It almost sounds too good to be true: A military kid who didn’t grow up under the impressionable Friday night lights of small-town football, who finds his way to a Minnesota high school and shifts to running back only in his senior year – all before heading off to a quaint NCAA Division II school… Read more »
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Sport: Football
Ernie McMillan
McMillan was a four-time Pro-Bowl selection for the St. Louis Cardinals football team during a 14 year span with the team. He was drafted in the 13th round of the 1961 NFL draft out of Illinois. He started 161 straight games at right tackle without missing a contest. Ernie was the constant force on a… 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 »
Rusty Medearis
For years, southwest Missouri’s has been known for basketball. At times, however, the eyes of major college football powers can’t help but find their way to the Ozarks. That was the case in the late 1980s, to the small community of Ozark just south of Springfield. There, a teenager was growing into a blue-chip football… Read more »
Dan Meers
Who is KC Wolf? That’s Dan Meers, who back at St. Charles West High School in the 1980s was definitely not a standout athlete. “I wasn’t a mascot back then even though I got to watch our mascot perform because I was a three-sport bench-warmer – baseball, basketball and football,” Meers said, smiling. “I still… 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 »
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 »