“Of all the teams
in this tournament, this is huge for the city of Memphis. Memphis is in the
Bible Belt, a Godly place, a charitable place. But we’ve got a lot of poverty;
we have a lot of things going on. With this right here, what’s happening can
show a lot of young kids there is hope, there is an opportunity, there is
chance.”
– John Calipari
(April 5, 2008)
It’s the nature of
Memphis — the nature of who we are as Memphians — that the stories we embrace
most passionately tend to come with a bruise or two. We’re the home of Elvis
Presley, perhaps the most famous man of the 20th century . . . but alas, a
fallen star who has “earned” more money in the grave than he did on stage. We
rightfully carry a banner for Martin Luther King and the message he embodied . .
. but alas, Memphis is connected to Dr. King primarily for being the place he
was slain. The music Memphis sings for the world — the blues — is largely about
the hazards of love, the sorrow of love lost. Even as noble an enterprise as St.
Jude Children’s Research Hospital is named for the patron saint of lost causes.
To the list of
heartbreaking identifiers we can now add the 2008 NCAA basketball championship
contest, won Monday night in San Antonio by Kansas — 75-68 in overtime — over a
Memphis team that, yes, won more games (38) than any team in the history of the
sport. Four missed free throws over the last two minutes by two Tiger
All-Americans — Chris Douglas-Roberts and Derrick Rose — allowed the Jayhawks’
Mario Chalmers to drain a game-tying three-point shot with two seconds left in
regulation. Including the overtime period, Memphis was outscored 24-8 over the
game’s last eight minutes. How does a team — and the community it embodies —
retain perspective when told 38-2 isn’t good enough?
When all the tears
on all those Tiger-blue Final Four t-shirts are finally dried, the 2007-08
Memphis basketball team will land where it belongs: a significant club in
basketball history, the players now permanently a part of the city many of them
will only temporarily call home. Joey Dorsey is from Baltimore, Douglas-Roberts
from Detroit, Antonio Anderson from Massachusetts, Robert Dozier from Georgia,
Rose from Chicago. But they are all Memphians now, and forevermore. Twenty years
from now, nearing the end of his NBA career, you think Rose will have to buy a
meal in Memphis? In the year 2038, you think the initials CDR won’t call to mind
that dunk over UCLA’s Kevin Love? Memphis may be too large, too complicated a
city to be called a “college town,” but these Tigers are ours, as much a part of
the community fabric now as your favorite corner bar or your favorite river
view. They’re ours, especially, because no one will understand the ache of April
7, 2008, like they will.
My friend Dennis
Freeland and I used to chuckle over the joyous futility of sportswriting. The
former Flyer editor — who died far too young in 2002 — recognized sporting
events for what they were: moments in time. Which made it well nigh impossible
to convey that “moment” in words that must necessarily be written (and read)
after the moment has passed.
But that’s the
joyous part of the endeavor. Absorbing a moment — however crushing it may turn
out to be — as it occurs, then reaching into the recesses of thought and
sentiment to somehow add life to (or in this case, survive) an otherwise
transitory event. Dennis — from whichever cloud he watched Monday night’s game —
would know how unnecessary even the most profound game summary of Kansas-Memphis
will be in the days and weeks ahead. For it’s the bond the Memphis Tigers hold
to their city that will spawn the tales that heal, the verbal replays, rewinds,
and reflections of a season — and even a last breathtaking game — that give
sports “moments” a kind of immortality the best stories ride into posterity.
I had my groceries
bagged last weekend by a young man in a Derrick Rose jersey. Saw a father eating
breakfast with his son Sunday morning, wearing a t-shirt that said, “Joey Dorsey
for Mayor.” (Two birds with one stone, that message.) Did some banking Monday
morning with a woman — dressed entirely in blue — more interested in talking
about the Tigers’ chances against Kansas than she was my account numbers (I
reviewed her work carefully). If you didn’t see Tiger blue in Memphis over the
last week, the cabin fever must be unbearable. The moments of hope and joy
simply stockpiled.
A single free
throw made (instead of missed), a desperation three missed (instead of made),
and maybe three fewer seconds on the clock. Such were the moments Tiger Nation
will imagine for what seemed so clearly to be a national title. The 2008 NCAA
championship was a heartbreaking story. And very much a Memphis one.
