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We can't cheer a grocery
How
arena proposal compares with other NBA cities.
Let me tell you about my mother-in-law.
She lives in Nashville. She's 60. She's smart, capable and only
a very casual sports fan. Not long ago she couldn't tell a salary
cap from a stocking cap.
Last September, her husband died. Taken
far too soon by cancer. It was hard to know how she'd get through
the fall.
You know how she did it?
With prayer. And family. And friends.
And, on Sundays, anyway, the Tennessee Titans.
That's right, the Titans. This sensible,
highly educated former math teacher watched every game. She scheduled
her weekends around them. She agonized when Al Del Greco missed
field goals, rejoiced at Eddie George touchdown runs.
Silly?
Maybe. But true. And real. And typical
of what has happened the last three years in Nashville.
And that's the short way of explaining,
one last time, why I've written nice things about the effort to
bring an NBA franchise to Memphis.
Some of you have been surprised or
disappointed by this. I hear it in phone calls and E-mails.
It's easily the least popular set of
columns I've written since I took this job. I got a lot more congratulations
when I was regularly ripping Bud Adams and the Oilers.
"You usually keep sports in perspective,"
readers will say. "What's happened to you?"
I wonder this myself, sometimes. Nobody
knows whether the Grizzlies will succeed here. If Michael Heisley
and the pursuit team don't do a better job of marketing the team
than they've done of marketing the idea of the team, it will
a crashing, dispiriting failure.
My next door neighbor is against the
NBA. The nice guy down the street, who invites my family to use
his pool, stuffs anti-NBA literature in my mailbox.
So yeah, I worry. A lot. But then I
think about the impact the Titans have had on Nashville, that the
Packers have had on Green Bay, that the Spurs have had on San Antonio,
that the Jazz have had on Salt Lake City, that the Jaguars have
had on Jacksonville, that the Kings have had on Sacramento, that
the Cardinals have had on St. Louis, and I think, again, isn't it
worth the risk for this community?
Some economists say that a pro sports
franchise has no more economic impact on a region than a decent-sized
grocery store. I have always believed this to be true. But, as Mike
Bianchi, a writer I know from Orlando, once put it: Have you ever
painted your face the colors of a grocery store? Worn the name of
the grocery store on your sweatshirt? Dreamed about what new employee
the grocery store will draft next? Jumped and danced and celebrated
with your neighbors when the grocery store has a particularly good
day?
I guess I still believe in the power
of sports, in the role a major-league franchise can play in a vibrant,
well-rounded city.
It was not so long ago that the story
ran in this paper: As a community, we're growing ever more separate.
That story talked about blacks and whites. But it could have been
rich and poor, old and young, anything.
Sports has a way of bringing people
together. Of bridging gaps. Of giving people something in common.
And if it's just a small thing, just a conversation starter, who
knows where the conversation might go from there?
That's why I've supported the NBA,
why I think the city and county should each vote this week to chip
in their $12 million. Because I've lived in Memphis going on six
years, because both my sons were born here, and because there's
at least a shot it will help make this a better, closer community.
I have all the respect in the world
for those who disagree, for David Waters and Bart Sullivan and Michael
Kelley and David Kushma and the murderer's row of opinion leaders
at this paper who have been opposed to or highly skeptical of the
entire NBA effort. That's the safer, maybe even more sensible position.
But I wish they could have seen my
mother-in-law this past Halloween, as she opened the door to dozens
of trick-or-treaters.
"You know how many of them were
dressed as Tennessee Titans?" she asked, later.
"Half of them."
Contact columnist Geoff Calkins at
529-2364; E-mail: calkins@gomemphis.com
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