One of the most respected of all Missouri State University sports figures, coach Andy McDonald, has served SMS for almost 50 years. He came to SMS from the University of Kansas and was the Bears’ basketball mentor from 1925 until 1950. During his 23 seasons at the Bruin helm, he coached in and won more… Read more »
News
Sport: Basketball
1980-1983 Era McDonald County High School Girls Basketball
The story goes that, after a few years following passage of the federal Title IX legislation which required public schools to offer sports to girls, a group of McDonald County High School girls marched to the superintendent’s office. That led to the school offering girls basketball in November 1976. Two years later, Jerry Davis returned… Read more »
Eric McDonnell
For the past 37 years, Eric McDonnell has stood right on the sidelines either with the University of Missouri football team or on the bench of the women’s basketball and volleyball programs and – best of all – they paid him to be there. And to think his career as an athletic trainer almost never… Read more »
Dr. Glenn McElroy
Dr. Glenn McElroy began working with the University of Missouri Tigers as an orthopedic consultant to team physician Dr. James Baker in 1951, then succeeded him in 1977. In 1991 he took on the title of emeritus team physician. He was a charter member of the Missouri Athletic Trainers Association Hall of Fame, received the… Read more »
Lennies McFerren
A coach with nine state championships to his name, who grew up in an era when he and his friends used the rim of a bicycle tire as a basketball goal, believed this: Teaching players life lessons was far more important than winning alone. “I suffered a few losses just to make a point. That’s… Read more »
Melissa McFerrin
It’s common these days to hear a successful person from a rural country upbringing say they “got it from the dirt.” For Melissa McFerrin, that’s exactly what happened. Growing up in smalltown Cassville during an era when girls and women’s athletics took a backseat to the guys, McFerrin pushed boundaries and carved her own path… Read more »
Lee McKinney
Lee McKinney was a former basketball coach and athletics director at Fontbonne University. “You can probably consider him the dean of coaches in St. Louis,” Washington University coach Mark Edwards said. “He was very entrenched with high school coaches and players in the area. He enjoyed the kids that he coached. He was very dedicated… Read more »
John McNabb
In sports, the old saying is, “Be ready when your number is called.” And that could not have been truer for John McNabb in 1988. He had spent the decade as a football assistant coach at Camdenton High School, as part of staffs that helped the Lakers win a pair of state championships. He had… Read more »
Dora Quinn Arney Meikle
Walk by the indoor swimming pool at College of the Ozarks, and it may seem like just another athletic facility. In reality, it’s steeped in history – as the place where Dora Quinn Arney Meikle began to make her mark as a pioneer of women’s athletics. “Women athletes today maybe wouldn’t realize all we went… Read more »
Bruce Melin
Melin received both his bachelor’s (1944) and master’s (1948) degrees from the University of Minnesota. He joined the faculty and athletic staff of Washington University in 1949 and served for 28 years before retiring in 1977. He continued working as an athletic trainer for some time after his retirement. In 1986, Melin received the Washington… Read more »
Mercy
Mercy is the 2012 John Q. Hammons Founder Award Recipient. As part of an integrated health system with more than 500 physicians and 10,000 co-workers, Mercy has been caring for the people of the Ozarks since 1891. Mercy is home to the region’s only Level I Trauma Center, a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit,… Read more »
Dr. Harvey Michael
Dr. Harvey Michael was the team physician for Missouri State University for 18 years. He graduated from the Oklahoma School of Medicine in Oklahoma City in 1962, then moved to Springfield, Missouri in 1967 to set up his private practice at the Smith-Glynn-Callaway Clinic. He was also a member of the Green County Medical Society.… Read more »
Jim Middleton
By the time he interviewed for the job that would define his career, he had been given quite the education in basketball: A starter on Nixa’s late 1970s Final Four teams, and then tours as a high school coach and as an assistant under Cheryl Burnett (MSHOF Legend 2015) with the Missouri State Lady Bears.… Read more »
Denver Miller
Denver P. Miller is synonymous with Kirkwood High School varsity boy’s basketball. He coached basketball for 43 seasons, all at Kirkwood High School, and amassed 790 wins and five Missouri State Final Four appearances. At one time, he was the winningest coach in the nation. Miller’s squads were known throughout the state of Missouri as… Read more »
Nyla Milleson
Up in north central Kansas, word reached a high school girls basketball coach that Glendale High School in Springfield, Missouri needed to fill the same role. This was 1992, weeks after Nyla Milleson had guided Junction City to a state third-place finish. Which already was quite a story. Seven years earlier, she had switched her… Read more »
Ryland Milner
Ryland H. Milner, a model man of consistency and achievement in northwest Missouri, was elected in 1988 to the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame at age 79 after an outstanding career as an athlete and versatile coach. At Northwest Missouri State University over six decades, from 1929 to 1975, he achieved legendary status, beginning as… Read more »