"How much do souls go for in Lexington, anyway?"

During the spring of my senior year at Vandy, I had the opportunity to live the college lifestyle without attending classes for a couple of months. Because I had completed half of my student teaching over the summer, I was finished by Spring Break with almost all of my requirements for my degree (save that pesky little independent study project). So from Spring Break on, it was my mission to go anywhere, do anything, and party like it was 1999. I did just that.

The best part of it all was that my Tigers made it to the Final Four that year. All of the festivities were going to be held in good ole San Antonio, Texas, where my friend Audra is from. As soon as I found out Memphis had won their Elite Eight game, Audra called and we booked our flight.

That Final Four experience was one of the best times of my life. If you're a sports fan, you owe it to yourself to go to a Final Four sometime, particularly if your team is playing. We didn't even have tickets to the actual games, but we ate dinner with Dickie V, had countless coach/player sightings, did Tiger spell-outs through the streets, and saw Taylor Swift perform. We were there.


All of this makes the recent ruling from the NCAA even more frustrating/annoying/disheartening. According to them, one of our star players didn't pass his own SAT. He took it three times, and on the fourth time, miraculously passed. Suspicious? Yes. But the NCAA told the UofM that he was eligible to play. And boy, did he ever! He helped our team win 38 games that year, make a Final Four appearance, and come withing 2 minutes of winning a National Championship (another story for another time).

There were many, many clever articles, tweets, and message board comments about this event, but here's my favorite. Pick 10 Memphians off the street and ask them what they think about John Calipari. I can't guarantee what all 10 of them would say, but I'll venture as far as to guess that at least half of them wouldn't be fit to print. The guy's a lying scumbag. If you're being backed up as an "upstanding guy" by a politician (and since when does the governor comment on things like this?), that's a new low.