New Beginnings in Memphis?

[Cory]

I'd like to begin this press conference with a short explanation of who I am. I am a welder by trade. I work at a small shop on the south side of Memphis, mostly fabricating suspension systems for children's wagons. We regularly listen to 105.3 on the radio at the shop. Shout out to Mel and Moose in the Morning, we love you guys. Keep them racks up. Anyways, last November there was a call in contest for free tickets to a football game. I was lucky caller number 172, and I just happened to know that there are four times as many cattle as people in Nebraska, so I won the contest. I got written up for leaving my station during working hours, but I was going to be sitting at the 50 yard line at the Titans baby! When I went to the station to pick up my tickets and found out that they were for some River Boat team in Memphis, well let's just say I have a court date next month and I've been advised not to talk about it until that's resolved. I almost threw the tickets in the trash, but I remembered that my mother-in-law was having a late Easter party that day. She's a heavy drinker and is always 4 to 6 months late in remembering that there's an upcoming holiday. I decided that the Boat-whatevers had to be better than seeing drunk Uncle Mort put on his Easter Bunny head and try to convince kids to sit on his lap and tell him what they want in their baskets again this year. So, I woke up Sunday morning, stopped at the local tavern and had a half dozen bloody marys and made my way to the stadium. I made it to my seat with about five minutes left before half-time. I had to admit, these were great seats even if I didn't know who the heck was playing. I hadn't even settled in yet when an out-of-breath usher ran up, yelled "There you are!", threw my nachos over the railing and onto the backs of the team's medical staff, and started hauling me back up the stairs. In between gasps for air he explained that as part of the contest I would be kicking a 55 yard field goal for $55,000 at halftime. The PR staff were all panicking thinking that I wasn't going to show and that they'd have to let Earl The Farmer give lessons on artificially inseminating a heifer as a halftime show again. They had been looking for something more exciting, but didn't have the money to put on a big show. They figured that if they put on some contest that was unreasonably hard, they'd get a show and wouldn't have to pay out anyways so it was a win-win. Little did they know that I have a membership to Snap Fitness and this was my week to work on calves, so I was all kinds of swoll. I trotted onto the field and lined up my kick. As I made my approach the dang mascot, who was acting as my holder, stood up and spiked the ball in my face. Of course, this was huge with the crowd, and they all stood and cheered. Unfortunately for me, I had a mild concussion and the medical staff were too busy treating each other for third degree cheese burns to treat me. I heard the announcer over the PA system explain that because I had started my approach but never actually kicked the ball they were going to count that as a balk and I was disqualified from the contest. I stumbled back towards the tunnel where a team of paralegals explained that I hadn't signed the proper waivers and they'd have to call the cops and arrest me for trespassing on the field. I'm no lawyer, but I know my rights and I demanded that they allow me to sign the waiver immediately. They put a paper in front of me and I signed it. It wasn't until I was back at my seat that I actually read the document and realized that it was actually a contract to take over General Manager duties for some organization called the Memphis Showboats. I went to the Information Desk to get the scoop on what was going on. The lady there was very helpful and informed me that the team's GM had boarded the wrong plane during the return from their last road trip. He ended up in Toronto, which was bad news because he had to go through a border patrol checkpoint and it was discovered that he was in the country illegally. Apparently, he had ridden a bathtub over from Portugal. This was confusing to me, but the Information Lady said that it explained why nobody could understand a word the guy said the whole time he ran the team. When customs got him in front of an interpreter it quickly became clear that his entire tenure was one big misunderstanding. It was also clear that despite the club's willingness to keep him on he preferred to be deported back to Portugal. While I now understood the team's need for a GM I still wasn't convinced that I was the man for that job. Luckily, I have a cousin that once auditioned to be the bailiff on People's Court. I had him take a look at the document I had signed, but unfortunately he reported that it looked iron-clad. So, here I am today proud and humbled to be selected as the next GM of the Memphis Riverboats. Errr...Showmen...Whatever, I'm going to grab a couple more beers and I'll be back to finish this presser when the bar stops serving.

[spot]

Brilliant!

Nice write-up. Cheese burns, local radio jock shout-outs, and a bathtub stow-away from the Iberian Peninsula.

So what does welding have to do with anything???

[Cory]

Please, hold all questions until the end. I have been imbibing and I tend to be easily distracted. My doctor says I have the mind of an 85 year old. Now where was I? Yep, I had just become GM of the Memphis football team. Well, I've never managed anything, much less a sports franchise, so I figure the first thing to do is figure out what we're starting with. I called all of the players and scheduled interviews, starting with the quarterbacks. The talks with Harden and Horner seemed to go well, but when I call in our new guy Martinez all hell breaks loose. I was looking over his dossier and to kill the silence and make it less awkward I say "We're reevaluating all players, so none of the current starters are locked in. How would you like to get a little more time under center?" It seemed innocent enough. This guy starts sobbing and blubbering something about rookie hazing and having to spend road trips "under center". I attempted to confirm his story with our other backup QB, Gargiulo, but he refused to come in saying he had "Severe Anxiety". I'm pretty sure Martinez tipped him off on what the talk was going to be about. I'm not going to get into too many more details, but suffice to say when I brought up the allegations with Huntley and Bensen, our two veteran centers, they both decide on the spot that they're going to retire. They were our only two guys at that position, so I'm not sure what we're going to do going forward.
Luckily, things on the defensive side of the ball are going much more smoothly. The only hiccup there is that three of our four safeties have decided to test the free agency market. Luckily none of them are any good, so we should be able to ride out that storm.
Special teams is an especially "special" group. We have two punters under contract. Apparently the last GM, being from Portugal, was into soccer. He saw them catching the ball with their hands and booting it downfield and surmised that they must be the goalies. He kept referring to them as goleiros. They took this as some kind of badge of honor and had it tattooed across their chests. It has become a kind of gang to them and they constantly harass other members of the club, especially their compadres on the special teams. During practices they took to punting the ball right back at the long snapper, calling out "GOOOOOOOAL" whenever they succeed in pegging him in the back. They would do this not only when they were practicing punts, but also when they were acting as holders during field goal practices. Our kicker, Freddie Bates, quoted a line from Roger Murtaugh and tendered his retirement papers. Alvin Gammon, our long snapper, has refused to resign with the team. Thus, we have two punters and no kicker or long snapper.
Having gotten to the end of my rope I decided it was time to check in with ownership and try to get an idea of what the vision is for our organization. After a few hours hunting down the Information Booth lady I found out that the owner is a lady named Bettina "Tina" Still. I called Mrs. Still's number on record, and she denied any knowledge of owning a football team. She promptly hung up on me. After several minutes she called back and told me the story of how she and her son won $61 million a couple years back playing the Mega Millions lottery. In the time immediately following her win she was bombarded with requests for donations from various charities. After searching through her books she had found a cleared check for $150,000 made out to a Mr. Kumalo with Memphis Showboats in the memo line. She slowly started recollecting that Mr. Kumalo was a Nigerian prince who had contacted her via email to say that he owned several sports franchises, but because of his status as foreign royalty the government was going to begin repossessing his franchises unless he paid a one time fee. Due to some problem with the banks not being able to transfer the money to the States, he promised her one of his franchises once the matter was cleared up if she would send him a check for $150,000. She hadn't heard from him in years, and the ladies at her bridge club had been mocking her for falling for an Internet scam. I assured her that she was indeed the owner on record of the Memphis Showboats and she invited me over to her estate to watch the Tobacco Bowl while we discussed the future of our club. While we sat and discussed the ins and outs of running a sports franchise, which neither of us know anything about, we watched the Ohio River Sharks squeak by the Charlotte Sentinels. It was about halfway through the second quarter when I realized why the Ohio River Sharks uniforms looked so familiar. They have the Memphis Riverboats logo on their helmets! Mrs. Still has her legal staff working on a cease and desist letter to send to the Ohio River Sharks and the OSFL for trademark infringements. We will update you as information becomes available.
As it is, right now I'm late for a meeting with my new coaching staff, where I fully expect to be relieving some or all of them of their duties. Again, I will update you all as soon as I am able.