The countdown on junior softball player Jessica DiVittorio’s Facebook status is the first thing that I look at when I check my Facebook in the morning at school on how many days until many of us become quote, unquote, former Crichton students.

At last count, the total days left here for many of us left in North Highland Park was whittled down to 29 days, which as my friend Jose Reyes told me on Tuesday, was going to go by rather quickly.

And if you let me tell it, it has.

Most of the friends I know have already made it up in their mind that this will be the last semester they will spend here and for most of them, their next school choice has been already made.

Some, however, hasn’t made it up in their mind on what to do after May.

Professors like my English Lit professor, Dr. Keith Callis, have already received opportunities to teach at other schools, his being a small college known as Louisiana College in Alexandria, Louisiana while many that I know of are uncertain on where they will be headed to after May 8th.

Not only that, my church, Fellowship Memphis, which has been meeting here for quite some time, are wondering where they will meet after May, since the building that house both Crichton and Fellowship Memphis will be shut down apparently after May 15th.

But for the meantime, cherishing what little time I have here at Crichton, would be the best option for me. I’ve met a lot of great people and to be honest, I think I did a pretty good job of being here.

Just don’t tell that to El Stinko.

Two years ago around this time, no one around Crichton had any idea who yours truly was, save for a few people who knew yours truly from Autozone Park.

In fact, the day that I came here for a visit, which was on a cold Feburary morning, there seemed to be no one in the student center or even the chapel when then-assistant basketball coach Craig Stephens took my mother and I around the school.

So much for a big bang to what would be two of the best years in my life.

The lasting impression that I got from my original visit to the campus was the quote that Stephens made to me as we left the admissions office.

“We need people like you to come here,” he told me and my mother.

Since arriving here in 2007, I’ve been student basketball manager, SGA senator, PA announcer for both basketball and softball, and also a pretty good student and sports columnist.

When I arrived here in August of 2007, Crichton athletics would have been lucky to receive a paragraph in the Commercial Appeal.

Now with the blog that you are reading and the more succesful Nasty Boys’ Sports Blog, Crichton student-athletes as well as students in general have received their share of ink in my columns.

Come to think of it, on last Wednesday, former assistant basketball coach and professor Matt Sanders said to me as I was heading home for lunch about my columns.

“If someone googled you and put ‘random hottie’ next to your name,” he said, “they would come up with probably thousands of references.”

Obviously, that wouldn’t be the only thing they would read.

Twelve years ago, athletic director R.C. Johnson made one of the biggest blunders in his decade-plus tenure as athletic director by hiring George “Tic” Price, a guy who had received his nickname after hitting a game winner in grade school.

Of course back then, Johnson had to deal with the issue of how the firing of Larry Finch, whether one agreed with it or not, was handled.

As legend has it, Finch was fired after the final home game of the 1996-97 season, a victory over Southern Mississippi at a hot dog stand.

Twelve years and three coaches later, the Tigers hit a potential home run in hiring Josh Pastner as the 17th head coach in the 90-year history of Memphis basketball replacing John Calipari, who is the winningest head coach in Tiger history.

While in my opinion, the way this coaching search was handled and how dangerously close my good friend Jose Reyes or myself were close to taking the head coach position last week when we went out to the campus, I feel that this time around Pastner’s hire, plus the fact this guy is a prodigy, could be a home run for the Tigers.

In the meanwhile, the first thing that Pastner must do is try to convince some, if not all of the recruits to stay in Memphis. That scenario seems to be a doable situation because many of the players that were signed to play here were recruited by Pastner.

More than likely, Xavier Henry could be heading here to Memphis as well as DeMario Cousins, who has not made his decision on where to go public, but that’s another column for another day.

From what I saw during the press conference today, Pastner, who is seven years older than me, brought to the table a sense of youthful optimism.

In fact, if I stand correct, the press conference that was held today at the University was an echo of what happened nine years ago when a certain coach came to Memphis.

Since he arrived and later on, departed, basketball has never been the same here in Memphis.

Right now, all I’m waiting on for Pastner to do is now coach in a real college game and see what he can do for the Tigers.

Last night, I watched a revamped Atlanta team beat the defending World Champion Phillies with two key components that every contender needs in the stretch run come September.

Pitching and offense.

And believe me, the Braves provided plenty of it, topped with Brian McCann’s tape-measure shot in the first inning to give the Braves the win over the Phillies 4-1.

While the Braves did show the nation that they could be the dark horse in the NL East behind the Mets and Phillies, it still doesn’t change the fact that this team could very well be a team that one night could have  Francouer and Chipper having great nights at the plate plus outstanding performances from Lowe on the mound or a team that struggles to find its identity on the field like last year’s team.

Whatever case the may be, it’s going to be a wild season in the NL East.

Yesterday morning, I was asked on who I would go after if I was athletic director at the University of Memphis. While at the time I couldn’t think of anyone who would come to Memphis and replace the legend that would have been John Calipari, I came up with four legitimate candidates for the job:

1. Tony Barbee (He’s a direct disciple of Calipari, having spent six seasons on the staff at Memphis. He has proven himself to be a great recruiter, landing players like Sheffield High standout Randy Culpepper and Stefon Jackson, who is the all-time leading scorer in Conference USA history. He has also improved the Miners’ win total every season since he’s been there.)

2. Scott Drew (Outstanding recruiter, landed Aaron Bruce during Baylor’s dark days early on in his tenure, but I can’t picture Drew leaving Waco after all he’s done in bringing Baylor basketball back to the limelight)

3. Sean Miller (He’s a Pittsburgh guy just like Calipari, has turned Xavier into a poor man’s Memphis by advancing to the Elite Eight and the Sweet 16 in successive years, the first time the Musketeers ever advanced to successive Sweet 16’s in school history. He’s 120-47 in five seasons at the school and should he be hired at Memphis, he will be the same age that Calipari was when he was hired (41).)

There’s a lot of names to throw out for Tiger fans, however the possibilty of getting Bruce Pearl or Rick Pitino to come to Memphis is very remote due to the fact that Pearl just signed an extension on his existing contract and Pitino, well let’s just say that he really wouldn’t want to go to Southland Greyhound Park to bet on horses instead of Churchill Downs.