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We're gonna bounce all over the place this week and there will be some Mizzou stuff, but honestly, there's not much going on and I don't have a plan for this yet, so let's see where it takes us.
1) The U.S. Open gave us everything this weekend. There was the tragic hero in Rory McIlroy, there was the one-time villain turned hero in Bryson DeChambeau (what's up with the U-S-A chants for the guy that was basically the first one to bolt for LIV? I'm cool with anyone that likes Bryson--I like him a lot more than I did two years ago--but that particular chant of support seemed misplaced to me all weekend). There were great shots and there were terrible shots and you can look at it as Bryson winning it with an incredible up and down on 18 or Rory losing it by missing putts no pro should miss more than once in 100 tries on 16 and 18 and neither one is wrong.
But for me, this Open was more of a reminder of the day I realized I was a full-on sports geek. There's a difference between people that consider themselves sports fans (most of our friends) and sickos like us who do things like keep stats for rotisserie baseball leagues in notebooks growing up and pay for websites that follow college recruiting. We all know people who consider themselves sports fans, but then you have conversations with them and think "Do you even pay attention?"
Anyway, the day I completely sealed my sicko sports fandom was June 20, 1999. Don't get me wrong, I knew I was a sicko before then, but this took it to another level. I lived in Rapid City, South Dakota at the time, a little less than six months into my first job out of college. I watched all the majors, but wouldn't have considered myself a golf nut at the time. But Payne Stewart and Phil Mickelson were battling on the back nine at Pinehurst and I was simply transfixed. I remember sitting on my futon (were you ever an early 20's single guy if you owned a couch instead of a futon?) watching that US Open all by myself and thinking there's absolutely nothing else I'd rather be doing. I didn't have any particular investment in either player. It shouldn't have mattered all that much. But I couldn't look away. I still think it's probably the best major I've seen (though Jean van de Velde at the British Open, the 2019 Masters and the first 71 holes of the 2009 British Open are in the conversation).
There were a lot of similarities between this one and that one. Maybe 25 years from now people will still talk about this one like they do that one (though probably not quite the same because hopefully Bryson will still be with us the next time they play it). But there's a difference watching it at 47 vs watching it at 22. For me, the 1999 Open will probably stand on its own forever. That was the day I realized that I had a lot more interest in these stupid games than 98% of the people I knew.
2) Something about the U.S. Open always hits different because the final round is on Father's Day. The subplot of that 1999 Open was Mickelson waiting for a call from his wife to find out if he was going to leave the course to be there for the birth of his first child (I heard on a podcast a couple weeks ago she has since said she actually went to the hospital either Saturday night or Sunday morning but told the doctor not to call Phil and to do everything he could to delay the birth).
Sports is, at its heart, about fathers and sons. I'd imagine if you ask every person on this board, at least 90% of us became sports fans because our dads were sports fans. Our kids are sports fans because we are sports fans. Most of us like the teams our dads liked and our kids like the teams we like because that's what they see every week. Sports serves as the way men show emotion. We don't want to be vulnerable about anything...but give us our teams winning a title and we cry like young children. My wife always used to give me shit that I didn't cry at our wedding or the birth of our son, but One Shining Moment would give me a lump in my throat every April.
That final Sunday at the Open reminds most of us of some of the great times we've had with our dads and our kids watching these games that shouldn't matter nearly as much as they do. They're our substitute for actually talking about our feelings. Two years ago, I got tickets to the PGA Championship at Southern Hills and my dad came down and went with me on Satuday. As we watched Tiger Woods hit a couple shots, set up shop behind the 2nd green and then watched some random named Mito Pereira take control of the tournament, my dad told me about his dad taking him to Southern Hills to watch Arnold Palmer. My oldest son has gotten into golf now and we were texting back and forth as Rory opened the door and Bryson charged through it.
What besides sports connects us for four generations?
3) Thinking about the best major I've seen made me think about the best championships I've seen in other sports. It's a slow time and everybody likes a list, so here we go (I'm not ranking hockey because I've never really watched it and definitely haven't ever watched a full Stanley Cup Finals). I'm taking my own teams out of this. Sure, I'd rank the 1985 and 2015 World Series higher and the three best Super Bowls are the ones the Chiefs have won, but I'm talking just as a general fan of sports, not someone invested in a particular team.
World Series: 1991, Twins vs Braves. The first of the great Braves teams after years and years of being terrible against a Twins team that had finished finished last in the AL West the year before. Home team wins every game. Kirby Puckett wins Game 6 1-0 on a 10th inning solo homer (Leading to Jack Buck's legendary "We'll see you tomorrow night") and the Twins win in 7. Runners-up would be Blue Jays/Phillies in 1993 and Yankees/Diamondbacks in 2001.
NBA Finals: It's probably not the best series because it didn't even go seven games, but nothing tops Bulls/Jazz in 1998 for me. First, again, things just seem bigger when you're 21 years old. Second, it was the last great performance of the player that most people in my generation (and many others) consider the best we've ever seen. Bob Costas: "Who knows what will unfold in the next several months? But that may have been the last shot Michael Jordan will ever take in the NBA...if that's the last image of Michael Jordan, how magnificent is it?"
Super Bowl: Rams vs Titans, 2000. A lot of people here would probably pick the same one. There are other Super Bowls that have come down to the final play. But man this was just a great game start to finish. Steve McNair put on a cape and tried to drag his team to a win over one that had a lot more talent. He came up one yard short thanks to Mizzou alum Mike Jones.
4) Since this is a Mizzou site, maybe I'll get into talking about Mizzou now. The Tigers picked up a commitment from 4-star running back Jamarion Morrow on Friday night. As much as any, this one signaled where Mizzou sits in recruiting right now. And it's a place Mizzou has never sat before.
Morrow visited Texas A&M and Alabama. He had offers from Florida State, Georgia, Miami, Oregon and Tennessee. I don't know if they were all committable, but some of them certainly were. And he chose Mizzou. This isn't a thing that's happened very often in the past. Mizzou's recruiting peers used to be Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and the mid-majors. After some success they started to recruit more often against teams like Oklahoma State and Nebraska. Since moving to the SEC it's mostly been Arkansas and Kentucky and the second-tier Big 10 and Big 12 schools. But Missouri is now officially recruiting against college football's big boys. And they're winning some of them. Not all. Nobody wins them all at this level. But enough to be a factor. When these other schools see Missouri on a list now, it's not an afterthought, it's a legitimate threat.
I spent years telling you guys there was a ceiling on how well anyone could recruit at Missouri. Eli Drinkwitz--with a big assist from the state lawmakers and donors--has shattered that ceiling.
5) Drinkwitz has landed 28 4- or 5-star players in five years at Missouri (really 4 1/2). In the previous 18 1/2 classes, Mizzou landed a total of 52 4-or 5-star players (and that's counting a couple of guys twice because they signed, went juco and then signed again).
So Mizzou has gone from averaging fewer than three blue-chip prospects per year to averaging nearly seven (and it could be seven by the time the 2025 class is finished). It still isn't on the level of a Georgia or an Alabama. You still have to develop and do a little more with a little less at Mizzou than you do some other places. But Missouri is a part of a conversation now that it's never been a part of before. And it doesn't appear ready to slow down any time soon.
