When this 2007-2008 basketball campaign was about to kick off I wrote a post on my blog about how I felt that the next 3 months would bring this city together in ways that we never dreamed possible. One of the most racially torn, rags to riches cities in America would band together for what was for sure to be a magical run. It seemed like all of the pieces were finally in place. After back to back elite 8 runs it was the the Tigers' turn.
Driving in to work this morning on Sam Cooper Blvd I saw a giant tent set up on the south side of the road just east of Tillman. Under this giant blue tent was a man (woman?) dressed in a Tiger suit waving a huge Go Tigers flag. As car after car passed by each honked, waved, and shouted. This city is on it's feet glued to what's about to happen in San Antonio, Texas and I'm loving every minute of it.
When John Calipari came here after the firing of Tic Price following the 1999-2000 season I felt like a savior had been brought to us from the heavens of the NBA ranks. Five years later many in Memphis had turned on Coach Cal. We had only won one NCAA tournament game, we had just finished in the bottom ranks of the C-USA standings. Radio sports-talk guys were ready to crucify the man. At that time I didn't get it, but Cal did. He told those that begged for his resignation, that put for-sale signs in his yard, that moaned about the Big East raid on C-USA that we were close and that in the next year or two Memphis would be back on the map. He told us that the world was against us, but that we were going to do it.
That attitude, the world against us, is Cal's philosophy. And over the past four years following an NIT Championship, two Elite 8 appearances, and now a Final Four this city has bought into the madness. Every place I turn I hear about how ESPN hates us. I hear that the pundits all want us to lose because we don't represent a BCS conference. I hear from people that refs make calls against us because we aren't one of the storied programs. We have all become the man that so many hated earlier this century. We've all become Coach Cal. We've all become believers that this is our destiny and that everyone and anyone wants to stand in our way to get it.
Pittsburgh is known as the steel-city. Their sports fans are known for their blue-collar attitudes and their take no prisoner mentality. Philadelphia is know as the city that boos even Santa Claus. They will boo anyone if you aren't leading them to a championship. And now Memphis has become the loner city; a city on an island out there defending itself against the rest of the world. And this mentality has brought us all together and for once we're all fighting for the same thing. Our neighbors, once foes are now friends. And our enemies are now common among us. Our leader is the most polarizing man in the sport and we owe him big time for taking us back to the Final Four, which was his promise to us when RC Johnson brought him here.
Go Tigers Go!
2 comments:
I heard John Calipari on the Jim Rome radio show the other day talking about the exact same thing. He spoke about the for sale signs and said that he has kept every one of them to remind him that he can’t ever get comfortable. The interview was great. I wish everyone would have heard it. For the record, I always believed in John. I never understood why everyone was on him so hard, and that was after he took the team to their first Elite 8. It was like he was a downgrade or something. People seem to forget that Memphis was almost a nobody school in the national scene before he came along. To this day I am baffled by the scrutiny he has received.
Paymon
Correction....I didn't mean the first Elite 8 in school history. I meant the first one since the Larry Finch days.
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