For that matter, why do we try so hard to be somewhere else, anywhere else?

I wrote a column – several columns – about this subject over the last few years, and you obviously weren’t paying attention.

Take notes this time. There’s going to be a test.

Conaway: The Earthquake Open and having fun saving Memphis things

I’ve told you several times what I thought of the name Liberty Park for the old fairgrounds. If I was subtle, let me be clear: It’s awful. In fact, it would have to be a good bit better to be just awful.

But it’s still better than the name “MoSH” for the Pink Palace.

I know something about this sort of thing. I’ve branded more things than the cowboys on “Yellowstone.” Anybody who’s been in that business for a minute knows that the biggest obstacle is not finding the right name and brand; it’s overcoming preconceived notions of what the name and brand ought to be before you’re hired.

Somebody’s buddy came up with a great name in the duck blind. Somebody’s spouse likes the color red. Somebody’s kid drew a great logo with an Etch A Sketch.

Somebody somewhere else did something we can copy.

Conaway: I am horrified by — and proud of — my city

For instance, when Bud Dudley’s bowl game went into the ICU in Philadelphia, he put it in an ambulance and drove it here. He not only got Memphis to embrace and save his dying bowl game, he also got the city to name their stadium after it. Liberty works in Philadelphia, where Dudley and the Liberty Bowl came from, but it has no unique meaning in Memphis.

It still has no unique meaning in Memphis.

Nevertheless, compounding the original error, we put a lot of lipstick on the old fairgrounds amusement park and named it Libertyland. I inherited that misguided name and theme as the ad agency and tried to make it work, naming every ride and concession when it opened.

Even after that faded and failed, even after we sold Elvis’ favorite ride – the Zippin Pippin – to another city, even after we completely erased Libertyland from the face of the Earth, we’re now naming the whole fairgrounds redo Liberty Park.

We’re showing all the originality of a bad band covering somebody else’s song, and not even a Memphis song at that.

Conaway: It was a good idea 204 years ago, now it’s happening

Nashville named their bowl The Music City Bowl, and they put the word “Nashville” in both end zones when they play – not the participating teams, but “Nashville.”

That bowl, decades younger than ours, has already blown by us in awareness, attendance, branding, and TV viewership like we weren’t even here.

It’s not fair to groan about all this and not offer a solution, so here it is.

Imagine we’re all in a conference room like the old days — say, April of 2019. Cups of coffee and bottled water all around. There’s a screen lit up and a few boards on an easel, and I’m up front in a suit and a tie. Remember those?

I’ve done all the setup for those at the table, given all the reasons why the name for the fairgrounds should work for the city — literally positioning it here and for all the people coming here to compete and watch the competition — and explained why it also has to position the restaurants, lodging, and retail fronting Central Avenue.

Conaway: A return to simpler times and not so simple solutions

Why it has to support what’s already there – the Kroc, the stadium, the Children’s Museum, the new soccer stadium – and whatever’s coming. Why it has to be short, engaging, and memorable.

Why it has to be, everybody look at the screen:

Games in The Core. Gatherings in The Core. Meet me in The Core for dinner, so on and so forth. Placing it in time and space.

Now imagine as part of the branding, the “o” in Core would become the ball of each venue’s signage and identification – a baseball, a basketball, a volleyball, a soccer ball, so on and so forth.

I gave you that one a couple of years ago, and you ignored me. Mayor Strickland continued with Liberty Park in honor of all the signers of the Declaration of Independence from Memphis, a city founded 43 years after that Philadelphia signing.

He built that huge box on East Parkway that looks like, at best, an Amazon sorting facility or an airplane hanger, and, at worst, the world’s largest bread box. It’s a sports and event center, and we’ve named it, drum roll, the Memphis Sports and Events Center.

Exciting. You have got to have that t-shirt.

Conaway: General Assembly provides plenty of column fodder

So, because you didn’t like The Core, I’m going to give you another one:

The Point works just like The Core as an umbrella for everything we’re doing. It’s at least a double entendre, a copywriter requirement, and gives personality and purpose to everything in our reimagined park.

Now, let’s give that multi-purpose bread box some personality and purpose. Let’s name it:

We’re on a roll – or a bounce, as it were. This is fun. This is exciting in The Bounce, at The Point, where the game is played in Memphis.

And since we’re doing new things, let’s get rid of the old things that don’t work as well as they should on the property.

Let’s support all the games played in the stadium, not just the one in December. Drop Liberty, and give the sponsor its money’s worth. Just call it Simmons Bank Stadium, where the University of Memphis plays all its home games. Right here on Tiger Lane. Where the Southern Heritage Classic is played. Where the new Memphis Showboats will play starting this spring — with a TV contract. Be sure “Memphis” shows up on that field.

And the Coliseum is finally coming down, a sad and lasting reminder that we can’t make up our mind as a city and move forward. It should come down, and one of the features of the new soccer stadium that will take its place should be a major permanent exhibit of what the Coliseum was and meant in its time, open at no charge to the public.

That new stadium will probably attract a name sponsor, but in the meantime, call it:

Right here in The Core of our city. Or, if you prefer, at The Point in our city.

And then – in December, beginning next December – let’s finally change the name of the Liberty Bowl, too, and give the sponsor its money’s worth: the AutoZone Bowl. And put “Memphis” in the end zones.

The master branding and the individual branding will make sense.

The AutoZone Bowl in Simmons Bank Stadium in The Core, the Center of Memphis.

The AutoZone Bowl in Simmons Bank Stadium at The Point, where the game is played in Memphis.

Conaway: This is our time. But we have to realize it.

Do something, people. Something that’s ours. Hire some pros to help, but please do it right. Our sports branding is as confusing and contradictory as George Santos’ résumé.

I’m a Memphian, and it’s time we claimed, named and promoted our own.