BMatt’s Monday musings

AUBURN | It’s been a pretty tough year for Auburn athletics.

Football suffered a third consecutive losing season. Men’s basketball had a good season and won the SEC Tournament, but a surprise first-round exit in the NCAA Tournament was a disappointment.

Now, baseball is struggling and softball is already in the market for a new coach.

But it’s not nearly as bad as it seems at the moment and several of those programs could be on the cusp of a major turnaround.

It starts with football. It was clear this spring that the wide receiver position, a major weakness in 2023, has taken a big step forward and a top 10 2024 class was already making a big impact.

The 2025 class certainly has the potential to be even better.

It looks like most of AU’s key players from the men’s basketball team will be back next season and Bruce Pearl and his staff have already upgraded the point guard position by signing Furman transfer point guard JP Pegues.

Women’s basketball is also trending up, earning a bid to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in five years last season, and adding one of the nation’s top transfer players in Taliah Scott, who averaged 22.1 points as a freshman at Arkansas last season.

Butch Thompson has already proven he can turn the baseball program around quickly. Auburn finished with just 10 SEC wins in a injury-plagued 2021 season and was back in the College World Series the next year.

And let’s not forget that there are several Auburn teams still competing at a high level this spring.

Equestrian won the SEC Championship a couple of weeks ago and will play for a national championship beginning Thursday. Men’s golf is ranked No. 1 in the country and will play in the SEC Championship next week while the 10th-ranked women’s team began the SEC Tournament this weekend.

The men’s and women’s tennis teams are both ranked in the top 15, and men’s track is ranked No. 10.

The sky is not falling at Auburn. I’ve been around the athletic program long enough to know that most sports, especially the ones that receive the most support, don’t stay down for long.

And sometimes the turnarounds are bigger and come quicker than anyone thought possible.

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In today’s musical journey, we go back eight years to the final concert of a legendary musical artist, songwriter, producer and actor. On April 14, 2016, Prince played two shows at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta before passing away a week later. Prince, who was trying to overcome an opioid addiction, took what he thought were generic hydrocodone pills but they were laced with fentanyl. He officially died of a fentanyl overdose on April 21 at his home in Paisley Park, which is just outside his hometown of Minneapolis, Minn. He played 20 songs in his final set, closing with “Purple Rain,” his 1984 hit single that is also the title of the movie, which starred Prince, and the soundtrack album. Prince originally wrote “Purple Rain” as a country song and wanted it to be a collaboration with Stevie Nicks. He sent a 10-minute instrumental version of the song to Nicks, but she couldn’t come up with the lyrics to match. During a rehearsal, a guitar was added and six hours later, Prince and his backing band put together a new arrangement and lyrics. Prince said the song was about red and blue blood in the sky that combined to make purple and being with your loved ones at the end of the world. He said the inspiration for the song came from America’s “Ventura Highway,” which includes the line, ‘Sorry boy, but I’ve been hit by purple rain.’ The single reached No. 2 on the Billboard 100 after its release and then No. 4 following Prince’s death in 2016. It’s ranked No. 18 on Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest songs of all time and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011. His most famous performance of “Purple Rain” came during a rainstorm at the halftime show of Super Bowl XLI in 2007.

Prince Rogers Nelson was born in Minneapolis in 1958. His mom was a jazz singer and father a pianist and songwriter. He was named after one of his father’s stage names, Prince Rogers. Prince wrote his first song, “Funk Machine,” on his father’s piano when he was 7 years old. He played football, basketball and baseball at Central High School, and also trained in classical ballet at the Minnesota Dance Theatre. He joined his first band, 94 East, in 1975, and a year later had a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records. His self-titled first album came out in 1979 included his first hit single, “I Wanna Be Your Lover.” He went on to produce over 40 albums and had five No. 1 singles in 1984’s “When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy,” both from the Purple Rain soundtrack, along with 1986’s “Kiss,”, 1989’s “Batdance” and 1991’s “Cream.” Prince could play guitar, drums and bass, and played nearly every instrument on his first five albums. Prince also wrote hit songs for several other artists including the Bangles’ “Manic Monday,” Chaka Khan’s “I Feel For You” and Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.” He starred in five films including four that he directed. Prince won seven Grammy Awards, an Academy Award for Best Original Score from Purple Rain, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 and sold over 150 million records worldwide. His $156 million estate was settled six years after his death.