photograph by frank murtaugh
Editor’s Note: A city is to be shared. Roughly a million people live in what we might call “Greater Memphis,” a hub that stretches east to Germantown and Collierville, and even across state borders (and a mighty river) if we include West Memphis and Southaven. But here’s the charm of a city as distinctive as Memphis, Tennessee: It’s a different home for every one of us. There are residents of Midtown who feel like they need to pack a suitcase if they travel east of Highland. Likewise, some East Memphians schedule trips Downtown like a special event. What makes Memphis home for you? If you had to identify one place or thing that makes the Bluff City singular, what would it be?
We asked eight writers to define “My Memphis” in a single essay. While it’s impossible to answer such a challenge on a single page, it’s a start. And we hope it reminds you of a place (or thing) that makes this amazing city your home too. Feel free to share your version of “My Memphis” with us.
Symbols are important to a city, and this is especially the case with public statues. Memphis could not become the city it strives to be until statues of Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest — icons of the Confederacy — came down. And they finally did in December 2017. Less than four years later, on October 28, 2021, a new statue was unveiled on the South Campus at the University of Memphis. Rising for a jump shot in his bronze prime as a Tiger basketball player is Larry Finch. The centerpiece of what we now call Larry Finch Plaza, the statue makes Memphis a better version of itself, and lifts me with every glance I take. A drive to the airport — south on Getwell, right by this plaza — has become a new kind of joy.
The plaza includes four weatherproof panels with photos and descriptions of Finch at various stages: “The Beginning,” “The Player,” “The Coach,” and “The Leader.” It’s a reminder of how one life can lift so many others, whether it’s near a basketball court or not.
Plans for the commemoration were announced by University of Memphis president David Rudd in the fall of 2018, only to have a pandemic interrupt and delay construction. But there’s something perfectly cosmic about the last man to wear number 21 as a Tiger being saluted in the year 2021, shortly before his alma mater’s basketball season began. Current Tiger coach Penny Hardaway — an All-America player during Finch’s days as head coach — needed several minutes to catch his breath for remarks before a gathering of friends and supporters at the unveiling. We lost Finch much too soon, in 2011, but Larry Finch Plaza brings a form of life and yes, chokes up those of us impacted by the man’s 60 years in Memphis.
The plaza includes four weatherproof panels with photos and descriptions of Finch at various stages: “The Beginning,” “The Player,” “The Coach,” and “The Leader.” It’s a reminder of how one life can lift so many others, whether it’s near a basketball court or not. (For some perspective, consider that Hardaway was older when he coached his first college game than Larry Finch was when he coached his last.) But the statue itself — sculpted by William Behrends — is the jaw-dropper. In full flight, Finch has the basketball primed for release, his eyes on the target, as confident as all his fans that two points will follow.
I like to sit on the brick bench that surrounds the statue, little more than 100 yards from the Laurie-Walton Family Basketball Center where Hardaway now trains players with hopes of approximating Larry Finch’s glorious time in blue and gray. This is where symbols are also important. We must live in the moment, all of us. All the while steering our hopes and dreams toward a future mostly unknown. But when the right kind of man — even that man’s statue — reminds us how high we might jump ourselves? Well, that target seems closer than ever.
