Opperman

It's a huge part of the game, yes, but some people don't do ANYTHING else. Not saying Flatt is one, and you definitely weren't one, but a guy who can shoot but can't rebound, defend, pass, or handle the ball isn't all that valuable.

And being 6-11 doesn't hurt. At 5-10 and possessing no athletic ability whatsoever, there's no way I could ever play in college, much less the pros.

Chad Henderson played for Sheffield last year.

Bartlett went undefeated at Belmont and went something like 9-2 at Murray, losing to White Station in the semis. They were terrible at MUS, but they didn't have two starters, two subs, or (more importantly) Coach Smith.

If you think all I post about is Bartlett, you don't pay much attention to my posts at all. I post more about Bartlett than I do on any other school, but I still post quite a bit about WS, Ridgeway, Cordova, Bolton, Germantown, and other random teams from the Memphis area that I happened to see recently. Yes, you're free to post whatever you want, but it's more effective if you post about more than just one player. If Gomab says a guy's good, people will believe him, because he posts about EVERYBODY. If some guy who's never posted about anything other than one player nobody else has ever heard of keeps posting about that one player, people tend to ignore it. You're wasting your time and bandwidth if you keep posting over and over. If I get a chance to see Hillcrest this year, I will go watch them. I don't know if I will or not, though, since Hillcrest is on the other side of town and I won't be home all that much...it'd have to be a night Bartlett was off. You posted that you'll post 15 more times to get Parks the recognition he deserves...that's great and all, but speaking from experience, 15 more posts won't get him any more recognition, it'll get everyone thinking what I posted last week.

Hmm...it's an older gym and not all that big, but I'm partial to Bartlett's gym. Dyersburg is probably my favorite gym, though...it's pretty big, has a great sound system, and is very well-lit. Other good ones I remember are Hardin County (though it's a bit on the small side), Bolton/Collierville/Houston (Same gym in three different schools), White Station, and Woddale (though not in an especially ritzy area). Cookeville's gym looked nice looking through the doors, though I didn't get a chance to go inside.

I don't just post about Bartlett, though. You only post about Parks. 15 more posts about Parks between now and the season will do nothing but make more people think you're hyping yourself or a close relative. If Parks shows himself to be as good as you say he is, you won't be the only person talking about him.

That's probably because you ARE Wayne Parks, or you're at least a close relative. You've posted eight times on coacht.com, and seven of those eight have been about Parks. WE GOT YOUR POINT THE FIRST TIME! Let's see how he does in the season...which will probably get here after we hear about 15 more posts from you about how great he is.

Moe, I think if coaches took it seriously and put some distance between the end of the game and the evaluation, it could be good. I'm not a coach, but I know when I watch something on tape, I'm a lot more objective about it than when I watch it live. It also gives you a chance to look closer to see if there's a good reason the official missed a call, and you're also more likely to notice the good calls. I think many times supervisors focus too much on mechanics and not enough on actually calling the game. On a related point, the problem of officials not being very accountable isn't just a HS problem. I work in college athletics, and there was one game we had this past season where the conference's supervisor of officials apologized to us for how bad our refs were ƒ€” BEFORE the game.

They should allow 3 hours for travel time to Millington if they're staying in Dickson...or if they want to be bored out of their minds for 2 and a half hours after they get there. And realize, that hour and 10 minutes included about 15-20 minutes of paperwork, etc. at the shop...and we took Stage to Austin Peay to 40 to 240 to Crump to the shop...not exactly back roads there. And again I point out, this was at rush hour. Look, your posts are full of misconceptions and lies...at least be reasonable enough to listen when people who actually know an area tell you that what you keep saying is wrong. I'm not on here talking about traffic in Erwin, and it's because I haven't been there enough to know what it's like. Likewise, you shouldn't talk about normal Memphis traffic...you don't know what it's normally like if you're saying something as dumb as "you can't go 2 blocks in 15 minutes."

Oh yeah...one more thing. This afternoon, I left my house near Bartlett HS at the beginning of rush hour...went a bit south of downtown (near Booker T. Washington HS) to pick up our van from the shop...about 15 miles away. Went in, filled out the paperwork, paid for it, all that jazz (about 15-20 mins), and was home an hour and 10 mins after I left. So much for "it takes 15 minutes to go 2 blocks" at rush hour, sourgrape.

What, sourone? I don't get paid to do PR at AutoZone Park. I'm sick and tired of people making baseless attacks on my hometown! I don't do PR for anybody in Memphis. I'm simply defending my freaking hometown. If Memphis was as bad as people like you make it out to be, why are there still 1.1 million of us? Look, I've lived in Memphis a long time. I've also traveled a good bit to other major cities. Memphis traffic is nothing. If you're comparing it to Erwin for traffic, then yeah it's awful. That said, Clarksville traffic is probably bad compared to Erwin. Knoxville traffic is nightmarish compared to that. Ego, yeah, it moves fairly well most of the time, but I usually just take Mendenhall because nobody else does.

What the heck am I blowing smoke about? Yes, Memphis is an easy place to get around in! Have you ever tried driving the 285 in Atlanta at rush hour? Have you ever tried driving the Dan Ryan, the Eisenhower, or anything else in Chicago at rush hour? Traffic in Memphis is *NOTHING* compared to a lot of other cities. Ya know, sourandstupidone, every time you make an accusation, I confront it with facts, and you run and hide about it. I've been living here for 18 years, I know the area. You live 500 miles away, and you've apparently only been here on a few of our busiest weekends ever. I think I have a better grasp on what it's like around here. The Spring Fling sites are easy to get to, safe, and far enough apart that the event traffic won't cause significant backups (as opposed to jamming 20-25,000 people downtown with police on their highest alert all year). As ego said, Even at 4:30, 5:00, traffic moves pretty well...the east leg of 240 isn't a great place to be at rush hour, but traffic moves well on Mendenhall regardless. This as opposed to, say, Atlanta, where from roughly 4:30 to 6:30, 285, 75, 85, 75/85, 20, and even all the major surface streets grind to a halt. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The only, and I do mean only, negative of Memphis as a host city is its geography.

Sourone, the parking lots and garages downtown raise their prices when something big is going on, like a world heavyweight championship fight at the Pyramid, a U of M game at the Pyramid, a Grizzlies game at the Pyramid, etc. The only event going on downtown in the Spring Fling is baseball at AutoZone Park. There are numerous garages around the ballpark, and while I don't know for sure how they will handle it, most of those garages are about $4-5 for Redbirds games. The Spring Fling won't command special events rates where parking is more limited, in the north part of downtown. The Spring Fling is a special event, yes. Most of the events in the spring fling are in east Memphis or in the suburbs, where there is plenty of free parking. The only venue where parking will definitely not be free is AutoZone Park, and $4-5 isn't much to park a block or two from the stadium...even around there, there's places you can park for free, but technically you're not supposed to. And I should point out, last time I went to the state basketball tournament in Murfreesboro, we had to pay for parking there...it's just something you have to do sometimes. Traffic is not that bad normally! How much more dense can you be? Try driving around downtown Nashville at 10:30 when the Titans have a noon kickoff. Try driving around Neyland Stadium an hour before gametime. You caught one of the single busiest days traffic-wise the city of Memphis has had in 6 or 7 years. What else can I say but that traffic is normally not that bad? Everyone who comes here for the Spring Fling is more than welcome to ask me for directions, I can help you get around the mess...it's not that hard, really, there's just certain parts of town you want to try to avoid. (And there are certain parts of town in EVERY decent-sized metropolitan area that you want to avoid.) Traffic was not better than usual on fight weekend...it just wasn't! I've been living here 18 years, I think I have a better grasp of normality in Memphis traffic patterns than you do! Ego, sad to say that I live about 3/4 of a mile from the Side Porch and I've never eaten there. (I guess I tend to go for quantity over quality, since I'm not particularly wealthy or anything) Swamp, the word "most" denotes a majority. 24% is not even close to a majority. Yes, about half of the yes votes came from the west, but that's not saying most of it came from Memphis.

Oh yeah...coacht...I asked my dad to make sure I was right about it still being there, and I found out there's also another one, on Germantown Road by the Agricenter. It's about 10 mins from the track and field site and about 5 mins from CBHS for baseball...why do I get the feeling I know where you'll be eating at least one meal next year if you come over for the Spring Fling?

Umm...this past weekend...as in Tyson-Lewis parking rates? You parked just down the street from the Pyramid? $10 parking on Tyson-Lewis weekend roughly two blocks from the Pyramid and you're COMPLAINING? That's special event prices for sure. I don't know what garage you parked in, but the one at Front and Adams, just south of the entrance to Mud Island, is $3.50 for all-day parking under the roof and $3.00 on top of the roof, except for special events, which are $5-10. The garages aren't run by the city, they're run by companies...and you're darn right they're going to charge as much as they can charge when there's special events at the Pyramid. It's just good business on their part. And while I'm on that, special event parking rates aren't bad in Memphis. Try parking within a 20-minute walk of Wrigley Field sometime and then complain about $10 to park. I think it cost us $40 to park a 15-minute walk from Wrigley. Pantherbert can verify that, as he was with me when we went to Wrigley. (I would have taken the train, but it was a church trip and they wouldn't listen to me). Last time I went to Mud Island, the monorail was optional...you could walk across above the monorail for free if you wanted to. That said, it's been a while since I've gone to Mud Island (not quite sure why, either), so they may have changed that. I think the fact that you were here for fight weekend has something to do with your comments on traffic...trust me, traffic is nowhere near that bad normally.

Why not take out the meaningless district championship game? The 8 teams to state method works for every other sport, it will work for baseball too. If nothing else, it lets more kids have the experience of playing in the state tournament, which is something they will remember for a long time.

lol coacht, I've never eaten there...I've heard it's great, but I've never had it. It's still there, though. I'll have to try to push for having my birthday dinner there or something.

Sourone, I didn't phrase that quite the way I wanted to...it was late. Maybe this will be clearer: You put every team in the state in a single-elimination tournament. Every game is an elimination game. Basically, you have the district tournament, then the district winner plays the next district winner in the regional game, then the quarterfinals and on are in the state tournament. I think the way I brought it up showed that it wasn't really a serious suggestion. It takes me 30 minutes to get from my home to AutoZone at rush hour...it takes 45 minutes to get from Bartlett to Germantown at rush hour, about 25 or so the rest of the time. The bid was made by the Memphis/Shelby County Sports Authority. That said, the venues are all in Memphis except for USA Stadium in Millington. Mike Rose Soccer Complex is near, but not in, Collierville. The venues involved aren't 30 or 40 miles apart! They just aren't! You can get from any venue to any other venue in an hour max at rush hour (unless something really strange — along the lines of a semi overturning and closing the Interstate — happens) and 30-45 minutes any other time of the day! There's a lot more to do in Memphis than you give credit for, sourone. Admission to Mud Island is free. The monorail is OPTIONAL, you can walk across for free...you can park elsewhere downtown for less money (heck, there's a garage just down the street that's $3-$3.50 for all-day parking) and walk or take the trolley (50 cents each way). Besides Mud Island and going to Tunica, there's Graceland, Shelby Farms, the National Civil Rights Museum, Overton Park, Memphis in May, the Children's Museum, Chucalissa State Park, the Dixon Gallery, the Pink Palace Museum, Lichterman Nature Center, Brooks Museum of Art, the Wonders series, shows at the Orpheum, Sun Studio, the riverboats, Beale Street, going to a movie, going shopping at the Peabody Place, Wolfchase Galleria, or any number of other places in town, watching the Redbirds at AutoZone Park if they're in town, the Rock 'N' Soul Museum, Gibson Guitar Factory, seeing the ducks at the Peabody, going to eat at the Rendezvous or any number of other restaurants in town, the Handy Performing Arts Park, the Fire Museum, the Memphis Belle, the Police Museum, National Academy of the Recording Arts and Sciences, Slavehaven Underground Railroad home (the Jacob Burkle estate), the WC Handy House Museum, and that's just a start. OSHS, I never seriously suggested that we should go with a straight single-elim tournament. If you're worried about taking luster away, why do you not care that the district championship game is generally meaningless? Swamp, I found that about an hour after I posted. RGE posted that most of the support for the income tax came from Memphis...11 of the 45 yes votes were from Memphis and Shelby County. That is nowhere near "most" of the yes votes.

1) I don't think people should be in high school athletics to make money either. I also don't think more money for the athletics programs is a bad thing, seeing as how they won't always meet their budgets without any money from school districts, etc. 2) If Unicoi County put together the best bid and had the requisite facilities to host, then by all means, they should be able to host it. I would, and probably will this December, drive to Orlando to watch Bartlett play...I would go, schedule permitting, to the state regardless of where in TN it was held (though my schedule permits more during basketball season than the spring sports, driving distance wouldn't be a factor in whether or not I went...it would be a matter of not having to work and finding relatively cheap lodging). 3) The expansion to 8 teams makes boys' soccer and baseball just like basketball, wrestling, softball, girls' soccer, and volleyball. I haven't heard any complaints of these sports being watered down because of 8 teams making it. And if you're worried about taking luster away from the regional championship game, let's take this one step further. Make the stat etournament a straight single-elimination deal. District champion plays district champion in the regional game (not tournament, game), loser goes home, winner goes to Memphis.

Sourone, I live in Bartlett. It's about 15 miles from Bartlett to Germantown (I live in the older part of Bartlett, near the HS), and I've gone from Bartlett to Germantown at rush hour in 40-45 mins before. If you want a real rush hour, you should try going to Chicago, Atlanta, someplace like that. Memphis rush hour is nothing. And BTW, I did make a mistake when giving driving times...it would never take even an hour to go from Mike Rose to USA Stadium in Millington or vice versa...I hadn't thought through the best way to travel between the two...it'd be an hour or so if you tried to go through town, but if you take TN-385 to I-40 to TN-205 south to Collierville and you're there in 30 mins with virtually no traffic whatsoever. Rollredroll, the baseball park in Memphis is downtown. However, downtown Memphis is a LONG way from the population center of Memphis...at least 5-10 miles, and it's even further from the money center of Memphis, which is more like 12-15 miles (and in the suburbs east of the city). The Memphis area grew north and east, it hasn't grown west into Arkansas. It has just recently started growing south into Mississippi. This compared with metro Nashville, which grew out from the middle of town in all directions. Most residents of suburban Memphis didn't really go downtown before AutoZone Park was built...I went downtown maybe once or twice a year other than University of Memphis basketball games at the Pyramid. Now, I work at AutoZone Park. Honestly, rollredroll, I expected someone to point out the age and condition argument immediately. My counter to that is that the Sounds are averaging barely a third (3804) what the Redbirds are (10640), while the Grizzlies averaged 373 a game less than the Predators did, for a far inferior product. Side note...I too love hockey...I wish I could make it up to Nashville to catch the Predators play the Blues sometime, but during most of hockey season I'm about 7 hours away and it just wouldn't make any sense to try. Hockey is probably the most fun sport to attend (NFL is the only other one that can compete if you're a fan of hockey), but it's hard to make hockey work in a market that doesn't know hockey...I argue with my boss all the time about hockey and how it's great, but he refuses to watch it because he just doesn't know hockey. I think over time the Grizzlies will be a successful team...especially with Jerry West calling the shots, I think they will be a very good team in about 4 years max. I do agree that if the Grizzlies fail, which they won't, it will be a big black eye on the state. OSHSman, as coacht said, if you're going to allow cities across the state to bid for the event, how can you justify giving it to a lesser bid? If Memphis would be a non-option, why don't you cut through all the BS and say so on the front end, saving everybody a lot of time. Besides, the TSSAA gives the schools half the revenue. Why are you ignoring that part of it? BTW, from all indications, Memphis's bid was simply THAT MUCH BETTER than those of Jackson and Nashville/Murfreesboro. I'm sure they did take geography into account...while it's one of the more important things, it's not the be-all end-all, and when all other things were considered, Memphis's advantage in everything else outweighed the geography. And oh yeah...hockey never really took off in Carolina until they started winning in the playoffs. They averaged 15,508 a game, good for 24th in the 30-team league. Atlanta was 28th. The cities where hockey draws are all on the east coast, in the Midwest, in Canada, or named Dallas, Colorado, or San Jose. The southern teams in the NHL rank 18th, 20th, 24th, 26th, and 28th (you can add 6th for Dallas if you really want to stretch it).

CoachT, the new arena will be right next to Beale Street and across the street from the Gibson Guitar plant. It will be in the block surrounded by Linden, Third, Fourth, and Lt. George W. Lee streets. It's about 4 blocks south of AutoZone Park if you've been by there. Sourone, your name is quite appropriate. Your points are quite false. Let's break down the venues. Softball is at Bellevue Baptist Church. There are egads of hotels 2 miles east and 3 miles west on I-40. Travel time: 5 minutes, absolute max. Track & Field is at Briarcrest. There aren't many hotels right around there, but there are plenty on Germantown Road in the Wolfchase area...travel time about 15 mins. Tennis is at the U of M and the Racquet Club, both in midtown. Plenty of hotel rooms in the area. Soccer is at the Mike Rose Soccer Complex in southeast Shelby County. The MRSC website lists 35 hotels within a 15-minute drive of the complex. Baseball is at Christian Brothers HS, the U of M's Nat Buring Stadium, USA Stadium in Millington, and AutoZone Park downtown. I don't know how they plan on distributing the games among these sites yet, other than the championships being at AutoZone. There are a ton of hotels near CBHS and the U of M. For USA Stadium, there are at least three good options. Stay at one of the three hotels within the city of Millington, stay in the Wolfchase area, or stay somewhere near downtown. The Millington hotels are less than 5 minutes from the stadium, the Wolfchase area ones are within about a 20 to 25-minute drive if you take I-40 east to TN 385 and take 385 to its end, where you can see the stadium on the right. Or you can stay somewhere near downtown, take I-40 west to the US 51 exit and take it until you see the ballpark on the left...takes about 30 mins or so if that much. For the championship games at AutoZone, you can get there in about 45 minutes or so from just about anywhere in town, less if you're near downtown. There's a slight chance it could take an hour and a half to get from USA Stadium to Mike Rose if you try to take the wrong roads at the wrong time of the day (don't try to fight I-240 at rush hour...it's a lot quicker to take the city streets that parallel it). It's never taken me an hour and a half to get ANYWHERE in the Memphis area...and Bartlett is not exactly centrally located. Swamp, as far as I know, the state money involved in the Grizzlies' arena project is for infrastucture...I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's what I remember reading. RGE, I proved no point of yours. The NFL sells out almost all of its games in almost all of its markets regardless of team quality. Almost all ticket sales for the NFL are well before the season kicks off...or, in the case of last year, before anyone had any idea the Titans wouldn't be any good. The Preds and Grizz's attendance figures were comparable, and the Preds were much closer to contention than the Grizz were...the Grizz were out of contention before the season started. Funny you mentioned Cleveland as being a great sports town. How was the Indians' attendance at the Mistake by the Lake? I'll give you a hint: they didn't sell out. P.S. fool, I haven't noticed many Titan gods in the Nashville area. Maybe you should change that name...you're already going to have to change the name of Chapter 11 Coliseum. The Grizzlies will move about 2 miles south in 3 years or so, and that's the only geographic move they will be making for a long time. The TSSAA chose Memphis because of facilities AND money. Let's check out these quotes from Ronnie Carter in the article you quoted: "Financially, there was a huge difference. Obviously that was a major thing," Carter said. "Another major piece was the soccer facility and the number of baseball facilities. That allowed us to expand soccer and baseball so the board's action was to expand soccer to bring in eight teams to the tournament instead of four in each class and baseball to bring eight instead of four." "Nashville did not have the facilities to expand. The expansion was not something that we said 'OK, we're looking to expand' but it was something Memphis brought to it." "With everything, they just had the best package. All the things that we looked at, all the things that were there — in comparison with the four cities — they had the best total package." (my emphases) As for the state income tax, I'm looking for a list of the May votes but haven't found it yet. I'm sure there are several representatives from Memphis that voted for it, but I'm just as sure there were quite a few from Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and other random places. For the record, I'm very much opposed to an income tax, as are most of my peers. That said, this isn't a political board and I'd rather not see it turned into such.

I claim both cities, fool. As for the Grizzlies, it was a bad team in a bad building in a relatively inconvenient location. I think most people will be more likely to go to a game at the new arena because the atmosphere will just be so much better. It's not like the Grizzlies were an NBA Finals team in their first year here...considering their record this year, I'd say averaging 14,415 is pretty good...especially considering there were two playoff teams behind them, one of which is in the Finals. BTW, the Grizzlies were at 78.5% capacity this year in a bigger building than Gaylord.

SoupKitchen, I agree that not everyone will be happy. But I don't think middle TN should just be given all the state tourneys when superior bids are put on the table by the west or the east. In this case, Memphis's bid blew away anything middle or east had to offer. Also, I would love to know how you get from here to Chattanooga in 3 to 3 and a half hours...it takes that long to get to Nashville, much less Chattanooga. (Unless you're driving 100, in which case...nevermind) RGE, when did I ever say AAA baseball is more of a draw than the NFL? Do they teach reading comprehension at Ezell-Harding, or does all the money go to recruiting players? Memphis never had an NFL team. It was Nashville's team, which explains why we didn't show up. If the St. Louis Rams played their home games in Chapter 11 Coliseum, and everyone knew they would be moving to St. Louis the next year no matter what the attendance was, would it sell out? Oh yeah...and how about that Super Bowl? As a native St. Louisan, I was quite proud to see that one. Why do people take unprovoked potshots at Memphis and get upset when we defend ourselves anyway?

Nashville never put in a bid for Tyson-Lewis...they were never on the list. Nor has Nashville ever been a real candidate for an NBA team, which Memphis apparently wanted, seeing as how we do have the Grizzlies. When's the last time a world championship of any kind was won in Nashville? DC and Detroit wanted the fight too, but it was in Memphis...what's that tell you? The Grizzlies sold out 7 or 8 games this year, not bad for a 23-59 team in a subpar arena...we'll see what happens with attendance when the team is winning in the new arena a couple of years from now. The Predators were a better team in the NHL than the Grizzlies were in the NBA, and they are in a brand new, state-of-the-art facility. If we're going to compare attendances...the one sport where Memphis and Nashville have professional teams in the same league is AAA baseball. Silly me, I can't seem to find Nashville anywhere near the PCL lead in attendance...they're averaging 3,781 a game. That compared to "second-rate" sports town Memphis drawing 10,360 a game.