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Memphis Players Have Long, Complicated Explanation Of How They Are This Year’s ‘Rumpelstiltzkin’ Story 4/3/08

The Onion
SAN ANTONIO—Although no Cinderella teams made it to this year’s Final Four, the Memphis Tigers held an extended press conference Wednesday to explain to the press and public that they are in fact the “Rumpelstiltzkin” of this year’s NCAA basketball tournament.

“Okay, now, pay attention, because this is pretty complicated,” point guard Derrick Rose said upon opening what was to be a three-hour marathon of explanations, questions, and folkloric interpretation held in a conference room at the at the team’s hotel. “Okay, we can’t be Cinderella, because we’re a No. 1 seed, right? But of all the No. 1 seeds, we were the one people expected to lose. So we’re like the girl in the story who starts out as a miller’s daughter but right away she becomes a princess. And she—we—only got this far because we can spin straw into gold, but it really isn’t us, it’s this magic dwarf. Okay, then, is everybody following so far?”

Rose, talented but undersized at 6′0″, then proceeded to explain to reporters that he was not, in fact, either calling himself or comparing himself to a magic dwarf.

It is unknown how Rumpelstiltzkin, the Germanic folk tale in which the mysterious title character agrees to help a commoner-made-princess by turning ordinary straw into gold in exchange for her firstborn son but is undone when the princess guesses his secret name, was adopted by Memphis as a symbol for their tournament appearance. However, the players and head coach John Calipari all took turns attempting to explain what they insisted were close similarities.

“In a way, you see, having a game plan is like having a secret name,” a visibly exasperated Calipari said midway through the second hour of the press conference, his suit jacket long since abandoned, his tie loosened, and his shirtsleeves rolled up. “Now, if we can guess the other team’s secret name, then we’ll be victorious, and we’ll get to keep the gold—be the champion. Right? Everyone got it?”

Calipari then attempted to explain exactly who the prince would be, why he had lied about being able to spin straw into gold in the first place, whether the fans or the media were the firstborn son, and if he was claiming he had spied on other teams to steal their game plan.

“Okay, let’s get this straight,” said defense-minded power forward Joey Dorsey, who spent most of the day denying that he was a friendly troll, a brave knight, or even an evil ogre. “The point is, there’s this thing that’s hard to do and there’s more than one part to it, like spinning straw into gold while trying to outwit evil magic gnomes or like trying to win the basketball tournament while everyone says you’re not good enough. So you have to be crafty, like saying you can do something you can’t while someone who can do the things you can’t does them until you outfox them and then you’re a princess… or the champion… Wait. No, you’re both. Right?”

“I’ve got to pull down as many rebounds as possible, anyway,” Dorsey concluded. “Rebounds are important.”

“I can see what Memphis is trying to do here,” said Washington Post sportswriter Adam Kilgore, who said the press conference was the most baffling basketball-related event he had ever witnessed. “But I don’t think it works. What does the straw represent? Why did they lie about making gold in the first place? When Memphis lost to Bill Walton’s UCLA team back in 1973, was Bill Walton an angry giant? Is there a moral to this story?”

“I guess it’s something to think about,” Kilgore added. “I just wish they’d gone with the metaphor of The Big Dance.”

Tigers’ Dorsey Grows Into His Role 4/3/08

Success and Missteps Mark Unlikely Trip From West Baltimore
By Adam Kilgore
Washington Post Staff Writer
HOUSTON — Sharlene Dorsey knew right away, from the sound of her son’s voice on her cellphone, that something was wrong. “Ma,” he told her, “I said something I shouldn’t have said.”

“Joey,” she replied. “What did you do?”

Well, Joey Dorsey explained, he tried to use David and Goliath as a metaphor for his matchup against Greg Oden last year, in Memphis’s region final against Ohio State in the NCAA tournament. Only he had called himself Goliath when he had intended to show what an underdog he was. “It came out wrong,” Sharlene said.

Joey landed in the spotlight of one of the nation’s largest sporting events and in the crosshairs of columnists and fans. It came at him fast. How could this have happened to a skinny kid from West Baltimore who was teased for having ears so large doctors considered taping them back, who didn’t play organized basketball until he was 17 and a junior at Frederick Douglass High?

He had already developed a persona as Memphis’s intimidator, the same role he played this season during the Tigers’ run to the Final Four in San Antonio, where Memphis will meet UCLA on Saturday. The 6-foot-9 senior may be the Final Four’s most improbable participant. He is the first member of his family to last four years at college; the only male in his family, Sharlene said, not in jail or caught up in Baltimore’s drug scene.

“It’s been amazing to me,” he said. “Every time I go out there and play, it’s like a dream. I can’t believe I’m here playing.”

His remarks about Oden only added to his menacing reputation, one built on bulging muscles and violent dunks. Those close to him, though, know him as a prankster who “will definitely try you,” his mother said, laughing. In elementary school he would pluck an apple off his teacher’s desk, take a bite and then put it back. He jumped off tables and did cartwheels during class.

At Memphis, he’ll tell one teammate to knock on another’s door and run away. When the second teammate opens the door, Dorsey splashes a cup of water in the unsuspecting player’s face. His favorite part about college is “sneaking out after curfew, and seeing how much he can get away with,” Sharlene said.

Sharlene witnessed her son’s skill in that area firsthand. A single mother, she vowed to protect Joey from their ravaged neighborhood, but she disapproved of her son playing basketball.

Joey was tall, and a neighbor constantly tried to persuade him to come to the blacktop courts. Sharlene was wary of the neighbor, whom she knew to be a drug user.

But Joey kept sneaking away, and people around Baltimore’s playground noticed how natural he was, how well he moved for his height. He joined a local summer league without telling Sharlene, and the coach at Frederick Douglass spotted him. Before his junior year, the coach persuaded him to come out for the team. Dorsey still didn’t tell his mother.

His first organized basketball game came down to the final possession, and he made the game-winning shot. The next day, Sharlene thumbed through the newspaper and discovered her son’s secret: Dorsey’s picture appeared on the front page of the sports section.

“She went at me,” he said.

But Sharlene, with some prodding from her mother, finally realized the opportunity basketball afforded. No one in their family had ever graduated from college, and now 20 schools wanted her son.

Dorsey chose Memphis after stops at two prep schools, and he bonded with his teammates immediately.

But Dorsey’s demeanor changed last season after he called out Oden. And after Oden dominated him — Dorsey scored no points and grabbed three rebounds — and helped end the Tigers’ season, Dorsey retreated to his mother’s apartment in Baltimore, so embarrassed he didn’t go outside for two weeks.

The incident, Dorsey said, matured him.

Before this year’s tournament began, Coach John Calipari gave Dorsey a blue diary with the Memphis logo on the front. “Write your story,” Calipari told him. Before each game, Dorsey scribbles a narrative about making a game-winning free throw.

Dorsey made only 38 percent of his free throws this season, but after emerging from where he started, almost anything seems possible. Sharlene was walking down her street recently and saw her neighbor, the man who introduced her son to basketball. She could tell drug use had swallowed him. “He really looked awful,” she said.

She reached into her purse, pulled out a DVD, a copy of a highlight tape Calipari had given her, and gave it to the man.

The meeting made Sharlene realize how differently things could have turned out. But she also knows her son — the kid with “Dumbo ears” who looked “kind of like Urkel” — too well to believe he wouldn’t be here, ready to finish his story.

“It’s real cool, but I keep asking my family, ‘Am I supposed to feel a different way?’ ” Sharlene said. “To me, he’s still just Joey.”

ARE YOU F’N KIDDING ME?! 4/3/08

University of Memphis guard Andre Allen has been suspended from the team.
A University of Memphis spokesperson says it was for a violation of team rules.
A reliable source tells Action News 5 that Allen failed a randomly administered NCAA drug test.
Allen did not practice with the team and did not travel with the team to San Antonio.
Action News 5 will have more on this story as it becomes available.
Stay tuned to Action News 5 and wmctv.com for details as we get them.
www.wmctv.com/global/story.asp?s=8110301

way to go! Senior player. 6th man. What a disappointment. More than just a city he’s letting down.