GRIZZLIES WORLD HEADQUARTERS –- Lorenzen Wright is expected to rejoin the Atlanta Hawks after playing five seasons with his hometown Grizzlies.

One of the original MEMPHIS Grizzlies, Wright will receive a two-year contract paying about $3.25 million with incentives that could net him $4 million each year.

Here’s the catch: Wright’s deal won’t be finalized until the Hawks complete a sign-and-trade deal involving Al Harrington.

At the moment, Wright and the Hawks have a verbal agreement. The Hawks won’t consummate any deals until they are free of Harrington’s enormous salary-cap hold on their payroll. Atlanta doesn’t plan to renounce Harrington nor is the team willing to let Harrington walk for nothing in return.
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1. It has been a tough week for the University of Arkansas football program. Every Hog fan thought it was the end of the world when star running back Darren McFadden fractured a toe in a Little Rock nightclub fight, resulting in surgery and making McFadden’s status for this season uncertain.

But McFadden’s plight pales in comparison to the tragic loss of Hogs’ play-by-play announcer Paul Eells, killed in a car wreck last Monday afternoon returning to Little Rock from Fayetteville where he had played in Arkansas coach Houston Nutt’s preseason media golf tournament. Not only was Eells a good announcer, he was a genuinely nice man who did his job with a lack of ego.

About two weeks ago when I wrote a story called “My Football South,” I forgot to mention school play-by-play announcers and their importance in building football programs.

You see, in my Football South, a school’s radio play-by-play announcer is the eyes and ears of fans, especially those who can’t be in the stadium or watch on TV. He’s your companion on a Saturday afternoon as you do your chores around your house; he’s the voice coming from your car radio as you drive on a Saturday night.

I can’t tell you how many times I have driven back alone from a Saturday afternoon game, and enjoyed the companionship of various Southern college football play-by-play announcers, whether it’s Mississippi State’s Jack Cristil, Tennessee’s Bob Kesling (and before that John “Give Him Six” Ward), Ole Miss’s David Kellum (and the late Stan Torgerson), LSU’s Jim Hawthorne (and the late John Ferguson), Alabama’s Eli Gold, Georgia’s Larry Munson, Memphis’ Dave Woloshin and Arkansas’ Eells.

When we lose one of them, like Eells, we lose a part of us that’s hard to replace.

2. Please forgive me. I can’t help myself, but it’s just too easy to pick on the NCAA. It seems like every time the NCAA gathers for a committee meeting of any sort, the organization emerges with a decision that makes you want to whistle the Three Stooges theme.

This past week’s dose of stupidity from the NCAA is led off by its decision to eliminate the football classifications Division 1-A and Division 1-AA. The NCAA said such classification can brand a school as “big-time” or “non big-time.” Now — and you begin laughing — Division 1-A has been re-named the Football Bowl Subdivision and Division 1-AA has been re-named the Football Championship Subdivision.

A special Mr. Dry Ribs investigation has revealed a list of proposed names.

Some of the names that were apparently rejected for Division 1-A was “The Shameless Cheating Subdivision,” “The Let’s Spend Millions on Facilities Subdivision,” and “We’ll Fire Our Coach for Winning Just Five Games Subdivision.”

For Division 1-AA, the losing names were “Exceedingly Academically Qualified Athletes Who Can’t run a 4.2 40 Subdivision,” “Good Kids Who Didn’t Want to Walk on at Division 1-A and Be Practice Fodder Subdivision,” and “The We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ BCS Subdivision.”

3. One of my first jobs when I joined The Commercial Appeal in 1984 was to help now-Memphis radio talk show personality Mike Fleming cover the Memphis Showboats of the United States Football League.

Basically, I was trying to stay out of Mike’s way. He didn’t need any help. He was so thorough that if usually sockless Showboats coach Pepper Rodgers decided to wear socks one day, Mike already knew about it. Mike had sources everywhere. I think he even had wiretapped the sprinklers’ system at the Showboats’ practice field. He may have even had one of those shoe phones used on the old comedic secret agent show “Get Smart.”

One of the things I enjoyed about covering the Showboats besides the roadtrips – it was the first time I’d been anywhere besides the small-town Southeastern Conference locales – were the Showboats’ players themselves.

No athlete has made me laugh harder – before or since – than Showboats’ defensive tackle Reggie White. It’s no exaggeration that he was larger than life. He played the game big and lived bigger. You never interviewed Reggie. You tried to, but it never ended that way. Once you started laughing, once he started imitating somebody, or cracking on a teammate, it was tough to take legible notes.

From the moment you saw him as a player, you knew he was going to be a huge star, for however long the USFL lasted or eventually in the NFL, where he was named to 13 consecutive Pro Bowls and retired in 2000 as the league’s all-time sack leader. Offensive linemen would double-team White and he’d throw one aside with one arm, run around the other one and cream the quarterback. You also knew from his personality that he was destined to become an NFL legend, someone liked and admired by a cross-section of people.

Reggie died way too young at the age of 43 on Dec. 24, 2004, passing away from cardiac arrhythmia caused by sarcoidosis. On Saturday, I watched with wet eyes when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

His beautiful wife and two kids were there. Memphis was there with him, too.