Tigers had a tough first round battle against Cal State Northridge, but got the win behind Roburt Sallie’s 10 – 3 pointers. Sallie, who scored a total of 35 points, scored the most points ever by a Tiger in the NCAA tournament. It’s a good thing he did, because the other Tigers, some of who are reportedly coming off of the flu (Evans, Taggart), played way below their normal levels.
I know this is a “Memphis Wrestling” blog, and I’m now talking about the Tigers. There is a tie-in, I promise. In my youth (1981-1985), there were 2 things that helped me sleep well at night. The first involved Memphis Wrestling. As I’ve mentioned before, the truly devoted Memphis Wrestling fan, who never missed a show, actually cared who the Southern title was on. We bought into it, (hook, line and sinker.) I remember watching the channel 5 newscast every Monday night at 10pm just to hear Jack Eaton give the results to that night’s wrestling card. If Jerry Lawler victorious and still champion, I could lay my head down and sleep easy that night, knowing all was well in my small corner of the world. If Lawler lost, there was trouble in my world and endless time was spent pondering what went wrong that week.
The second thing that could guarantee a good sleep was the Memphis State Tigers winning the big games. Back in those days, the Tigers were in the old Metro Conference and if they were facing the Louisville Cardinals, or Virginia Tech, etc, it was considered a big game. Almost a quarter of a century later, the names of those players still roam around my brain, (Keith Lee, Otis Jackson, Andre Turner, Bobby Parks, Vincent Askew, Doom Haynes, William Bedford, Dwight Boyd, Baskerville Holmes, etc). In later years, I was never a fan of Coach Larry Finch, Dana Kirk, (problems and all) was more to my liking.
With the Tigers winning their first round game on Thursday, I had no problems sleeping last night. Knowing the Tigers have their second round game against Maryland tomorrow afternoon, I’m sure there’s already some grumblings going on deep within my subconscious. Here’s hoping they live up to their record.
Mark
Memphis Wrestling History