Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Sticking Together; or, Go, Memphis!

Let's see: Its coach is a certified Yankee; only three of its players hail from Tennessee; and its best player is from Chicago.

And yet I found myself pulling hard for Memphis during Monday's NCAA Championship game against Kansas. I also found myself hurting for coach John Calipari and his Tigers, who blew a nine-point lead in the final two minutes and fell to the Jayhawks in overtime. Calipari is from Pennsylvania and previously coached at UMass, and when he came to Memphis, the cynics saw it as a perfect marriage of giant egos.

Well, for the record, both coach and team handled themselves with class after the crushing defeat. That's what you'd expect of a team from the South, right? That only made me more sympathetic toward them.

That's kind of how it is down here. We sports fans may have our big rivalries – and Memphis has always been a hated Ole Miss foe – but when one of those rivals steps on the national stage, we tend to pull for them. It's why I quietly rooted for Mississippi State's basketball team when it reached the Final Four in 1996. It's why I pulled for LSU to beat Ohio State in this year's BCS title game.

Southerners stick together, even if the main characters aren't actually from here. That's what keeps us connected in a society that's become increasingly fractured by crumbling morality, wrecked homes and technological distractions. Let's be honest: If the North had wanted to secede back in 1861, do you really think everybody up there would have gotten on board? I don't know if there would have been a Yankee version of Robert E. Lee, whose allegiance to Virginia superseded all other allegiances, and who could so galvanize a large group of people.

As far as I'm concerned, Calipari and the rest of the Tigers were Southerners on Monday night. They represented us well.

Today's Redneck Moment: I ran to town to buy my wife a sweet tea for supper. This happens often, and it's further proof that she's turning into a redneck.

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