aimed at anger management and violence prevention. The program, called Della the Dinosaur, teaches children how to recognize “harmful ways” of dealing with anger and replace them with “helpful ways.” Dori Clark, FVCC member and program director, says she feels the program is an important step in preparing our children for the inevitable conflicts they’ll face growing up. “While most children are taught to settle disputes peacefully,” says Clark, “sooner or later, they’ll likely come in contact with another child who hasn’t learned any positive conflict resolution skills. It’s important they know how to handle that situation and choose positive ways of expressing their anger.”

Through education, awareness, and resources, the FVCC has helped Joy Dominguez and the Collierville community address a serious problem that was previously illusive. Sometimes, not naming our illness makes it easier to believe we are not really sick. Unfortunately, it also becomes impossible to seek a cure. Memphis Parent salutes the FVCC for bringing domestic violence into the open in Collierville, so that those who suffer will know where and how to seek help. As Sherrie Rinehart says, “Admitting we have problems doesn’t make us weaker. It makes us a better, stronger community.”

[This story first appeared in Memphis Parent]

Categories
News News Feature

WE RECOMMEND (THE GOOD PART)

First of all, although I’m no television critic, let me just say that if you missed the premier of That’s My Bush, the new sitcom about George and Laura Bush created by the geniuses responsible for South Park, you must stay home every Wednesday night from now on and watch it. How they get away with it I don’t know, but it’s the funniest television show I’ve ever seen. Timothy Bottoms, as the pretty likeable, bumbling idiot president, is without flaw. This is freedom of speech– which I don’t always agree with, as in Missouri allowing the KKK to be an Adopt a Highway sponsor, and then finally taking away that privilege because they were picking up only white trash (okay, had to get that in somehow)– at its best. And now I’m tired of writing about that, so on to something else. For those of you out there who are always whining about all of the “white elephant” attractions in Memphis, I hope you saw the article in a recent edition of The Commercial Appeal about the new Spam Museum being built in Austin, Minnesota, in a remodeled Kmart store on the city’s Main Street– a 20,000-square-foot shrine to the canned “meat,” complete with a bronze statue of two huge pigs and a farmer with a feed bucket. There. And you’re leery of a new NBA arena here? And now I’m tired of writing about that, so on to something else. China. How simple is it to say, “Sorry about the plane crash. We don’t know whose fault it was, but we are certainly sorry that it happened and feel deeply for the families of the deceased.” Is it that difficult? Well, I guess China is being a bit obnoxious as well by being so demanding. Colin Powell has expressed “sorrow” about the crash, which is pretty close. The problem is probably that Laura went out and bought some new White House china, someone got mad about it, and George is stomping his little cowboy boots on the floor refusing to apologize, not really having a clue about the international clash. And now I’m tired of writing about that, so on to something else. Does anyone else out there have lungs coated with asphalt because giant machines that work until late into the night are excavating your street? Giant drills pounding away making the world shake. I don’t know if any of you who live outside Midtown have been experiencing this, but I lived through it for almost a month at home and am now into the third week of it in front of my office. I guess they’re doing something to keep us from blowing up, but I know I’m going to end up with the rear half of my car in a 20-foot hole before it’s over. Oh, well. At least I did hear one of the workers yell this to his crew the other day, and I quote: “Y’all workin’ like a pair of windshield wipers on a billy goat’s ass!” That almost made my day. But now I’m tired of writing about that, so on to something else. How about the guy they just arrested in New York for spraying a combination of his own urine and feces on a salad bar in midtown Manhattan? Are they going to rename the sneeze guard? I hate to think of what that name might be.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

Spring Game Is Offensive

Was new University of Memphis coach Tommy West just trying to sell season tickets? How else to explain the performance in the annual Blue-Gray scrimmage by a new Tiger offense which threw on first down, operated without the benefit of a huddle, scored the first time it had the ball, and generally ran circles around the usually ferocious Tiger defense.

Behind quarterbacks Travis Anglin and Danny Wimprine, the offense scored five touchdowns during the two-hour scrimmage. When Anglin or Wimprine were not passing the ball effectively, they were handing it off to running backs Sugar Sanders, Aaron Meadows, and Jeremiah Bonds. Anglin had two touchdown passes and ran for another, while Wimprine threw for one and ran for a second.

Afterward, coaches and players alike expressed enthusiasm. “How did you like that?” one assistant coach asked after the scrimmage.

“This is the most excited I’ve ever seen our team,” said junior receiver Tripp Higgins. “Our defense even gets pumped up because of the tempo of our offense. They like seeing us do good.”

“We’re pleased with what we’ve accomplished in 13 practices,” West said after the scrimmage. “I think they’ve really come a long, long way. Our offensive players have an attitude right now that you want. They realize that they haven’t been very good; they haven’t been very productive. They’re listening to the fundamental coaching.”

West admitted that there were some areas that still need work, and he had some blunt words for his quarterbacks.

“We had some miscues at quarterback where we got people open. That’s not good enough to play quarterback here,” he said. “When we’ve got people wide open, we have to hit them or you can’t play Division I college football. That’s the way it is.”

The Tigers will go into August without a number-one quarterback. “I really don’t think we have a quarterback who deserves to be number one. I don’t think anybody is playing to a level that we’ll have to play to win games,” West said. “I think we’ve got some good competition and I don’t want to cut it off. I’m going to carry it into August.

“I think Travis has done some good things. He needs to improve in the passing game, but he certainly is a threat running the ball,” West continued. “I think he has improved throwing the ball. He has improved his accuracy. He is certainly in the mix.”

Wimprine said he welcomes the battle. “Competition only makes you better,” he said. “Hopefully, all the quarterbacks will get better from this situation.”

Excitement was the word of the day.

“We’re all excited about the new offense, it’s explosive,” said Trey Erye, who is competing for the starting right guard position. “The best thing is that it makes everybody accountable for themselves. Today we had a lot of good things happen.”

“Coach West and his staff have done a great job of installing a new offense. It makes it fun,” added Higgins. “The defense does not have as much depth as we do now. We just got a lot better. Not to take anything away from them, but we did a lot of things good today.”

TIGER NOTES

· Defensive back Bo Arnold is improving after being in a serious one-car collision near his home in Georgia. Arnold received facial injuries in the crash and has had to have his jaw wired, according to school officials.

· A third quarterback, senior Neil Suber, played in the game but was ineffective. Scott Scherer, who was the starter at the end of last season, sat out the scrimmage. Scherer took a vicious hit at practice a few days before and was held out of the game. Scherer’s mother, Michelle, attended the game, but his father, former head coach Rip Scherer, was out of town.

· Senior defensive end Tony Brown, who had to sit out his freshman season because he didn’t qualify academically, says he is hopeful of getting another year of eligibility by graduating in 2002. “It is looking like I will be, with all the classes I’m taking,” Brown said. He and Andre Arnold, the other starting defensive end, make up the most experienced part of a line that suffered heavy losses to graduation.

· West doesn’t know what the NCAA will do with the university’s appeal to have defensive tackle Albert Means, a transfer from Alabama, declared eligible immediately. “He can help our team,” West said. “I just have to keep my fingers crossed and hope people do the right thing and restore his eligibility. I don’t think we will know anything till mid-summer. There really has never been a case like this. I don’t know what is going to happen.” Means found himself at the center of a recruiting scandal after a Memphis high school coach claimed that an Alabama supporter gave Means’ high school coach $200,000 to have him sign with the Crimson Tide.

· Wimprine made the most incredible play of the game when he ran down speedy defensive back Quincy Stephenson who had just intercepted a pass and returned it 49 yards. Wimprine, who missed some practice time because of academic problems, says not to worry about him. “I will be fine,” he said. Both of his parents attended the game, traveling from their home near New Orleans. His mother is a frequent poster to the message board at the Web site Tiger Illustrated. She uses the screen name “Dan’s Fan.”

· Offensive line coach Rick Mallory says former tight end Wade Smith‘s move to right tackle has worked out well despite the ego adjustment involved. “I went through it and a lot of guys I know in the NFL went through it. It’s always a shock to your system, to your ego,” Mallory said of the transition. “But Wade sees the wisdom behind it. He is a real athletic guy and he’s going to help us a lot.”

· Deep snapper Jarred Pigue has quit the team. He told coaches he wants to transfer to Tennessee. ·

You can e-mail Dennis Freeland at freeland@memphisflyer.com.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

A Tough Decision

PHOTO David
Sowell
Quarterback
Shyrone Chatman

As my colleague John Branston said after the issue first came up:
“I could give you five reasons for it and five against it.”

Should Memphis make the financial commitment to obtain the NBA
team now known as the Vancouver Grizzlies? Even if that means spending up to
$250 million in public funds? Would Memphis support the team if they got it?
What about the proverbial Tuesday night game vs. the Clippers? Would having an
NBA here hurt the University of Memphis?

I’m glad I don’t have to make the decision.

Back in 1992, when the NFL first let Memphis know that the
Liberty Bowl expansion was not going to be enough to land the city an
expansion team, there was an avalanche of sentiment against building a new
football stadium. The city felt betrayed by the NFL. We had done everything
they had asked us to do, including selling out meaningless exhibition games
and expanding the stadium.

But that was then, this is now.

In the decade which followed, we watched Nashville build two
arenas and land two big-league franchises: the NFL Titans and the NHL
Predators. We have seen, first-hand, how much those franchises have meant to
the Nashville image, which is now polished brighter than ever.

“But Memphis can’t even air-condition all of its public
schools,” the argument goes. But it isn’t a choice between air
conditioning and a new arena. It’s apples and oranges.

According to a study by Roger Noll and Andrew Zimbalist,
economics professors at Stanford University and Smith College, respectively,
U.S. cities will spend $7 billion on new sports arenas by 2006 and most of
this money will come from taxpayers. The annual cost to Maryland taxpayers for
Camden Yards, the Baltimore ballpark that AutoZone Park is modeled after, is
$14 million.

The study paints a bleak picture of this rush to use public funds
to build sports stadiums. “A new sports facility has an extremely small
(perhaps even negative) effect on overall economic activity and
employment,” write the authors. “No recent facility seems to have
earned anything approaching a reasonable return on investment. No recent
facility has been self-financing in terms of its impact on net tax revenues.
Regardless of whether the unit of analysis is a local neighborhood, a city, or
an entire metropolitan area, the economic benefits of sports facilities are
de minimus.”

But what of the psychological lift a big-league stadium and
tenant give a city? What of the intangible benefits? Isn’t that worth it?

Well, we could give you five reasons for and five reasons
against. And it seems like Memphians are just as undecided as I am. In
“The Buzz,” The Memphis Flyer‘s online poll, 53 percent want
the city to build a new arena for the NBA and 47 percent call it a waste of
money. Of course, our poll isn’t scientific, but this isn’t science.

Like I said, I’m glad I don’t have to make the call.

TIGER BASKETBALL RECAP

BEST GAME: January 18th. Memphis 72, Saint Louis 63
(OT).

Tigers rally late at The Pyramid, McFadgon hits a trey to tie in
final minute. Tigers are brilliant in OT. All this on ESPN. Tigers move beyond
.500 mark for first time in Calipari era.

BEST BREAK: Courtney Trask’s suspension. No way does
Shyrone Chatman emerge as the quarterback of this team without Trask’s forced
benching.

WORST GAME: March 3rd. Louisville 65, Memphis 56.

With C-USA’s best record on the line against the school’s biggest
rival, Tigers are whipped in every facet of the game.

WORST BREAK: Calipari’s ambitious scheduling. Had the
Tigers not run that SEC gauntlet in early December (Arkansas, Mississippi, and
Tennessee), we might be analyzing the odds of Memphis reaching Minneapolis
right now.

BEST INDIVIDUAL GAME: Shyrone Chatman vs. South Florida on
Senior Night at The Pyramid: 17 points, 7 assists, 6 rebounds, 3 steals in 36
minutes. Say what you will about all the Wise double-doubles, Chatman’s
command of the backcourt is the reason this team is playing in the
postseason.

BEST COACHING MOMENT: Calipari taking the floor to present
Marcus Moody the game ball after Moody scored his 1,000th point against Howard
(a thaw in the “cold war” between player and coach).

WORST COACHING MOMENT: Forty minutes of passionless
basketball at Louisville. Afterward the coach took full responsibility for
backing off the team in practice prior to the U of L game.

TURNING POINT: Whipping Kansas State in The Pyramid on
12/30/00. Wildcats not a special team by any means, but this was the first
dominant win over a major-conference opponent under Calipari. The ultimate
statement game.

MOST TELLING STAT: Kelly Wise hit just 51 percent of his
free throws. Imagine the offensive weapon he would be if teams couldn’t foul
him in the paint.

QUOTE OF THE YEAR: “I had to take them down to the
level of spit on the ground. I showed them the tape. So if any player wanted
to complain or whine, the other players could say, ‘I saw it on the tape.’
Stats indict; tape convicts.” — John Calipari on his reaction to losing
at Louisville.

DAJUAN WAGNER IN

THE TIMES

From an excellent profile of high school phenom and U of M signee
Dajuan Wagner in the March 4th issue of The New York Times: “If he
wasn’t at Camden, if he was driving his parents’ car at a suburban school,
would anything be said?” — Memphis basketball administrative assistant
Milt Wagner on the Cadillac SUV he says he loaned his son.

And this from Dajuan’s 35-year-old mother, Lisa Paulk: “I
don’t need him to support me. I’ve got a job, a car, and a house. I told him
to go to college. If the coach feels that it’s right to leave early to go to
the NBA, I still want him to go back to school to get his degree. I feel like
he’s got a lot of maturing to do.”

Paulk says she plans to move to Memphis in order to watch her two
“sons” play college basketball. Arthur Barclay, who is sitting out
this season at the U of M, lived with Paulk and Dajuan during high school and
the two consider themselves brothers.

NBA DENIES FAVORITISM

According to NBA public-relations representative Alexis Snipes,
“There is an NBA Board of Governors that decides all expansions or
moves.” That decision will come after the Vancouver Grizzlies owner,
Michael Heisley, submits an application for his choice of city on March 24th.
Until then, the NBA has no official opinion as to which city, if any, the
Grizzlies might move to.

This is contrary to previous reports in The Vancouver
Province that the NBA supported a Memphis move.

Heisley recently received a deadline extension and is reported to
be visiting Memphis and Louisville later this week.

(Frank Murtaugh and Chris Przybyszewski contributed to this
column. Thanks to Jack Marshall for sending the economic study.)

Categories
News The Fly-By

VERBATIM

I had to take them down to the level of spit on the ground. The way I did it was, I showed them the tape of the Louisville game. Statistics indict; videotape convicts. I was mean in practice yesterday and we went long and we went hard and they were great.

— U of M coach John Calipari on how he will get his team back after two disheartening losses last week. The Tigers play in the Conference USA tournament in Louisville on Thursday.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

The Company You Keep

We’ve seen this scenario before: Memphis has a successful minor-league pro football team with good attendance and community support, but the league in which it plays goes bust. Were the WFL and the USFL not successes in Memphis?

Reports of the XFL decline in TV ratings continue to pour in. What difference does it make if Memphis is the leading UPN market for the XFL? (Similarly, what difference does it make that Channel 5 pre-empted Saturday’s NBC telecast of the XFL because of a thunderstorm?) What does it matter if the Maniax meet their attendance expectations? This is a television league, half-owned by a TV network. And what do network executives do when a show fails to get good ratings? They quickly go to the ax.

The Maniax have done an admirable job of hiring personnel (including head coach Kippy Brown and general manager Steve Ehrhart) and marketing the team. But unfortunately, as the Grizzlies and the Showboats discovered before them, if the league folds, your team goes right down the drain.

The same does not hold true of college sports. That’s good, because the University of Memphis has been a member of three different leagues in the past 12 years. But a league can hold back a school. It is difficult for a team to be consistently better than the league it plays in.

But, unlike the Maniax, there will always be a league for the Tigers. That’s because Memphis needs Louisville, just as Louisville needs Cincinnati. These schools may not be the athletic equivalent of best friends, but they are a lot like the school clique that forms out of necessity. It’s either that or be a loner. And in college athletics, as in life, the solitary road definitely has a downside.

Memphis is lucky, then, to have Louisville, Cincinnati, Houston, and Southern Miss. They should call their league the Nobody Wants to Play With Us Conference. The alternative is not to have sports at all. Not to have a big raucous crowd at The Pyramid for a national telecast.

Too bad that every city that wants and can afford a professional football team can’t have one. Because if Memphis has proven anything, it is that it will support traditional, outdoor football. The Maniax would be a success if every market embraced the XFL as Memphis has. But from a television perspective, there aren’t enough markets turned on to the XFL. What do Pittsburgh, Boston, or Kansas City care about the XFL? Why would anyone in those cities watch?

NBC got into the professional football business with the same sort of mind-set that led the teams in C-USA to join forces. The National Football League hooked up with the other guys, leaving NBC as the only old-school network without an NFL contract. So the network formed its own league — partnering with Vince McMahon of all people.

But the TV execs are now seeing the writing on the wall. Sex and violence may work for the WWF, but football fans want to see good football players on teams that they know and care about. As someone else said, “The XFL is not good enough football for the die-hard football fan and not good enough drama for the average wrestling fan.”

Memphis supports the XFL because as a city we have been conditioned to do it. When McMahon and his cohorts held that first press conference at The Peabody it was like Pavlov ringing the bell. Memphis started to salivate. It isn’t Memphis’ fault that the league won’t survive.

Conference USA is not as fragile. It will be around as long as Memphis, Louisville, and Cincinnati don’t have anywhere else to go. But the league makes for strange bedfellows. Marquette, DePaul, and Saint Louis are urban Jesuit schools that don’t play football. Charlotte is an urban public school that also doesn’t play football. Tulane is a private urban school that plays football, not that anyone in New Orleans notices or cares. The ties that bind these schools are not always apparent.

The league originally got together to play basketball, but it seems that the football schools (Memphis, Louisville, East Carolina) are calling the shots now. How long will the non-football schools tolerate that? It is that dynamic which drives C-USA. Sometimes it can be a sputtering trip.

We are going to hear a lot in the next few days about what a terrible year Conference USA has had in college basketball. Many are saying that the league may only get one team in the NCAA tournament, especially if Cincinnati wins the conference tournament and the automatic bid that comes with it.

Memphis has three things going for it: its tough early-season schedule, its strong showing at the end of the season, and the personality of its coach. John Calipari has already started to lobby hard for his team. And he can be a very persuasive guy.

When the XFL is just another footnote in history, Tiger basketball will still be around. Whether the same can be said of Conference USA is another story.

The C-USA race will probably come down to the Memphis-Louisville game, and there is something that feels right about that. The Tigers head to Freedom Hall Saturday to close out the regular season against the school’s number-one rival. Besides being senior day for the U of L, it will also probably be Denny Crum’s final regular-season game.

The game has passed Crum by. That’s the conventional wisdom. He never adapted to the era of the shot clock and the three-point line. Now the school is forced with making the difficult decision to fire a legend.

And Memphis thought it was difficult to fire Larry Finch.

In fact, Louisville will be ground zero for Tiger basketball this week and next as the conference tournament, for the second consecutive year, finds itself hosted by a school whose program is in turmoil. Last year it was in Memphis, where the fan base had turned grumpy. Wonder if the U of L will use the tournament and the hordes of reporters present as a forum to name a new coach?

Calipari started all four of his seniors Sunday night. It was the final home appearance for Marcus Moody, Shyrone Chatman, Shannon Forman, and Shamel Jones. The seniors got to start, but they were not immune from the lash of their head coach.

After Jones failed to get a rebound, Calipari sent Earl Barron into the game. When Jones made a face, Calipari was incredulous. “He’s looking at me,” the coach said to his assistants. “Why is he looking at me?”

As Jones made his way to the bench, Calipari turned the question to the senior from Brooklyn. “Why are you looking at me? Expect it. You’re not rebounding the ball.”

Twice Calipari called timeouts after Moody mistakes. “Do you want to win this game?” the coach asked the guard during one timeout, after South Florida had scored a breakaway basket when Moody didn’t get back defensively.

But the coach wasn’t always negative.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” he screamed at Moody after a driving basket. “That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

After the game Calipari repeated his admiration for the group of seniors, who have had to play for three different coaches while going through the Tic Price scandal and the coaching search that ended with Calipari.

And the toughest thing they have had to go through may have been the transition to Calipari.

THIS AND THAT: It is easy to rag on Tic Price. I have done it myself. But perhaps we should mention here that not only did Price recruit the four seniors who were at the heart of the lovefest Sunday, but he also brought in Kelly Wise, Courtney Trask, Scooter McFadgon, Earl Barron, and Paris London. Hard to believe but UNO is supposedly thinking of bringing Price back as head coach. According to several published reports, Rhode Island recently made a pass at Calipari. Better get used to it, Tiger fans. It’s the price a school pays for having a hot young coach. As the week began, Cincinnati ranked 36th in the RPI; Southern Miss was 64th, Charlotte 76th, Marquette 80th, and Memphis 81st. Not much to crow about is it? This from The Sporting News Website (sportingnews.com): Bubble teams (listed in order of probability of making the field): Temple (47), Penn State (35), Mississippi State (28), Richmond (48), Utah State (63), Memphis (81), BYU (53), St. John’s (51), New Mexico (46), South Carolina (45), Southern Miss (64), Pepperdine (72), UTEP (62).

You can e-mail Dennis Freeland at freeland@memphisflyer.com.