STREETSEEN  |  Paula Anderson-Estep

Photo by Steve Roberts

Paula Anderson-Estep: Woman on the Field

Story by Leah Fitzpatrick

Paula Anderson-Estep helped opened a new, competitive playing field for women when she started the Memphis Belles, a female tackle football team, five seasons ago, however the Belles’ owner and executive manager wishes the same opportunities for women football players had been available when she was growing up in Ohio. Going back to her teen years, she recalls being escorted off her high school’s football field when she went to inquire about trying out for the team, so she resorted instead to cheerleading and playing tennis. When Anderson-Estep did finally get to wear a real football jersey with the Belles, for which she sometimes suits up and plays for if there are not enough players, she made sure the number on her jersey meant something.  

 “Dwayne Woodruff, who I was good friends with in high school, went on to play for the Pittsburgh Steelers as Number 49, so I wanted to have that same number,” she tells.      

Anderson-Estep went into the Belles’ inaugural season solely focused on creating a team to play in the Independent Women’s Football League, consisting of 30-plus teams across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. She found out quickly that there are challenges to recruitment though, as many women who come out to play are full-time students, have jobs or are mothers. And since recruits aren’t required to have any playing experience, they have only one pre-season to cram in eight year’s worth of training, unlike many pro and semi-pro male players who have high school and college team experience under their belts. Anderson-Estep’s son, Zak Klingemier, the Belles’ director of operations, also says that the first Belles team experienced a lot of knee problems, an issue that has been alleviated since adding many knee-specific exercises into training.         

“What often separates recruits is when they start hitting, and then putting on all the gear [including NFL helmets], which is extremely heavy and hot in the summer,” Anderson-Estep notes. “If you’re a female athlete though, what a great opportunity this is to compete against other women!”      

Admittedly a little ahead of her time when she started the Belles, Anderson-Estep feels like people are coming around to female tackle football, with up to 300 fans attending games at either Halle Stadium or Fairgrounds Stadium, and the team itself, which averages 20-25 players a season, is exuding a love and passion for the sport she never expected. Anderson-Estep points out that one player even had 1,000 yards rushing in eight games last year and has been approached by a college to coach a men’s football team. Two Belles players were also recruited to be on USA Football’s first female team to play in the inaugural International Federation of American Football Women’s World Championship in Sweden in 2010, though the chosen Belles couldn’t go.      

Proud of all her players, Anderson-Estep wants nothing more than to focus on the current season. May 12 will mark the team’s first home game (see memphisbellesfootball.com for more details), so be sure to catch what all the buzz is about on the field.

STREETSEEN  |  Ron Olson

Photo by Steve Roberts

Ron Olson: The Artistic DJ

Story by Leah Fitzpatrick

A long-time staple of FM 100’s morning show, Ron Olson not surprisingly tries to fit in a daily afternoon nap, but the beloved deejay has also spent the last year squeezing in an unforeseen post-work activity: painting. Glance around the upstairs of Olson’s home and you begin to realize that his vinyl collection, TV and couch have faded into the background of a space that appears to look more like an art studio, brimming with paint brushes, canvases, easels and well-used palettes. But just how serious could this fun-loving music buff be about art?    

“I love playing golf, but now I think that I could be using that time to paint two pieces,” he admits. “I even wake up as early as 6 a.m. on Saturdays to paint, and I start tinkering with stuff and preparing gesso [used as a canvas primer] the night before.”     

Where did Olson’s newfound creative outlet come from anyway? He says he’s had a big creative streak all along, enjoying writing and photography through the years, often stopping to capture images of animals and even bullet-riddled truck windshields in route to his Heber Springs getaway. Though, Olson pinpoints his foray into painting to a piece that his wife, Vicki, received from well-known local artist Charles Chandler. Intrigued by Chandler’s work, Olson picked up a paintbrush and created an imitation, which got him curious about painting. Nearly a month later, an opportunity to contribute an original painting to the 2011 Celebrities on Canvas benefit for the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art came along, and that’s when he decided to continue the hobby.     

Of his inspiration, he says, “All the ideas come from my head, and sometimes I sit down and have nothing planned. I just keep telling myself, ‘Don’t be afraid. It’ll turn into something.’”     

Since donating that first painting, Olson has been asked to do others for nonprofits, from the Humane Society of Memphis & Shelby County to The Bodine School. He has also sold pieces at places like the Orpheum Theatre, where he set up his guitar painting series before and after “Million Dollar Quartet” shows earlier this year, and currently, Square Beans Coffee in Collierville has his pieces for sale. Olson next hopes to get into a restaurant if he has enough of the right works and admits it would be cool to exhibit in regional galleries, listing Little Rock, Nashville and New Orleans as possibilities.     

“I do realize I’m a newbie, but I’m learning to get past that and know I’m getting better…when a lady from Le Bonheur bought a couple of pieces, I stopped asking if this was worth it,” he shares.   

Perhaps what’s starting to win over art buyers is Olson’s proclivity toward a mixed media style, which entails incorporating various elements like acrylics, bamboo, tissue paper, spray paint and even mop bristles (used in the outline of the American Queen riverboat pictured at right), to achieve a textured look. From golf clubs to angels, no subject is off limits either, and don’t put it past him to use doors and insulation boards in lieu of canvases. His originality is explained best when he says, “You can’t copy someone else’s stuff; it doesn’t come off.”

Olson’s sounding more and more like a true artist!

STREETSEEN  |  Dr. Susan L. Copeland

Photo by Steve Roberts

Dr. Susan L. Copeland: Achieving Second Language Success

Story by Leah Fitzpatrick

As a teaching lab for the University of Memphis’ College of Education students, Campus School has always been about trying innovative programs and implementing the newest research in its first through fifth grade classrooms, but it has really taken center stage with the successful incorporation of Mandarin Chinese curriculum. Introduced through a collaboration with U of M’s Confucius Institute, which was selected as one of the top six Confucius Institutes in the U.S. and one of the top 30 in the world in 2010 by the National Office for Teaching as a Foreign Language (Hanban), Mandarin will give Campus School students a leg up in the business world later in life says the school’s principal, Dr. Susan L. Copeland. She thanks parents however for being instrumental in choosing the school’s second language.    

“We already knew many things from research, like the younger the better when learning another language, and that Spanish and Mandarin Chinese are the two languages of the future,” she says. “Then, we surveyed parents, and Mandarin Chinese was their choice.”     

Currently in the third year of implementation, Mandarin, the most widely spoken form of the Chinese language, is taught by two instructors from the Confucius Institute to all Campus School students one hour a week, with regular classroom teachers sitting in for half of the program so they can bring components of it into their classrooms. Students can also take Mandarin during summer camps or in an advanced class after school, and to help them better comprehend the culture surrounding native speakers, students engage in signifiers of Chinese culture, such as martial arts, tea ceremonies, mask-making and creating Asian dumplings. Furthermore, students learn pinyin (the official transcription of characters in Mandarin), which Dr. Copeland says that many Chinese students can’t do according to what she learned during a 2010 China trip organized through Hanban for 500 U.S. administrators to do observations and research for best practices.    

She shares, “We were told that the art of reading and writing pinyin is declining as the country is modernizing.”     

With a home base in Beijing, Dr. Copeland and her colleagues were able to see the Chinese school system first-hand and traveled to other provinces as well throughout six days. What the experience did she says is “reinforce in her that the Campus School’s decision to move in the direction of Mandarin was a right and valid one.” She adds that she also learned about the language from a humanitarian perspective, which she didn’t comprehend the value of before the trip.      

The next step at Campus School entails growing the Mandarin program, with the help of the Confucius Institute, by working on a continuous curriculum for students. Dr. Copeland hints at even maybe doing an exchange program where Chinese students come learn at Campus School.   

 “I think we’ve achieved success in demonstrating our commitment to global education and that children have a deep interest in the Chinese language and culture,” relays Dr. Copeland.