There is no other way to say it. In late 1978, Bill Kenney had one last shot – and perhaps only a couple of minutes – to keep his dream alive in the National Football League. Brought in to Arrowhead Stadium for a tryout with the Kansas City Chiefs, the quarterback arrived on a blustery… Read more »
Given all of its outreach to numerous charitable causes, Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.® (JHA) is much like a big-leaguer who hits a monster home run and yet quietly jogs around the bases. Through the course of a year, the Fortune 400 company’s leadership and employees gladly spend hours aiding those in need in southwest… Read more »
The call came in after his first season as a head coach of a major college football program out West. On the other end of the line was the University of Missouri athletic director and a job offer to, in essence, come back home. For Warren Powers, who grew up in Kansas City and had… Read more »
Years before he rose to the top of AMA Motocross and Supercross, Jeff Emig developed a love for motorcycle racing not only in his hometown of Kansas City but also in the hills of southern Missouri. Fast forward, then, to his breakout season of 1992, when Emig won his first AMA national in the 125cc… Read more »
In the summer of 1974, decades before he came to own a big-league baseball team, Jim Crane took a union job on the loading docks of a dry goods company near St. Louis. In essence, that’s truly where his life journey began. You see, Crane’s father had recently passed away, the family needed money and,… Read more »
It’s true that sports broadcasters, by nature, do a lot of talking. However, the pro’s pros also listen. And, for Mike Kelly, he was all ears in his first season of calling Missouri Tigers basketball games. And why not? The advice that he still remembers to this day came from none other than the legendary… Read more »
He’s got the story of perseverance. Of succeeding after being cut from his school’s ninth-grade baseball team. Of heading off to a little-known college without the safety net of an athletic scholarship. And of finding his way to the big leagues and becoming a star. However, former St. Louis Cardinals speedster Vince Coleman wasn’t just… Read more »
Those who work behind the scenes in sports know all too well that you can make a huge difference. Just ask Rex Sharp. Back in the spring of 1997, less than a year after being hired as the head athletic trainer for the University of Missouri, he had a request for the team doctor –… Read more »
Sometimes, Kelby Stuckey just sits back and shakes his head in amazement at how his basketball career unfolded. There he was in the summer of 1984, readying for his senior basketball season at Soldan High School in St. Louis, and one day in walks an assistant coach from then-Southwest Missouri State to recruit someone else.… Read more »
He was only about five years older than the seniors when hired to coach the Glendale High School boys soccer team and, given he had walked across a college graduation stage a year before, you figured that Jeff Rogers would need a few years to let the program marinate into his winning formula. Instead, Glendale… Read more »
The blue-collar teens from a farming community just north of the Missouri River arrived at the ballpark every day in the spring toting along their ball gloves, bats and dreams. Well, that and a collective fearless attitude because, despite representing a Class 1 school, they were often matched opposite Class 5 teams. As one former… Read more »
He used to act as a broadcaster on his buddies’ Strat-O-Matic games, even practiced in the basement of his parents’ home and, one day, walked into the radio station in his hometown of Marshall. Before long, Art Hains made his radio debut at – get this – age 17. “I’ve always said that I was… Read more »
Tucked into a hillside in Warrensburg sits one of the most impressive baseball facilities in the country – complete with synthetic turf, four rows of chair-back seats between the dugouts, a grandstand of chair-back seats and dugout heaters. Oh, and see that Morton building nearby? It houses indoor batting cages, a weight room and the… Read more »
Back in 1981, when David Fairchild was first hired to coach the football team at Penney High School, the weight room was down in the basement and next to the boiler. In other words, no frills. That was a good thing, in the eyes of the new young coach. After all, why not start from… Read more »
In 1976, in his third season on the professional bass fishing circuit, Rick Clunn would cast out his line and hope for the best, for anything really – a nibble even. After all, he was running out of fishing stories. And time. “In the reality of it, I wanted something to break pretty quickly,” Clunn… Read more »
Years ago, George Hayward officiated intramural football games for fellow students at Missouri Western University and, on the weekends, would ref the local youth Pop Warner League for $2 a game. It’s a great memory for the St. Joseph native, because those thankless roles led to the big-time in the National Football League, where Hayward… Read more »
