The Tigers wrap up a record-breaking season

By Catherine Levasseur

April 18, 2018

The women’s golf team made history last week as the Tigers finished third overall at the 2019 American Athletic Conference Championship; their best performance since joining the AAC in 2013.

The selection show for the NCAA Regionals will take place on April 24, and coach Beth Harrelson said senior Michaela Fletcher is expected to represent the university.

The team not only made history at the AAC Championship, but also set new school records on par 3, par 4 and par 5 scorings. Fletcher also set a program record by scoring an average of 71.93 per round of golf.

American Athletic Conference

Memphis travelled to Palm Coast, Florida, on April 13 to compete in the AAC Championship. With the disappointing tournament in Houston hurting their chances to reach post-season as a team, there was a lot on the line for the Tigers.

“To go to post-season, the team needs to win Conference, there is no doubt about that,” Harrelson said before leaving for Florida. “But the girls are very capable of that.”

After a difficult first round Sunday, the Tigers were ranked ninth overall. Ana Dawson and Fletcher both finished tied for No.8 with a score of 73.

Freshman Ana Dawson swings her iron 7 during practice time. Dawson finished 10th at the American Athletic Conference tournament and claimed her second top 10 finish this season.

On the second day, Memphis carded a round of 292, 12 strokes fewer than the day before. The Tigers jumped five spots in the overall ranking.

“The wind blew hard and that’s what helped us move up in the leader board so much” Harrelson said. “We played hard and determined, but yet pretty calm golf.”

Memphis began the final round in Palm Coast seeded No.4. Fletcher led the Tigers with a three-rounds score of 216, placing her tied for No.6.

Dawson finished three strokes over Fletcher. Three rounds of 73 helped her earn her second top 10 finish of the season. Seniors Sydney Colwill and Madison Thomas both tied for 23th, and Freshman Victoria Gallegos finished 45th.

Icon Invitational

The spring season started slow with a below average performance at the first tournament of the year. The Tigers finished last in Houston with a score of 56 over par.

“You can’t finish last in a tournament,” coach Beth Harrelson said. “That hurt us.”

Fletcher led the Tigers with a three-round score of 224, good for 30th place.

Harrelson said this first tournament made their run to the NCAA Regional difficult, but she was excited to see how the team would react.

Fortunately, the Tigers had a short turn around period and had the opportunity to redeem themselves only five days later in North Carolina.

River Landing Classic

At the second tournament, the weather also came to play. After the second round was not completed due to darkness on Monday, Tuesday’s final round was snowed out. After a strong first round, the Tigers managed to finish tied for No.2.

“The weather has been difficult this semester,” Harrelson said. “It’s so important to play the best possible golf every round.”

All three seniors, Thomas, Colwill and Fletcher finished in the top 20. Colwill’s first round of 72 put her tied for No.4. She earned the sixth top 5 finish of her collegiate career.

“The weather made the game difficult,” Colwill said. “I had a solid first round.”

From that tournament on, Gallegos, Dawson, Thomas, Colwill and Fletcher became the designated players and competed in all remaining tournaments.

Valspar Augusta Invitational

In Augusta, Georgia, the Tigers finished fifth with a cumulative score of 298. Colwill once again led the team and shot 219 to tie for 14th.

Two other Tigers finished in the top 20 at the event. Fletcher finished tied for 14th and Dawson tied for 19th.

Memphis then had two weeks to prepare for their home tournament at Ridgeway Country Club on April 1 and 2.

“We are really excited to come home,” Harrelson said coming back from Augusta. “Sometimes competing in your home tournament can bring an extra pressure, but I think the girls are ready.”

Memphis Women’s Intercollegiate

On senior day, Micheala Fletcher battled down the stretch to win her second collegiate title. Fletcher carded a career-low of 66, and a three-round score of 205.

Senior Micheala Fletcher walks up to her ball during practice. She led the Tiger in Florida and finished tied for sixth at the conference tournament.

“It’s definitely a bitter-sweet moment for me,” Fletcher said after the tournament. “But obviously, to finish it up with a win, I am very excited about it.”

Seniors Colwill and Thomas both posted a top 15 finish at their last home tournament. Colwill shot 216 to finish No.9, while Thomas carded a final round of 72 to tie for No.11.

Harrelson was proud of the way her team competed in Memphis.

“I think they played great golf, there are just two other teams that played better than us,” Harrelson said.

Social Media Content

Blog Post

This morning I woke up and did not feel like working out. I had set an alarm for 7 a.m. I had thought of everything: my alarm would go off at 7 a.m., I would get out of bed right away, put on my favorite Lululemon outfit, grab a banana on the go and walk to the Recreational Center to workout.

I had even planned out the session I wanted to do. I would begin with 30 minutes on the treadmill. You know, just at a good pace to get my heartbeat going. Then, I would hit a circuit: 30 squats, 20 lunges, 10 push ups, 50 crunches, 30 mountain climbers, 10 squats jumps, 45 seconds of plank, and repeat this 6 times through.

 The reality is… I could not get out of bed.

 Deep inside me, there is this need to workout and sweat. I have been active for so long that, my body needs to work out, otherwise my conscience is not at peace. If I do not go for a run, do a yoga practice, or hit the gym, there is this feeling of guilt that grows inside me.

 If you read this, you probably know what I am talking about. We all go through that.

 In a way, it is amazing that I have conditioned my body that way: I need to move if I want to stay sane. BUT sometimes, our body knows best. I’ve been pushing myself a lot the past couple of days. I think the hardship I faced this morning was my body crying for rest.

Listening to your body is hard. But this morning I did. Instead of walking to the gym, I stayed in bed a little longer. Instead of grabbing a banana on the go, I sat down and drink coffee while reading the newspaper. I still put on my favorite Lululemon outfit, but only for a 45 minutes walk instead.

 When I got back from the walk, my body felt energized. I felt awaken. I was at peace in a healthy body and a healthy mind. Sometimes, we need to give ourselves a break. This morning’s walk cleared my head. The fresh air filled my lungs and I was ready to cease the day.

I chose this topic specifically because it is often hard to talk about it. The fitness community is all about going hard all the time. Influencers show only the highs: the tough workouts and the impressive results. However, they do not show the lows: when your body needs rest and your conscience feels guilty. I thought that talking about the struggle in a blog post could help other women better manage their workout schedule and listen more to their body. The blog post makes the message very personal, and this format seemed the most appropriate for my message.

---

Instagram Stories

A lot of influencers use them to promote partnership with brands, report their daily activities are to share tips. I have decided to share my top 5 secrets on how to live a healthy lifestyle. A lot of people think you need to workout hard everyday and go on crazy diets to lose weight or get in shape. However, the small details are what make the difference. Instagram stories are easy to access and people are able to screenshot them if they want to keep them. It is an easy and effective way to share content with your followers.

5 Tips on living a healthy lifestyle

---

Snapchat Filters

I created this filter in Photoshop with the idea that women could share their workouts on social media. Women could capture and share some bits of their workout with their friends and followers. By using this filter, they are showing that they work hard with a purpose. I will use the question “do you even workout?” as a slogan for my content creation project. This question puts focus on what working out really is: it is not just walking into the gym; it is to have set goals and work to achieve them. This unique filter will help bring women with similar interests together.

---

Memes

I created this meme with the meme generator Imgflip.com. As an athlete, when I go to the gym, it is to workout. Just to workout. I am very serious about it and I don’t want any distraction. Therefore, I created this meme to highlight how hard it is for women athletes to go to the gym without being stopped by a man who wants to talk to us. I chose this example because it happened to me before and because I have friends that have mentioned this too. When fit women workout hard, men usually notice them and see an opportunity to flirt. All women athletes have probably experience this and I thought it would be a relatable meme to share with my audience. I thought this meme was a fair reflection of what it is like in the gym. The media rarely shows this side of the story.

---

GIF

GIF-original from Catherine Levasseur on Vimeo.

 

The Tigers speak on the mental aspect of golf

By Catherine Levasseur

March 16, 2018

 

As she walked toward her ball located in the middle of the fairway, she noticed how green the grass is here.

She set her bag down and listened to the birds hiding in the high trees.

Julia Matzat, a sophomore on the women’s golf team, looked at the white pin located in the middle of the green. She was about 100 yards away from the hole.

She looked at her bag, and pulled out her nine iron.

Matzat finishes her swing and looks at where her ball is heading. Since working with a sports psychology, she changed her pre-shot routine and she said it helped her game.

She walked back to her ball, set her feet behind the ball and tightens her grip around the club. Her right big toe aligns just left of her target.

She took a deep breath. A light breeze caressed her face. She smelled flowers.

She took a step back and swing two pre-strokes. She stepped to the ball, and took another deep breath. She looked at the target and at the ball again. She slowly began her back motion, stopped at the top, and swing.

She finished her stroke and looked at the ball floating in the air. By the sound of the impact, she knew it was a good shot. After a couple of seconds, the ball landed and sat on the green.

She told herself “That’s the way to go”. The ball landed 3 feet away from the pin.

Julia Matzat is swinging with a nine iron in her hands. She said that she had to work hard on the mental aspect of her game to perform better on the course.

“Everything that day felt like a movie,” Matzat said. “I play at my best when I am clear-headed.”

But one poor shot can ruin her game.

“If you let one mistake get into your head, your game can go downhill really fast,” Matzat said.

Both golfers and non-golfers agree on the fact that the sport is mental game. Andy Meyers, a psychology professor at the University of Memphis and former sports psychologist for the American Olympic Committee, said the mental aspect of golf is most of the game.

“The pace of the game requires more emotional and mental control,” Meyers said. “So much of the sport is about refocusing each time before a new stroke.”

On average, a player who shoots par on a course will shot a total of 72 strokes. Meyers said this repetition can get trivial after a while and that’s when focus is lost.

Julia Matzat works on her swinging technique at practice. She worked with a sports psychologist to remain more positive on the course.

When working with professional golfers, Meyers’ main focus was developing a pre-shot routine. He called it central to a player’s performance.

“The bottom line is you have to approach each shot in a way that makes you feel comfortable, and clear-headed and that you focus on what you are doing and not anything else,” Meyers said. “Ultimately, a pre-shot routine will help you refocus every time”.

Sydney Colwill, a senior on the women’s golf team said she worked with a sports psychologist to improve her performance on the course.

“I had issues outside of golf that were not allowing me to play at my best,” Colwill said.

She also said she does not believe golf is like the other sports. It is not a place to escape the outside world and forget all your issues.

Colwill finishes her stroke and looks at where her ball lands. She said that throughout her college career, she gained valuable tools to help her perform better on the course.

“If you bring issues on the course with you, they will trap you,” Colwill said.

With the help of her coach, Colwill got in contact with a sports psychologist. Beth Harrelson, the women’s golf team coach, said that controlling your emotions and your thoughts is crucial, because frustration is your worst enemy.

Similarly, Matzat is also working with a sports psychologist. She has been working on remaining more positive on the course.

“I found myself getting very frustrated on the course,” Matzat said. “I am working with my sports psychologist to improve on that and I am also tweaking my pre-shot routine.”

Colwill looks at her ball before she swings. She said developing a pre-shot routine is very helpful to refocus before each stroke.

It is important for Harrelson to have athletes that are not only physically healthy, but also mentally strong. As a former Tiger, she demonstrates empathy toward her players and gives them the support they need¾whatever it might be.

However, she knows that this aspect of the game is out of her competencies. Therefore, she brings in sports psychologists, motivational speakers, and communication experts to give her players as many tools as possible to strengthen their mental game.

“At the end of the day, we all have the technique down,” Matzat said. “The difference between winning or losing is mental.”

If Tennessee’s restrictive new abortion law passes, legal challenges could move to the Supreme Court

By Catherine Levasseur

March 18, 2019

Mississippi now has the most restrictive abortion law in the nation.

On March 21, one month after the bill was cleared in both the House and the Senate, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed the bill that will outlaw most abortions at about six to eight weeks, or as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be heard.

In the neighboring state of Tennessee, Democratic and Republicans legislators also have debated in the state legislature a similar bill since the beginning of the year.

Despite reservations and concerns expressed by members of both parties, on March 7, the House of Representatives voted 65-21 in favor of the bill that also would make abortions illegal when a fetal heartbeat can be heard.

The U.S. and Abotion Laws Timeline

If passed by the state Senate, the consequences of the bill, commonly referred to as the Heartbeat Bill, will be far-reaching for women in Tennessee, who now seek more abortions than almost anywhere else in the country, according to the Guttmatcher Institute, a non-profit that uses research to advance sexual and reproductive health rights in the U.S.

And yet, state lawmakers continue to create new restrictions to abortion access. In 2014, 96 percent of Tennessee counties had no clinics that provided abortions and 63 percent of Tennessee women lived in those counties.

The bill’s (HB 77) sponsor Rep. Micah Van Huss (R-Jonesborough), said from the House floor, “Colleagues, we cannot continue to allow slaughter of the unborn while we hope for better circumstances.”

Other state legislators, however, worry about the bill because of the legal challenge that will surely follows its passage.

Sam Stockard, a reporter at The Daily Memphian who covered the issue agrees. He expects the bill’s passage will provoke a long legal battle.

“There are several other similar pieces of legislation that have been struck down in other states, making it a tough road for this one,” Stockard said.

Essentially, the Heartbeat Bill could take away women’s constitutional right to obtain an abortion, he said. The 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe V. Wade affirmed that access to safe and legal abortion up to the fetus viability, which is between 24 to 28 weeks, is a constitutional right.

“For all practical purposes, a lot of women don’t know they’re pregnant until a month or two months,” Stockard said. “This would greatly restrict the ability of women to have the procedure.”

Similar bills also have been drafted other states in the United States. But while some House of Representative voted in favor of the bills, they rarely made it out of the Senate, Stockard said. In the few instances when both the state House and the Senates passed the bills, they were challenged and taken to Appellate Court, where the Roe V. Wade decision held firm.

Rebecca Terrell, the executive director at CHOICES in Memphis said this Heartbeat Bill is nothing new.

“Several other states have tried to pass similar laws in the past,” Terrell said. “But they all failed because of Roe V. Wade.”

Terrell said that many Memphis constituents do not see the Heartbeat bill in the same light as the rest of Tennessee.

“It seems like Memphis stands apart as a blue dot in a red state,” Terrell said. “This Bill is extremely restrictive, and it is most likely going to impact women’s health.”

However, she knows the bill will be heavily challenged by the Senate members who will look at the bill with more scrutiny, and by Tennessee Right To Life, the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood of Tennessee.

In fact, as soon as the bill passed in the House, ACLU Tennessee released a statement saying they were preparing to file a lawsuit if the bill was made a law.

However, despite the extra scrutiny in the state Senate, Terrell expects the Tennessee bill will eventually pass.

“I don’t have any real doubt that the Tennessee Heartbeat Bill will also pass and be signed by our Governor,” she said.

Additionally, Terrell fears that a legal challenge from Tennessee, along with the rest of the challenges from other states, could convince the Supreme Court to hear the arguments. However, the bill will not move forward this year. The senate sent the Heartbeat Bill to summer study.

 

U of M. radio manager remembers Martin Luther King Jr.’s marches in Memphis

During the 1968 sanitation strikes in Memphis and the Civil Right era, Malvin Massey Jr. was a 12th grader at Hamilton High School.

Massey attended Hamilton Hight School and though the school itself was not involved in the Civil Rights movement, students rallied together marching for the same goal, Civil Rights. Massey said he and other students walked out of school to support Martin Luther King’s first march in Memphis on March 28, 1968.

Two-thirds of Americans see sexual assault allegations as a societal problem

While economic, social and political tensions divide the country, Americans agree on one issue: Recent sexual harassment allegations reflect widespread problems in the society.

A report released on Dec. 7, 2017 by Pew Research Center and reported by Baxter Oliphant, doctoral candidate in the department of politics at Princeton University, shows that 66 percent of Americans see sexual harassment allegations and sexual assaults by prominent men inentertainment, politics and the media as more than individual incidents.

Spaghetti, family and everything that makes it tradition

I always thought that spaghetti, basically spaghetti sauce on any kind of pasta, was an Italian dish that trickled down to the French Canadian, Quebecois, culture due to immigration in the 19^th century.

Poorer families in Quebec used pasta as a bed for anything. They threw in a large pot the fresh produces and meat they had at the time, added some seasoning, most likely salt and pepper, and let it simmer on the stove.

Country Gardens Nursery trades pumpkins for Christmas trees

After a busy fall season at the nursery, Country Gardens begins a big shift toward Christmas.

Soon, over 4,000 Christmas trees of all sizes will be cut and brought in for sale.

Recycling situation at the University of Memphis: microcosm of nationwide problem

People walking on the University of Memphis campus between the Meeman journalism department and the Tiger Den dining hall could not help but to notice the large green recycling bin with a sign that reads “Cardboard only.”

Despite the semester being well underway, it looked like the bin has not been emptied in weeks: cardboard boxes of all sizes overflowed from the top, and more recyclable pilled next to it.

Aldo’s Pizza Pie brings New York Style Pizzeria to Memphis

Aldo Dean had a clear vision when he opened the first pizza restaurant in Downtown Memphis six years ago: Open a New York style pizzeria with an open kitchen.

There was only one problem: He did not know one thing about making pizza.