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 »
News
Sport: Football
Fred Merrell
Fred Merrell coached 46 years at various stops throughout the state, including Blue Springs and West Plains high schools. As a head coach for 41 of those years, he compiled a 216-177-12 record, including 28 winning seasons. Merrell explained the origins of his journey this way: “From a boy, by third grade, who had a… Read more »
Curt Merz
Curt “Mother” Merz was born and raised in New Jersey. His sports career began in high school where he garnered All-State honors in basketball, track and football. From there he signed with the University of Iowa to play football. In 1959, he helped the Hawkeyes win the Rose Bowl and played in both the Blue-Gray… 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 »
Midway High School Football Program
If you ever need a Friday Night Lights football fix 1950s-style, drive to Highway 71 south of Kansas City and head west on Highway 2. There, while meandering down the curvy two-laner and cutting through scenic farm country of Cass County, you’ll find one of the state’s great football powers. From here have risen the… Read more »
Bernie Miklasz
In the old days of newspapers, sportswriters who climbed the ladder the right way, by rolling up their sleeves and doing the grunt work, earned respect from the old guard. Working in the trenches, they’d call it. And that’s exactly the way Bernie Miklasz began his career. At age 16, he wrote for a weekly… Read more »
Jack Miles
Jack Miles counts himself among the fortunate ones in life. While most others have no choice but to hang up their cleats after playing their final game in high school or college, he spent his adult life working in sports. That’s not to say Miles simply held down the fort, so to speak, in his… 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 »
Ivan Milton
Ivan Milton was the longest-tenured athletic trainer Missouri State University has had many noteworthy accomplishments in his nearly three-decade career on the Springfield campus, as he was influential the establishment and expansion of a number of training facilities and services. In his first year at Missouri State University, he opened and supplied the training room… Read more »
1972 Missouri Southern State University National Championship Team
They’ll forever be one of college football’s most cherished rags-to-riches stories, a team that rose from almost nowhere and is still talked about among the old-timers in Joplin. In 1972, the Missouri Southern State University Lions hit two-a-days in August following a four-year stretch of struggles. At season’s end? They were atop NAIA Division II.… Read more »
1941-48 Missouri Valley College Football
Led by Coach Volney C. Ashford, the 1941-1948 Missouri Valley College Vikings Football teams held the record for the longest winning streak under one coach, with 41 straight victories. The MVC football winning streak started December 7, 1941 and ended on December 4, 1948. Football was halted at Valley from 1943-1945 due to World War… Read more »
1969 University of Missouri Football Team
The old video footage found on YouTube will make almost anyone smile. In fact, it’s easy to wonder if quarterback Terry McMillan, receiver Mel Gray and teammates ever thought they should be charged admission for their own weekly film sessions. Talk about a fun team to watch. The 1969 Missouri Tigers football team seemed to… Read more »
1966 Missouri Tigers Sugar Bowl Champions
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 »
Mizzou Football Chain Crew
Back in 1957, at the start of the fall semester at the University of Missouri, the student newspaper published a brief in which the athletic department sought help for football games. Claude Menefee still remembers it. “A couple of us went down to Sparky Stalcup’s office,” Menefee said of Mizzou’s then-Athletic Director (MSHOF 1979). “They… Read more »
Monett High School Football Program
The story goes that, in 1967, a man by the name of Burl Fowler arrived to the southwest Missouri town of Monett ready to coach the high school football team. Some might have assumed he wanted a military unit. Not that the local barbershop was complaining. After all, only a buzz or burr cut was… Read more »
Derland Moore
Derland Moore was born in October 7, 1951 in Malden, MO. He attended Poplar Bluff High School and played varsity football for three years, 1966-1968. In addition to football, he competed in track, throwing the shot and discus. He was offered a track scholarship to the University of Oklahoma but he was a football player… Read more »