Wish I'd seen this earlier.
I live in Memphis, and I can tell you there's not a shortage of gamers. In a lot of ways its a military and college town, though, and groups tend to be somewhat insular, school buddies/friends-of-friends and such. Unfortunately, there's only two dedicated game stores in town, neither of which have much in-store rpg play, and no current game clubs on the local campuses. Finding a group or finding players gets a bit difficult in that situation.
BelenUmeria, if you'll email me I'll see if there's a group I can put your friend in contact with.