Can the Tigers roar?
Go Tigers Go
We made it, yāall. Week Zero is here, which means this weekend we finally get college football. It aināt much, admittedly, but at least itās something. North Carolina and TCU squaring off in Ireland may not be much of a game, but we do get Memphis against UNLV on national TV at 9:00 p.m. on Saturday night, a terrific way to cap off the day, as well as starting the Charles Huff era at Memphis.
The only issue is I have no idea how good Memphis will be this season. The Tigers have a killer schedule, a new coach, and a quarterback who has never started a big-time college football game. (A statement thatās true no matter who the quarterback is, because there are two relatively inexperienced options, and Coach Huff has declined to officially name a starter.)
Factor in that the Tigers have over 50 incoming transfers, and I defy anyone to tell me theyāre certain of how the Tigers will finish. (Except for maybe Phil Steele. I believe everything that man tells me about college football.) With college football rosters becoming more and more of a perpetual work in progress, Iāve found the last few years that those of us in the prediction business should mostly lean toward coaches who have historically been good.
Which is to say, I feel pretty good about the Tigers this season, if only because of Charles Huff. His press conferences have been a master class in how to be glib without revealing much, but every once in a while, heāll give you an answer with just enough factuality to keep you hanging in.
I donāt know how effective this Memphis roster will be, but I know Charles Huff has won sixty percent of the college football games heās coached, so I trust Coach Huff to figure out how to keep his team in games this season, if not on top.
All we have left is to play the games. Pass the chips and dip.
Little Big Leagues
Weāve talked a bit in this newsletter about how this is generally a dry time for sports fans, without a ton of viewing options as we wait for all the fall sports to arrive. Which is why Iāve been surprised to find myself locked in on an event this month that Iāve never really cared much about before: The Little League World Series.
To begin with, itās wildly accessibleāfor about a two-week stretch, itās literally live on ESPN at all times. The sheer inventory of games makes it easy to get involved and find a team to connect with. I was initially in on the team from New Jersey, then once they were sent home, I switched my allegiances to the team from Phenix City, Alabama, anchored by the great Kinley Rasmus. Now down the final four, and with the fun Canada team eliminated, I am rooting for the kids from Curacao, an island of 150,000 people. Theyāll play this weekend in the international final against the team from Japan (pop. 123 million), with the winner facing off against the winning team from the United States.
Mostly, what I find myself drawn to is that itās basically a less complicated version of big league baseball. Can you throw strikes? Can you put the ball in play? Record outs? If you can master these essentials, you get to keep playing. Some of the kids have flashy batting gloves or step off the mound over and over, but for the most part, you have to be fundamentally sound to win.
Sure, thereās something a bit unusual about watching children play on national television with CGI ads on the backstops and commercial breaks, but that stuff is not why they play the games. Seeing the joy and pain on these kidsā faces makes it all worthwhile.
We Will Always Love You
When I was growing up, for many people in my life country music was something authentic and integrated. For me, it was something on my fringes, a type of music that other people listened to. It was fine, it just wasnāt for me.
But I watched a lot of TV as a kid, and waaay back in the day, when HBO was the lone channel showing movies, it seemed like they showed 9 To 5 once a day. This was my introduction to Dolly Parton, who passed away earlier this week at the age of 80.
As I got older, I came to appreciate Dolly Parton in full, as an actress, artist, songwriter, businessperson, and maybe more than anything else, as a person. Once I moved to Memphis, I understood she was one of the greatest Tennesseans of all-time. She lived an aspirational life, had outsized impact beyond just the world of music, but at the same time wrote certified classics like āJoleneā and āI Will Always Love Youā on the same day. (Well, maybe.)
Dolly Parton could have been a billionaire, but she did not allow herself to become one, because she prioritized helping other people over amassing her own wealth. I donāt know that I would be brave enough in the same situations to make the same choices Dolly made.
We need more, not less, people like Dolly. May she rest in peace.
Odds and Endsā¦
- Summer may be winding down, but the best summer movie Iāve seen in a while dropped last week, and itās a banger: The End of Oak Street feels like an ā80s movie from Spielberg, a fun adventure that has a couple of minor plot holes but mostly just skips along. Iām not sure why they released an epic summer movie just as the summer ended, but itās totally worth two hours of your weekā¦
- Sweet story about a Tigers fan who has driven to almost every Memphis away game since 2003ā¦
- Japan is sending robots to Marsā¦
- Turns out rivers are all mathematical? This is pretty coolā¦
- Make some homemade Pimiento Cheese this weekend!