Nashville Soccer Club begins its MLS Cup playoff push on the road against LA Galaxy, after finishing the regular season in Los Angeles with a win against Western Conference leader LAFC.

The Galaxy and NSC both finished the regular season with 50 points, but the Galaxy locked down the 4-seed and an opening round home game by notching an April 23 win at Dignity Health Sports Park against the Nashville club. The teams also played to a Sept. 10 draw at GEODIS Park.

Nashville SC has fared well away from home this season, having not lost a road contest since July 9. The team has scored more road goals this season (22) than any season prior and allowed just 20 goals away from GEODIS Park this season, the lowest total in the Western Conference.

NSC midfielder Hany Mukhtar captured the league’s Golden Boot award Sunday for tallying a league-high 23 goals and 11 assists in a tightly-contested race that came down to the regular season’s final day.

Beyond Mukhtar, Philadelphia Union midfielder Daniel Gazdag (22g/10a) and Austin FC midfielder Sebastian Driussi (22g/7a) were also in contention.

Nashville SC’s first-round MLS Cup playoff game will take place Saturday at 2 p.m. CT, and can be seen locally on MYTV30, Univision, TUDN or at MLSsoccer.com/MLS.

Keith to receive BMI Icon Award

Toby Keith will receive the BMI Icon Award during the performing rights organization’s annual BMI Country Awards Nov. 8.

BMI President and CEO Mike O’Neill will host the ceremony with Clay Bradley, BMI vice president, Creative, Nashville. BMI will also crown the Country Songwriter, Song and Publisher of the Year, as well as salute the writers and publishers of the past year’s 50 most-performed songs from BMI’s Country catalog at the invitation-only event.

The BMI Icon Award is given to songwriters in recognition of their “unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers.” In receiving this award, Keith will join an impressive list of Country legends, including Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Kris Kristofferson and Hank Williams, Jr., as well as multigenre royalty Stevie Nicks, Little Richard, Patti LaBelle, James Brown and more.

“We are honored to present Toby Keith with this year’s BMI Icon Award. Since the release of his single ‘Should’ve Been A Cowboy’ in 1993, Toby has been the gold standard of songwriting in the modern era of Country music,” says Clay Bradley, VP, Creative, Nashville.

In 2021, Keith was bestowed the National Medal of Arts, inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (having already been inducted into the all-genre Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015), and honored with the Academy of Country Music’s prestigious Merle Haggard Spirit Award.

Conexión Américas gets $100K grant from TSC

Tractor Supply Company, the largest rural lifestyle retailer in the United States, and its foundation announced a grant to Conexión Américas, a nonprofit that works to connect Latino families with information, local resources, support networks and opportunities for advancement in the Hispanic community in Middle Tennessee.

As part of the announcement, the Tractor Supply Foundation presented the nonprofit organization with a $100,000 grant to assist with its efforts in providing Latino families the opportunity to achieve their own American dream through programs that focus on social, economic and civic integration.

Through the grant, Conexión Américas will work collaboratively with Tractor Supply to offer bilingual skills-based training that include resume building, interview preparation and job readiness training in the Latino community.

Tractor Supply will also frequently post job opportunities directly on the Conexión Américas online job board and will be regularly highlighted in the organization’s communications materials to raise awareness of the Company. In addition to the workforce opportunities, Tractor Supply will be an integral part of two large events celebrating Hispanic Heritage – The Latin Party and Cafecito.

Fuerte Juntos, Tractor Supply’s Hispanic Team Member Engagement Group, frequently supports Conexión Américas through volunteer activities, including at a recent hiring event held during Hispanic Heritage Family Day at the Nashville Zoo. The grant will generate additional volunteer opportunities for the TMEG, as well as all interested Tractor Supply Team Members.

HCA donates $1.5M for TSU scholarships

HCA Healthcare, Inc. announced it will give $1.5 million to Tennessee State University to create scholarship opportunities for students enrolled in the Dr. Levi Watkins, Jr. Institute and the Department of Computer Science within the College of Engineering.

This gift is part of the organization’s larger commitment to give $10 million over three years to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). Since making the pledge in 2021, HCA Healthcare has announced approximately $5.25 million in donations toward multiple partnerships.

Funds from this gift will support scholarships for students participating in the university’s Dr. Levi Watkins, Jr. Institute Accelerated Medical Pathway program. Three two-year scholarships for rising juniors and three two-year scholarships for graduate students within the College of Engineering will also be awarded.

InfraWare releases new deposition solution

Documentation technology and services firm InfraWare, Inc., announced the general release of Readback, their revolutionary deposition court reporting solution, at the Clio Cloud Conference. The announcement comes with new, lower pricing tiers enabled by recent technology breakthroughs.

Readback was the first service to offer what the company described as Active Reporting when it was introduced 12 months ago in an early access program to existing clients and others by invitation only. With the general release, Readback is now available to litigators nationwide at three new pricing tiers, subject to rules by jurisdiction.

Active Reporting means the transcript is produced during proceedings at a pace and quality that supports litigator performance. This speed actually changes how litigators practice. Attorneys can reference the text of a transcript, and interact with it, as the proceeding unfolds.

Using Active Reporting, Readback is able to deliver a rough transcript in just one hour following the proceeding and a certified transcript the next business day at low, flat rates. There are no expedited fees.

Building on the success of its flagship product offering, Readback now also offers companion services for more freedom over deliverables at even more accessible pricing.

Small business loan deadline approaching

Private nonprofit organizations in 13 Tennessee counties until Nov. 3 to file for federal economic injury disaster loans for losses from December’s storms and tornadoes.

The eligible counties are Cheatham, Davidson, Decatur, Dickson, Dyer, Gibson, Henderson, Henry, Lake, Obion, Stewart, Sumner and Weakley, the U.S. Small Business Administration said.

Organizations such as food kitchens, homeless shelters, museums, libraries, community centers, schools, colleges and others are eligible.

The loans are to help eligible noncritical private nonprofit organizations meet working capital needs. The assistance is available whether or not the organization had physical property damage.

Applications may be made online under SBA declaration #17335. Forms are also available by calling or emailing the SBA.

Vanderbilt Wilson County adds epilepsy unit

Vanderbilt Wilson County Hospital has added an epilepsy monitoring unit, with a neurologist on-site seeing patients in the hospital.

The announcement comes following VWCH’s designation as a provisional Level 3 Trauma Center in May and an Interventional Cardiology program instituted in January that began seeing patients five days a week in September.

The four-bed EMU will perform EEG-video monitoring, allowing neurologists to record seizures in order to determine the best treatment options, according to Junaid Humayun, M.D., assistant professor of neurology.

Humayun, a board-certified neurologist, with a two-year fellowship training in clinical neurophysiology and advanced epilepsy, will be the main neurology provider for Wilson County, covering all EMU patients and taking inpatient neurology consults.

He will be treating patients for conditions including epilepsy, stroke, multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson’s disease and neurological emergencies, monitoring EMU patients in the morning and seeing inpatient neurology consults in the afternoon.

Wilson County did not previously have a neurologist on-site, so those patients were sent to the main campus in Nashville.

“Establishing an EMU is something very unique and takes effort to materialize the concept and build one, and we are fortunate to have established the state-of-the-art EMU at Wilson County Hospital, which will be serving a big population in this part of the state,” Humayun says.

Vanderbilt event examines election calls

The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy will host a live event to shed light on the mechanics and nuance of network election calls. “The Media’s Role on Election Night” will take place Wednesday, Oct. 19, at 6 p.m. in Langford Auditorium on Vanderbilt’s campus.

It will examine how these calls are made and how this unofficial system grew into the role it plays today.

This panel, which will also be livestreamed on YouTube, will feature Chris Stirewalt, former political editor at Fox News. He was with the network for more than 10 years as the main on-air analyst of polls and voting trends and was a key member of Fox News’ 2020 election desk. Stirewalt is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and contributing editor at The Dispatch.

Stirewalt will be joined by Josh Clinton, the Abby and Jon Winkelried Chair and professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, where he codirects the Vanderbilt Poll. Clinton also is a senior election analyst at NBC News.

The discussion will be moderated by Nicole Hemmer, associate professor of history and director of the Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Center for the American Presidency at Vanderbilt University. Hemmer is also an opinion columnist at CNN and a published author.

This event is free and open to the public; registration is required to attend. Register