The first time Med-Pay, Inc. became involved with the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame was, believe or not, before there was a Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in Springfield. Back in the early 1990s, as founder John Q. Hammons traveled the Show-Me State and sought a community eager to house the Hall, the Springfield News-Leader… Read more »
Given all of his success, one might assume that professional bull rider L.J. Jenkins grew up on a ranch. Not the case, he says. Before he ever made it big, Jenkins lived in Strafford east of Springfield as well as the Highlandville-Spokane area of Christian County and attended Springfield elementary and middle schools. So how… Read more »
So how in the world did Natasha Kaiser-Brown, who became an NCAA and Olympics standout, ever find her way to the University of Missouri? “It’s really kind of cool,” Kaiser-Brown said. “I was at the Junior Olympic Trials in Los Angeles, my junior year in high school. Right before I ran the 400 meters, this… Read more »
Longtime National Football League defensive coordinator Gregg Williams certainly hasn’t forgotten his roots. Over the years, his foundation has gifted millions of dollars to school and youth athletics in his hometown of Excelsior Springs. “I always wanted them to know they can do anything in life,” Williams said. Williams is a prime example, having parlayed… Read more »
The grainy videos – the ones of the Mizzou Tigers’ 1966 Sugar Bowl team – are simply beautiful nostalgia archived on YouTube. See the black jerseys, gold pants and the helmets with the player’s number? And No. 16? That’s quarterback Gary Lane. Plus, one news reel shows Johnny Roland tossing a touchdown pass to Earl… Read more »
When longtime Kansas City Royals scout Art Stewart talks about his 60 years in baseball, it’s like flipping through a scrapbook of old black-and-white photos. The stories are almost too hard to believe, and yet you can listen for hours. This is a man who has scouted every Kansas City Royals player from rookie ball… Read more »
In his 40 years covering and writing about college athletics, 2016 Missouri Sports Hall of Fame inductee Mark Stillwell steered a different course from his fellow sports information professionals. Working as Sports Information Director at Missouri State University, Stillwell shared his Bears’ weekend sports competition assignments with active participation in the U.S. Navy Reserve. From… Read more »
These days, there is nothing small about so-called small college athletics, and Jerry Hughes – the longtime athletic director of the University of Central Missouri – has been among its champions. Just walk across the Warrensburg campus. A $6 million fundraising effort has led to the football team’s new locker room, strength and conditioning center… Read more »
Sometimes, life pulls the string on your coaching whistle and leads you on a path you never envisioned – and for the better. Jim Lemen had never heard of The John Burroughs School in St. Louis until he was well into a master’s degree program at Harvard University in 1963. At the time, John Burroughs… Read more »
You could call them football’s version of Band of Brothers, constructed much the way a sturdy home is built brick by brick. It wasn’t just one man doing the heavy lifting, either. Head coaches, longtime assistants and teenage players – some who went on to fame, most who were overachievers who sacrificed their bodies for… Read more »
Years ago, before the trips to bowl games became routine and the No. 1 national ranking was bestowed on the Mizzou Tigers football program, the phone calls took Gary Pinkel by surprise when he initially took the job. “I had a lot of friends call and say, ‘You’re crazy,” Pinkel said. No, Pinkel had a… Read more »
His tucked-way office just off the gym might make a first-time visitor assume that nothing big has happened here. It’s oblong in design, and not even the size of a college dorm room. And yet from behind that desk – and out on the hardwood some 40 feet away – is where Evangel University men’s… Read more »
Arguably the beauty of the Olympics is that some star-gazing teenager or 20-something sweats away with only a hope and a dream. And, the next thing you know, they’re a household name across the country, climbing atop the awards stand a half a world away. In essence, that’s the story of Terin Humphrey, whose journey… Read more »
Longtime basketball coach Robert Corn puts it this way: “Sometimes in this business, you have to be lucky.” A case in point is the day his coaching career took its most important step, with a phone call. “I was in my office at Mountain Grove High School and it was coach (Gene) Bartow. He said,… Read more »
What began as a simple announcement over the loud speakers at St. Louis University High School in 1985, when the racquetball program needed a coach, became a success story that’s almost too hard to believe. Even Joe “Doc” Koestner, the coach himself, gets a kick out of retracing the roots of history. “It was the… Read more »
He was introduced to organized football at a Kansas City Boys Club on 43rd street in the 1960s. That is, despite his mom’s fears of an injury, which were understandable, given Eric Williams was basically 5-foot-nothing, 100-and-nothing. By the time he graduated high school, he was a 6-foot-2, 225-pound wrecking ball. “I always played in… Read more »
