Inductees

He still remembers when it all began, particularly – get this – the date. That would be September 21, 1963, when the University of Missouri football team played host to the Northwestern Wildcats at Faurot Field, with Northwestern coached by future Notre Dame icon Ara Parseghian.

Dr. Jerald “Thumper” Chaffin was a freshman and in uniform, only not a football uniform.

“I was in the band – Marching Mizzou – and we sat in the end zone on some temporary bleachers that they had hauled over from Brewer Fieldhouse,” Dr. Chaffin said.

He hasn’t missed a home game since – the Chaffin Streak reached 338 consecutive games on September 21 (the 56th anniversary) – and it’s why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame is proud to induct Chaffin with the Class of 2019.

In fact, the Branson native is only the third fan ever inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, as he joins Springfield’s Marty Prather (MSHOF 2003) and Washington’s Squeaky Marquart (2015).

The Chaffin Streak has covered eight eras of coaches, from Dan Devine and on to Al Onofrio, Warren Powers, Woody Widenhofer, Bob Stull, Larry Smith, Gary Pinkel and now Barry Odom. Along the way, Chaffin has seen 24 of Mizzou’s bowl teams and 29 of its NCAA All-Americans, plus many of Mizzou’s most memorable games.

Regardless if was raining or cold or a challenging season for Mizzou, Chaffin would make the 3 ½-hour, 200-mile drive from his home in Branson to Columbia to support the Tigers. In fact, during his doctoral residency in Rockford, Ill., in 1977 through 1979, the Chaffin Streak kept churning. And that was despite a 385-mile, one-way trip.

“After going for a few years, it became a habit, or challenge. Maybe it was loyalty,” Chaffin said. “I always got in on a student ticket and did that for 16 straight years.”

He then laughed, “Kind of embarrassing in retrospect.”

In 1979, he opened up his wallet for season tickets and continues to sit on the east side of Faurot Field in order to be near students and in the sunshine on those fall Saturday afternoons, doing so with longtime friends Phil Grubaugh, Day Miller, Dan Mufich and Tim Murphy.

In the process, his support has helped fund Mizzou football in numerous ways, including scholarship dollars that have enabled players from low-income families to get a shot at the American Dream.

“It’s meaningful,” Chaffin said. “It’s hard to quantify. It’s something to be proud of.”

To Chaffin, the potential positive influence of sports and Mizzou Athletics have long been near and dear to his heart. You see, he is a Missouri native, having attended grade school in a one-room school house in Rockaway Beach, and later graduated from Branson High School in 1963 after four seasons on the basketball team as a student manager.

“That gave me a better perspective of team sports than if I were the last guy off the bench,” Chaffin said. “It gave me an appreciation for the coaching profession.”

Like many fans, Chaffin has always wanted Mizzou coaches to succeed, to help build the program’s national profile.

Which explains why some of Mizzou’s toughest losses — the 1990 Fifth Down Game to eventual national champion Colorado, and the 1997 Flea-Kicker game against Nebraska – still sting to this day.

And which also is why he still beams about the October 11, 2003 game, a 41-24 Tigers victory against Nebraska – the program’s first win against the Cornhuskers since 1978 and which kick-started 10 bowl seasons in the Pinkel Era.

“We celebrated after the game with a lot of beers in the parking lot,” Chaffin said.

Truth is, he was just as nervous for that game as the 1972 season-opener against Oregon, in Onofrio’s second season.

“That was a big win coming off a 1-10 season,” Chaffin said. “Coach Onofrio, he was such a good, good man. And this is how good of a man he was – we beat SMU with Hayden Fry as their coach, and Onofrio apologized for scoring late.”

Fortunately for Chaffin, he has long had the support of his wife, Sue, whom he said, “always respected my passions and tolerated my quirks.” And he appreciates his friends, too.

“It’s the friends who you go to the game with that make it,” Chaffin said. “I’m sure there are others who live close to Mizzou who have gone to who knows how many games over the years. I’ve just been blessed. I’m certainly on the back nine of my life but not on the 18^th hole.”