Tag: Phil Cannon

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

Phil’s FESJC

Phil Cannon

This is arguably the greatest week of the year for Memphis sports. Seventy of the finest golfers on the planet arrive in the Bluff City for the FedEx St. Jude Championship, the first of three playoff tournaments to decide the winner of this year’s FedEx Cup. Masters champion Scottie Scheffler will be here. Xander Schauffele — winner of the PGA Championship and the British Open — will be here. So will Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, and Justin Thomas. Memphis is the center of the golf universe for a precious, if humid, weekend.

I always think of Phil Cannon when the FESJC rolls around. We lost the longtime tournament director much too soon (in 2016), but Phil’s imprint on the event lives on, and in ways that go beyond any plaque or statue. The hundreds of volunteers who make you feel like the tournament belongs to you, personally? That’s Phil Cannon’s influence. A media center equipped with every tool a reporter might need to best share a story? That’s Phil Cannon’s influence. And the ongoing bonds between our tournament and both St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and FedEx? That’s Phil Cannon’s priority list, living and breathing, making the FESJC distinct from any other golf tournament in the world.

Phil was the primary source for my very first feature in Memphis Magazine, way back in June 1994. He treated me like a veteran scribe in town for Sports Illustrated. I have little doubt every writer who crossed his path would tell you the same thing. Phil Cannon was a Memphis treasure. When the FESJC makes sports headlines every summer, I’m reminded that he still is.

• The Memphis Redbirds unveiled a new sign on the outfield wall at AutoZone Park last Saturday, a tribute to the 1938 Negro American League champion Memphis Red Sox. It made for a glorious night at the ballpark, Memphis beating Gwinnett, 8-2, while wearing uniforms commemorating the city’s Negro League team of days gone by.

It’s a good start for a franchise and facility that desperately needs to better embrace the history we’ve seen over the ballpark’s first quarter-century. That lone red chair on the right-field bluff? That’s where Albert Pujols (yes, that guy) hit a baseball to win the 2000 Pacific Coast League championship for Memphis. But there’s no plaque to tell a new fan why September 15, 2000, is an important date in Memphis sports history. Just an oddly placed red seat. 

And how about a reminder (poster?) that Yadier Molina played here, and actually caught his first game with Adam Wainwright on the mound at AutoZone Park? (The two broke the major-league record for starts by a battery in 2022.) You might recognize highlights of David Freese from the 2011 World Series. Did you know Freese hit game-winning home runs in the 2009 PCL playoffs, helping Memphis to its second championship? A visual reminder would make AutoZone Park a better, happier place.

• The U.S. Olympic basketball teams (men and women) both brought home gold medals from the Paris Games. Salute to LeBron James, Breanna Stewart, and the many future Hall of Famers who handled the uncomfortable role of heavy favorite and made it to the podium. It makes for a good time to remind voters for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame that Memphis legend Penny Hardaway is the only member of the 1996 U.S. Olympic team — also gold medalists — not currently enshrined. The only one. Mitch Richmond is in the Hall of Fame, for crying out loud, but not Penny Hardaway. Let’s get this corrected.

Categories
From My Seat Sports

Phil Mickelson, Fatherhood, and the FESJC

With Tiger Woods now battling midlife demons, no player on the PGA Tour fills a gallery like Phil Mickelson. And the biggest galleries Mickelson sees this month, it turns out, will be right here in Memphis at the FedEx St. Jude Classic. The 46-year-old Hall of Famer will skip next week’s U.S. Open so he can attend his daughter Amanda’s high school graduation. (As class president, Amanda will speak at the ceremony.) With the Open concluding on Father’s Day, as it does every year, Mickelson is sharing some perspective on family and career that goes well beyond fairway-splitting drives or a smooth putting stroke.

Don’t forget, the U.S. Open is Mickelson’s white whale. He’s won each of golf’s other three majors, but has never been crowned this country’s national champion. He’s come tantalizingly close, finishing second on Father’s Day six times (first in 1999, most recently in 2013).

 And Mickelson is 46. The oldest man to win the U.S. Open? Hale Irwin, who did so at age 45 in 1990.

All this is to say: relish Phil Mickelson’s visit to the TPC Southwind course this week. This winner of five majors has become a regular in recent years at the FESJC, and is an eye-popping example of how superstars sell tickets. I’ve walked the Southwind course with groups ahead of Mickelson’s in which you can listen to the conversation between a player and his caddie. I’ve stopped to wait for Mickelson to arrive and it’s like an organized march ensues, younger fans sprinting ahead for a prime viewpoint along the rope or near the next green. Mickelson is a one-man brand in a sport lacking the built-in marketing tool that is a team nickname. He earns every dime he’s paid by sponsors, every check he cashes at the end of a tournament.

Mickelson tied for second at last year’s FESJC, three strokes behind first-time winner Daniel Berger. Here’s hoping he takes the winner’s check home this Sunday. It would be a nice graduation gift for Amanda.

• This week’s tournament marks the 60th consecutive year the PGA has called Memphis home for a week. Among the FESJC’s 10-year anniversaries, which tournament is most memorable? Curtis Strange won the 30th event (then the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic) in 1987. Ten years later, the Shark himself, Greg Norman, took the winner’s check. But I’d have to go with the 1977 event, in which Al Geiberger won by virtue of the first 59 in PGA Tour history. Geiberger didn’t break 70 in any of his other three rounds, but that epic Friday at Colonial Country Club made him a Memphis sports deity.

• This will be the first FESJC since longtime tournament director Phil Cannon died last October. If you’re among the thousands who enjoy the comforts of TPC Southwind this week, remember Phil and the impact he made over his four decades of involvement with the event. A convenient concession stand on the back nine? That’s Phil. A volunteer handing out free lip balm as the mercury rises? That’s Phil. Proximity to the best golfers in the world while feeling right at home? That’s Phil Cannon.

Categories
From My Seat Sports

Giving Thanks for Sporting Events of 2016

This is my favorite column of the year, a chance for me to fill that mocking space on my screen with the sports-related subjects I’m most grateful to have in my club car on this train called life.

Gratitude. Give it a chance.

• I’m grateful for Year Seven of the Memphis Grizzlies’ “core four.” I wish we could come up with a more distinctive tag for our “fab four”: Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, Tony Allen, and Zach Randolph. They’ve earned that much, sticking together in one of the NBA’s smallest markets in an age when as many as five years with a franchise — for a single player, let alone a quartet — is considered lengthy. For some perspective, the Lakers’ great foursome of the Eighties — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, James Worthy, and Michael Cooper — played exactly seven seasons together. More recently in San Antonio, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Bruce Bowen broke up the band after seven years. Four years with one super-teammate (Dwyane Wade) was enough for LeBron James, and they won a pair of titles together. We won’t see another foursome like this at FedExForum.

Tubby Smith

• I’m grateful for Georgia Tech hiring Josh Pastner . . . and Memphis hiring Tubby Smith. Exhale. Last winter was excruciatingly uncomfortable for anyone in proximity to Pastner and the multiplying empty seats on game nights at FEF. And that contract(!) that made it all but impossible for the U of M to dismiss him. Thankfully, these kinds of divorces seem to unfold as they should. A good man is in a happier place. And a good program can aim to be great again under the wise watch of a man aiming to take a sixth program to the NCAA tournament.

• I’m grateful for an early look at Alex Reyes. The big righty appears to be on his way to stardom with the St. Louis Cardinals. It was nice to watch a few Reyes outings at AutoZone Park, the latest Redbirds coming attraction.

• I’m grateful for George Lapides and Phil Cannon and all they gave the Memphis sports community. Like days of the week, a sports community — its teams, its fans, its sponsors, its venues, its media personalities — has a “feel.” George and Phil brought a warmth — and distinct passion — to sports in Memphis. They live on in every one of us who attends a ball game now and then.

• I’m grateful for Mike Norvell’s energy and confidence. He’s the first Memphis Tiger football coach in generations to face an imposing task in filling his predecessor’s shoes. He has graciously saluted Justin Fuente’s achievements in building the program . . . while emphasizing it’s not where he and his staff want it be. Not yet. His prematurely gray hair gives Norvell the appearance of a man beyond his 35 years. So does his attention to detail and single-minded focus in making Memphis a premium program. It’s the hardest sports job in town.

• I’m grateful for my daughters’ continued commitment to team sports. One will play her senior high school softball season as an All-Metro outfielder, while the other played her first varsity soccer season as merely a freshman. They are bright, skilled, beautiful young ladies. And they know well the values that make a good teammate. Such is necessary in the wide world that awaits them.

• I’m grateful to be following in the footsteps — literally, and rapidly — of my 5K-running wife. Her commitment to not just running, but competing, is a healthy rebuke of any middle-age ceiling on athleticism. I’m especially grateful for her waiting for me at the finish line, one race after another.

• I’m grateful for you. And every one of the Flyer readers who give us a platform to share news, views, and analysis of the people and events that make Memphis such an extraordinary town. I appreciate your counterpoints, value your applause, and listen to your criticism. You give my job redeeming value.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Categories
From My Seat Sports

Missing Phil Cannon

Phil Cannon

I miss Phil Cannon. The longtime director of the FedEx St. Jude Classic died last Wednesday after a courageous two-year battle with lung cancer. I last saw Phil and his lovely wife at the Liberty Bowl before the Temple game on October 6th. However sick he may have felt, he didn’t show it. Never did. Like every other time I crossed Phil’s path, he brightened my mood. I wish I’d taken more time to visit with him that evening.

Consider the impact Phil made on this entire region over his four decades in support of our annual PGA event. (Memphis was “big league” long before the Grizzlies arrived.) The city’s two most powerful, wide-reaching brands — FedEx and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital — are in the very title of the golf tournament. There was a four-year period (2007-2010) when FedEx was not the title sponsor, and those were rough years for Phil and his staff. But he lured the Fortune 500 titan back into the mix, all the while coordinating an army of volunteers that numbered upwards of 1,800, the faces and voices (“Hush y’all!”) that make the FESJC so distinctly ours. Phil could impact a boardroom packed with CEOs the same way he could an assembled group of groundskeepers, scoreboard operators, and concession vendors.

Phil was the primary source for the first feature I wrote for Memphis magazine, a broad look at the FESJC in June 1994. He treated me like I was reporting for Esquire. Twenty-one years later, I sat down with him to absorb some wisdom for Inside Memphis Business. Among the nuggets he shared: “If you’re going to need 150 carts on Wednesday but only 100 on Friday, go ahead and get the 150.” Perfectly Phil Cannon. Whether it’s transportation, catering, or restrooms, err on the side of making your customers comfortable.

The world can’t replace the Phil Cannons among us. But the kindness, decency, professionalism, humor, and courage that Phil personified live on mightily among those of us who called him a friend. And that’s a slice of immortality.

• Cancer is a monster that takes many hideous forms. Phil Cannon was in my thoughts when my family and I approached the starting line at Saturday’s Race for the Cure downtown. If there’s a more uplifting event in Memphis, I’ve yet to attend it. The annual 5K serves as a coming-out party — that’s what it is, a party — to celebrate the women (and men) we’ve lost to breast cancer, and the thousands around the world beating the insidious disease every day.

If breast cancer hasn’t impacted you personally, it surely has indirectly. (My mom and sister are breast cancer survivors.) I start the Race for the Cure each year with a lump in my throat, reading the tags runners and walkers wear to salute a loved one they’ve lost, or one currently fighting for her life. And the route makes the event so distinctly Memphis: Start in front of the Peabody, then along the river, down South Main, around the National Civil Rights Museum and FedExForum, back along Beale Street, with a finish at AutoZone Park. Whether you’re burning your lungs over the final mile, or walking hand-in-hand with a family member, you can actually feel compassion winning (to say nothing of the extensive research saving lives every day). If you were there Saturday, thank you. If not, consider marking your calendar for next October.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

Cannon Shots

Phil Cannon has been tournament director of the FedEx St. Jude Classic since 2000. The 49th annual PGA event is set to tee off Thursday at Southwind’s TPC course.

Flyer: This is the end of an era: the 21st and final year FedEx will be the tournament’s title sponsor. How will this impact the event?

Cannon: Any impact that this has will be positive. FedEx has agreed to stay on as a presenting sponsor, and the Tour has found us a new title sponsor — Stanford Financial — that’s anxious to make a big impact. Plus, FedEx will play a larger role with the PGA Tour, as sponsor of the new points system, the FedEx Cup. When it’s all said and done, people are going to look back on 2007 as a real turning point in our sport.

Two names from this year’s field that caught my eye are Camilo Villegas [pronounced beh-JAY-gus] and Bill Haas, two of the PGA Tour’s top rookies. What can you tell us about them?

Villegas is on the cover of the current issues of Golf World, Golf Digest, and Golf Week. One of the magazines says Camilo Villegas is Spanish for “chick magnet.” We’re very excited to have him in the field. He’s colorful, dynamic. He’s blown up the myth that PGA players are all clones. He’s quite dashing.

Bill Haas comes from a great pedigree, with his father Jay [the 1992 FESJC champ]. Another young man to watch is Ryan Moore, the first player to complete the “amateur slam” [U.S. Amateur, NCAA championship, U.S. Publinx, and Western Amateur] since Bobby Jones.

Nick Price is a Hall of Famer who’s won here twice and will be playing Memphis for the 19th time. What’s the secret to this relationship?

Nick’s like a lot of the golfers, in that he just has favorite places that he likes to go to each year. Memphis has been fortunate that he likes our golf course and likes the people. He loves St. Jude.

The FESJC will be missing golf’s “Big Four”: Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, and Vijay Singh. Is this a big deal or an exaggerated factor?

Memphis golf fans love the tournament and love St. Jude. They recognize that the best golfers playing golf next week will be playing in Memphis.

Is it possible for John Daly’s game to catch up with his notoriety?

I’d love to see John win here. Being at home sometimes gives him the ability to relax and concentrate more on his game. John just loves playing golf, period.

What do you feel separates the FESJC from other PGA Tour stops?

It’s easy to say this, but St. Jude is very important. We remain the only tournament with a charity in its title. St. Jude allows us to keep playing for them, and our volunteers keep coming out for them. We’re tied to some significant brands — FedEx, St. Jude, and the PGA Tour. [The tournament] has also been a staple of the Memphis social, civic, and sports scene for over 40 years now.

Is there a target figure for this year’s donation to St. Jude?

We gave a million dollars last year, and that’s a record. We’d love to beat the record.

Okay, you’re on the spot: Who will win this year’s championship?

Villegas would be one of my picks. Ryan Moore could come up there. But you can’t overlook David Toms or [defending champion] Justin Leonard either.