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Over the last four days (and ending tomorrow) I’ve done a lot of stuff on the best of Mizzou this decade. So I wanted to continue the theme here in ten thoughts. I thought rather than focusing on the micro here (sorry, I’ve got no interest in breaking down a game against Chicago State and there’s not really a lot going on this week), I’d go big picture. Here are some scattershot ten thoughts from the last ten years, as one of the very few people who’s been around to see every bit of it as a paid observer. This will range from moments that stood out on the field to some behind the scenes stuff to stories (both positive and negative) that were among the most important things I’ll ever cover (while I say that, I realize that nothing I cover is actually very important in the bigger picture). There’s no real order to any of this. It’s just the order in which things popped in my head.
1) Man 2010 seems like a long time ago. Missouri was in the Big 12 and Gary Pinkel was the football coach and Mike Anderson was the basketball coach and the guys who just signed letters of intent were in the third grade. For God’s sake, my dad still had two years left on the job at the Kansas City Star. When I think of 2010, I always think of one day. I rose at 5 am to take my oldest son to the Quad for College Game Day. I’ve written this before, but that was a day that didn’t seem real. It was a day that happened at other places for other fanbases. Not here. Not for you guys. God it was fun. Over and over for the last 16 years I’ve told you guys that I just don’t look at things the same way you do. It’s work. And it is. But there are some days where it doesn’t seem like work. That was one of them. It was about 20 hours later before I left the press box at Faurot. I’m honestly not even sure I was tired. Because of the atmosphere, because I got to share it with my kid, because of Gahn McGaffie, because of everything, whenever I’m done doing this, it’s going to be one of the days I still remember.
2) When anyone thinks about the biggest stories of this decade around Mizzou, there can be only one thing that is number one. When we started this decade, I was covering a Big 12 team, which still seemed kind of weird and fairly new to someone that grew up watching the Big 8. But very early on, it became pretty obvious I wasn’t going to be covering a Big 12 team for long. I’m not going to recount conference realignment blow by blow. I’ll just steal a line that Vahe Gregorian used on the Kansas City Star’s podcast this week: “Conference realignment was like a coaching search on steroids.” Best description I’ve ever heard. In a coaching search, you’re constantly thinking “What’s going to happen next? Do I have time to eat? Can I put my phone down and shower? What am I going to miss?” That was conference realignment. For the better part of three years. One of the things I’ve written that I’m most proud of was my behind the scenes look at the process from Mizzou’s point of view on the five year anniversary. For any of you who weren’t members then and haven’t read it—or maybe just if you want to read it again—here it is.
3) The biggest single game I covered without a doubt was the 2013 SEC Championship Game. For the second time in seven years, I was covering a game that, if Mizzou won, would mean the next game I would cover was the national championship game. Obviously it didn’t happen. But man that game was something. I’ve covered other big games. But somehow, that one just seemed bigger. I get really tired of the arrogance of the SEC and the insistence that everything it does is just better than anything anyone else does (after all, it just means more, you know?) But that day, it really felt bigger and more important than anything I’d ever covered. I remember thinking at halftime of that game that I hadn’t stopped typing. It was a ridiculously fun back and forth game. The 2007 Big 12 title game, I never felt like Missouri was the better team or was going to win. I actually thought most of that day that Missouri was going to find a way to stop Tre Mason and Nick Marshall one time and it was going to win the game. Obviously it didn’t. But what an incredible game to be at in person. And certainly one that, no matter what happens in the future, anybody was there is going to remember being at the SEC title game when little old upstart Missouri came out of nowhere and shocked everybody in the biggest, baddest conference in the country where they were supposed to bring TV sets, but not wins, and weren’t supposed to actually ever threaten anybody on the football field.
4) I’m not sure I’ll ever again cover a week like the one I covered in mid-November of 2015. The week was full of “holy shit” moments. The first came when I was at a Rock Bridge fundraiser about four beers in and saw a tweet from Anthony Sherrills. I knew right then my night was over. I spent the next 48-72 hours outside of various buildings and at various press conferences not knowing if I was going to be covering firings, resignations, a football game, all of the above or none of the above. They told us when we went into sports in journalism school that while you were covering sports, you really had to have an understanding of everything. You had to be familiar with the law because you’d cover legal stories. You had to understand some things about the medical field because you’d cover injuries. What we covered that week, nothing could have prepared us for. It was unlike anything I’ve covered before and probably unlike anything I’ll cover again. I said at the time it was going to impact Mizzou and the football program for years. I hate that I was right. As recently as this morning, it was still brought up in a thread that had nothing to do with it. A lot of people have forgotten it or at least learned lessons from it and moved on. Too many have not.
The cherry on top of the sundae that week came on Friday afternoon. I got a message that Gary Pinkel was resigning due to health reasons. It triggered a memory of an email I’d gotten in April of that year saying that this would be Pinkel’s last season as Missouri’s head coach. It cited health as the reason, but went no further. It was an email I’d honestly forgotten about. I spent the next 20 minutes or so getting the information confirmed. I had it from six sources…and still sat there for 15 minutes before I posted it scared to death that it was wrong. There are stories you can afford to be wrong on and stories you can’t afford to be wrong on. This was one I couldn’t be wrong on. When I had a chance to teach a class at the J-school a few years ago I told the students the best feeling you would have in this business was breaking a big story. And it was immediately followed by the worst feeling you would have: Waiting for someone else to report it so that you knew if you were wrong at least you had company. Fortunately I had to wait all of about 30 seconds on that day for Dave Matter to report the same thing. I was scared to death, but at least the feeling didn’t last very long. I didn’t attend the BYU game that week. Pete Scantlebury covered it for us. What a bizarre scene it was watching Pinkel’s final win, although not nearly as bizarre as seeing his players carry him off the field the next week against Tennessee…after a loss.
5) Let’s talk about coaching changes a little bit. There were two moments in coaching searches in the last ten years that I was in utter disbelief. The first was when Joe Walljasper broke the story that Missouri had hired Frank Haith. I knew Joe and so on some level I knew he was right, but my reaction was simply that it couldn’t be right. The guy from Miami?!?!!? Why? First of all, I always liked Frank. Still do. He’s very personable and I enjoyed covering him and that first season was some of the most fun I’ve ever had covering basketball (probably second to Mike Anderson’s 2008-09 team). But it ended pretty much the way we knew it would end that first night we heard the news.
The second time was when I got a call saying Missouri was hiring Kim Anderson. The call came from a source that had legitimately never been wrong. I knew it was right. And my reaction was still “No, they aren’t. Not really.” (For the record, the source couldn't believe it either). That one didn’t even have the first magical season. That one turned out the way we all knew it would. And it was obvious after the very first game.
Over the last four days (and ending tomorrow) I’ve done a lot of stuff on the best of Mizzou this decade. So I wanted to continue the theme here in ten thoughts. I thought rather than focusing on the micro here (sorry, I’ve got no interest in breaking down a game against Chicago State and there’s not really a lot going on this week), I’d go big picture. Here are some scattershot ten thoughts from the last ten years, as one of the very few people who’s been around to see every bit of it as a paid observer. This will range from moments that stood out on the field to some behind the scenes stuff to stories (both positive and negative) that were among the most important things I’ll ever cover (while I say that, I realize that nothing I cover is actually very important in the bigger picture). There’s no real order to any of this. It’s just the order in which things popped in my head.
1) Man 2010 seems like a long time ago. Missouri was in the Big 12 and Gary Pinkel was the football coach and Mike Anderson was the basketball coach and the guys who just signed letters of intent were in the third grade. For God’s sake, my dad still had two years left on the job at the Kansas City Star. When I think of 2010, I always think of one day. I rose at 5 am to take my oldest son to the Quad for College Game Day. I’ve written this before, but that was a day that didn’t seem real. It was a day that happened at other places for other fanbases. Not here. Not for you guys. God it was fun. Over and over for the last 16 years I’ve told you guys that I just don’t look at things the same way you do. It’s work. And it is. But there are some days where it doesn’t seem like work. That was one of them. It was about 20 hours later before I left the press box at Faurot. I’m honestly not even sure I was tired. Because of the atmosphere, because I got to share it with my kid, because of Gahn McGaffie, because of everything, whenever I’m done doing this, it’s going to be one of the days I still remember.
2) When anyone thinks about the biggest stories of this decade around Mizzou, there can be only one thing that is number one. When we started this decade, I was covering a Big 12 team, which still seemed kind of weird and fairly new to someone that grew up watching the Big 8. But very early on, it became pretty obvious I wasn’t going to be covering a Big 12 team for long. I’m not going to recount conference realignment blow by blow. I’ll just steal a line that Vahe Gregorian used on the Kansas City Star’s podcast this week: “Conference realignment was like a coaching search on steroids.” Best description I’ve ever heard. In a coaching search, you’re constantly thinking “What’s going to happen next? Do I have time to eat? Can I put my phone down and shower? What am I going to miss?” That was conference realignment. For the better part of three years. One of the things I’ve written that I’m most proud of was my behind the scenes look at the process from Mizzou’s point of view on the five year anniversary. For any of you who weren’t members then and haven’t read it—or maybe just if you want to read it again—here it is.
3) The biggest single game I covered without a doubt was the 2013 SEC Championship Game. For the second time in seven years, I was covering a game that, if Mizzou won, would mean the next game I would cover was the national championship game. Obviously it didn’t happen. But man that game was something. I’ve covered other big games. But somehow, that one just seemed bigger. I get really tired of the arrogance of the SEC and the insistence that everything it does is just better than anything anyone else does (after all, it just means more, you know?) But that day, it really felt bigger and more important than anything I’d ever covered. I remember thinking at halftime of that game that I hadn’t stopped typing. It was a ridiculously fun back and forth game. The 2007 Big 12 title game, I never felt like Missouri was the better team or was going to win. I actually thought most of that day that Missouri was going to find a way to stop Tre Mason and Nick Marshall one time and it was going to win the game. Obviously it didn’t. But what an incredible game to be at in person. And certainly one that, no matter what happens in the future, anybody was there is going to remember being at the SEC title game when little old upstart Missouri came out of nowhere and shocked everybody in the biggest, baddest conference in the country where they were supposed to bring TV sets, but not wins, and weren’t supposed to actually ever threaten anybody on the football field.
4) I’m not sure I’ll ever again cover a week like the one I covered in mid-November of 2015. The week was full of “holy shit” moments. The first came when I was at a Rock Bridge fundraiser about four beers in and saw a tweet from Anthony Sherrills. I knew right then my night was over. I spent the next 48-72 hours outside of various buildings and at various press conferences not knowing if I was going to be covering firings, resignations, a football game, all of the above or none of the above. They told us when we went into sports in journalism school that while you were covering sports, you really had to have an understanding of everything. You had to be familiar with the law because you’d cover legal stories. You had to understand some things about the medical field because you’d cover injuries. What we covered that week, nothing could have prepared us for. It was unlike anything I’ve covered before and probably unlike anything I’ll cover again. I said at the time it was going to impact Mizzou and the football program for years. I hate that I was right. As recently as this morning, it was still brought up in a thread that had nothing to do with it. A lot of people have forgotten it or at least learned lessons from it and moved on. Too many have not.
The cherry on top of the sundae that week came on Friday afternoon. I got a message that Gary Pinkel was resigning due to health reasons. It triggered a memory of an email I’d gotten in April of that year saying that this would be Pinkel’s last season as Missouri’s head coach. It cited health as the reason, but went no further. It was an email I’d honestly forgotten about. I spent the next 20 minutes or so getting the information confirmed. I had it from six sources…and still sat there for 15 minutes before I posted it scared to death that it was wrong. There are stories you can afford to be wrong on and stories you can’t afford to be wrong on. This was one I couldn’t be wrong on. When I had a chance to teach a class at the J-school a few years ago I told the students the best feeling you would have in this business was breaking a big story. And it was immediately followed by the worst feeling you would have: Waiting for someone else to report it so that you knew if you were wrong at least you had company. Fortunately I had to wait all of about 30 seconds on that day for Dave Matter to report the same thing. I was scared to death, but at least the feeling didn’t last very long. I didn’t attend the BYU game that week. Pete Scantlebury covered it for us. What a bizarre scene it was watching Pinkel’s final win, although not nearly as bizarre as seeing his players carry him off the field the next week against Tennessee…after a loss.
5) Let’s talk about coaching changes a little bit. There were two moments in coaching searches in the last ten years that I was in utter disbelief. The first was when Joe Walljasper broke the story that Missouri had hired Frank Haith. I knew Joe and so on some level I knew he was right, but my reaction was simply that it couldn’t be right. The guy from Miami?!?!!? Why? First of all, I always liked Frank. Still do. He’s very personable and I enjoyed covering him and that first season was some of the most fun I’ve ever had covering basketball (probably second to Mike Anderson’s 2008-09 team). But it ended pretty much the way we knew it would end that first night we heard the news.
The second time was when I got a call saying Missouri was hiring Kim Anderson. The call came from a source that had legitimately never been wrong. I knew it was right. And my reaction was still “No, they aren’t. Not really.” (For the record, the source couldn't believe it either). That one didn’t even have the first magical season. That one turned out the way we all knew it would. And it was obvious after the very first game.
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