On the eve of another golf tournament week, Jack Sammons hosted a celebration at Folk’s Folly.

Sammons is the general chairman of the FedEx St. Jude Championship. The celebration has become an annual tradition for those in charge of putting on the tournament.

“We kill some steers that night, eat some potatoes,” Sammons said. “We tell some stories, too.”

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This year, Sammons started with a fictional story from the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“St. Peter is talking to Clarence, the angel,” said Sammons, who doesn’t have that quite right. The movie script said it was “Senior Angel” who was talking to Clarence. But you get the general idea.

“St. Peter tells Clarence, ‘You’ve got a chance to earn your wings but you’ve got to go down and help this guy,’” Sammons said. “ So Clarence says to St. Peter, ‘What, is he sick?’ And St. Peter says, ‘No, worse. He’s discouraged.’ Well, here in Memphis, I think that’s a little bit where we are.”

We’re discouraged.

For all the reasons you know too well. The crime. The power outages. The tainted water in Germantown. The never-ending search for a school superintendent. The death of Eliza Fletcher. The death of Tyre Nichols. The crushing poverty underneath it all. 

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Oh, and it doesn’t help that the ACC is reportedly considering SMU (instead of Memphis) as a candidate for expansion.

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So, yes, it’s discouraging. We’re discouraged. And discouragement gets in the way of addressing the very problems that caused the discouragement in the first place.

That’s why Sammons told the story to the crowd gathered at Folk’s Folly. And that’s why he followed it up the other day by telling me this: “We don’t need to put our head in the sand about our problems. Nobody is saying that. But I’ve always believed that Memphis is a 12-round fighter. We’ve been knocked down before by the Yellow Fever epidemic, Dr. King’s death — blows that would have been the end of some communities. And every time, we somehow sprang up better. I believe that will happen again, I really do. But it is going to require us to come together and get after it.”

In other words, self-pity isn’t any use. The solution starts with rolling up the sleeves. And if you need a recent example of this, the Memphis golf tournament will do just fine.

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Flash back to the year 2009. Stanford Financial — the tournament sponsor — was exposed as a fraud.

“Our purse was $4 million that year,” Sammons said. “I can tell you I asked Phil Cannon (then the tournament director) if we could give them postdated checks.”

The tournament had no title sponsor and slim prospects. So Sammons and Cannon decided to host a breakfast at the Holiday Inn Memphis-University of Memphis to rally the team of volunteers who would help sell new sponsorships.

“Four people showed up,” said Sammons. “Four! I told Phil, ‘This isn’t worth the price of the breakfast.’ But look where we are now.”

Now the best golfers in the world are in town. The purse is five times what it was when Sammons began.

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“We’ve sold more hospitality than ever, and we’re getting more media hits than ever,” Sammons said. “We’re at the zenith for this tournament.”

Instead of getting discouraged, Sammons got going. See the difference that can make?

And, no, the problems of a city aren’t the same as the problems of a golf tournament. Let’s not be naive.

But the solutions might have a good deal in common — starting with a conviction that solutions are even possible.

The golf tournament built its recovery around FedEx and St. Jude.

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The city can, too. And around the University of Memphis. And around AutoZone and International Paper and the new Ford plant just to our east. And around the thousands of houses of worship we have in this city, brimming with people who should want to pitch in.

Memphis is about to take the wraps off a brand new Tom Lee Park. Soon, we’ll start in on FedExForum and Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium.

Shelby Farms is spectacular. The new Brooks Museum of Art should be, too.

And the golf tournament?

“It’s another chance for us to tell our story to the world,” Sammons said. “And the story is all positive.”

As it happens, Sammons was at an out-of-town fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in February. There was a high-end auction to end the night. They auctioned off first-class travel packages, stunning pieces of art, all sorts of valuable things.

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“In the midst of all that, they auctioned off two spots to our Thursday celebrity tournament,” Sammons said. “This was at a time when there was a lot of noise about Memphis in the news. The auctioneer looked at me and said, ‘You sell this one.’”

So Sammons started talking about this city. He talked about Elvis and St. Jude and FedEx and the National Civil Rights Museum.

“I told them there’s a reason that Fred Smith chose Memphis as the place to put a worldwide hub,” Sammons said. “I told them there’s a reason that Danny Thomas chose Memphis as the place to put a miraculous children’s hospital. That hospital takes care of the sickest kids in the world — and it does it for free. How can anyone not be for that?”

Sammons was just getting wound up at this point. He told the crowd about the interview Elvis did with a young Charles Kuralt after Elvis returned from his stint in the Army.

You know the story, right? Kuralt asked Elvis what he missed most about Memphis.

“Everything,” Elvis said.

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With that, Sammons stopped talking. And the bidding on the items began.

“I thought we might get $2,000 total,” Sammons said. “We ended up getting $30,000 each.”

Ever since, Sammons has been sending the folks who bought the trip handwritten notes and Memphis swag. The other day, one of the them called and asked if he could bring some friends along. 

“They’ve become storytellers for Memphis,” Sammons said. “And we need that. We need as many of those as we can get.”

So go out and tell the story, my fellow Memphians. Tell the good along with the the bad.

It’s entirely understandable if you’ve felt discouraged during these past 12 months.

But the city needs your enthusiasm now.