It has become an annual tradition for the Muhlenberg women’s basketball team to attend a Broadway play during Winter Break. For unlike the rest of the students, our team is already back on campus working on becoming better basketball players. We are currently 2-0 in the New Year and 11-0 overall.
On Sunday, however, we took a nice break and headed into New York City to enjoy a fun day together, no basketball involved. Our team is very close and we look forward to having the opportunity to spend time together for this fun event each year. This year we decided to see the show Memphis, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2010. Also, the music incorporated in the production is by Bon Jovi member David Bryan.
The story is about the prominence of segregation in the city of Memphis during the 1950s, specifically in the music scene. A white radio DJ named Huey Calhoun longs to show the rest of the white people in Memphis how great the underground African-American music scene is. During that process, he falls for a black club singer but must keep it out of the public eye because interracial relationships were berated by all during that time period. But Huey does not care what anyone else thinks, for he knows that he is morally right in seeking equality and acceptance for African-Americans.
Even though some of us (ok, maybe just me) were not exactly thrilled that Memphis began before the Giants game was over, we definitely enjoyed ourselves. The music was soulful and upbeat and the singers/dancers were incredibly talented. The performers on stage proved that hard work pays off, which is a positive reminder of how important it is for our team to continue striving to get better. We cannot settle for being a good basketball team, we have to push each other every day in practice to be great.
And although perfection is certainly unattainable, a perfect record is not. But in order to keep us at zero losses, we have to play our hardest every day because a great team doesn’t take days off (unless it’s to attend a Broadway play of course). Yet we did get a fair amount of exercise walking the streets of Manhattan prior to the show starting, and we deserve to have a little fun, right?
— Julie KellyÂ