A loss for the Tigers, a win for Memphis

Four hundred and fifty miles away from Memphis and 1,157 miles from the NCAA Tournament championship game in San Antonio, I sat helpless, watching my hometown Memphis Tigers lose in overtime. After an incredible season that ended with a 75-68 loss to the Kansas Jayhawks, I couldn’t believe it was over and that I wasn’t even home to commiserate with the rest of the city. \nAs a 15-year resident of Memphis, I defended my team to haters – mostly the rest of the sports desk – throughout the tournament. After the Tigers beat UCLA, I ran around my dorm screaming, “We’re going to the championship!” Wanting to share my joy, I found my friend Matt, who had also been watching the game. He said to me, “Why do you cheer for the Tigers? You don’t go the University of Memphis.”\nIt’s hard to explain to non-Memphians – or as I prefer to call them, the unlucky ones – \nhow the Tigers aren’t just a college team. They belong to the whole city. Even though Memphis has an NBA team, the Tigers reign. The Grizzlies are to Memphis as soccer is to America – they just don’t matter. \nEvery year during March Madness, the city becomes Tiger-crazy. Strangers have a conversation starter, and for once Memphis is in the news for something positive. But this year, March was an especially eventful month. On March 3, six people, including two children, were killed in one of the worst mass murders in the city’s history. A horrific crime can put a basketball loss into perspective.\nBut as the city was reeling, the Tigers kept winning. As the tournament progressed, the city became hopeful. When they reached the Final Four, junior guard Chris Douglas-Roberts told Ron Higgins of the Commercial Appeal, “The city is at an all-time high right now. I would bet there’s not one person in that town not wearing blue. That town loves basketball so much, and it has been awhile since that town had something to be proud of.”\nBesides basketball, Memphis is famous for many things: Elvis, barbecue, the birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll. But it also has one of the worst crime rates in the nation, the highest infant mortality rate and one of the worst public school systems. April 4 marked the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in Memphis.\nIt has also been 35 years since the Tigers’ last appearance in a championship game. In 1973, the Tigers lost to UCLA 87-66 as Bill Walton shot an unfathomable 21 of 22 shots from the field.\nFor Memphis coach John Calipari and his players, they weren’t just playing for the 20,000 students, but for the 680,000 Memphis residents, the people who bleed gray and blue.\nWhat my friend Matt doesn’t understand is that the Tigers belong to all of Memphis. It doesn’t matter if you went to Tennessee; if you grew up a Memphian, you root for the Tigers. And Memphians come together for Tigers basketball.\n“I think what we’ve done has brought our city together,” junior forward Robert Dozier told Higgins. “There’s just something about Memphis basketball. They love us, they love the way we play. We’ve brought a lot of attention to the city. Memphis is not really known for anything positive.”\nKansas might have won the game, cut down the nets and had its “One Shining Moment,” but Memphis also left San Antonio a winner.\nThe team is one of the few things of which a Memphian can be proud.