Some folks don’t know what they want to do in life until after they reach college age. Others try to map it out even in high school. For Jill Angell, she found her calling in life well before then. “When I was in the fifth grade, I had a P.E. teacher (Carol Gross) I idolized”… Read more »
News
Year: 2018
Rick Ankiel
At the dawn of Rick Ankiel’s Comeback Tour in 2005, with his once promising pitching career shelved and his bat and outfielder’s glove dusted off, uncertainty was a natural narrative. But not for his soon-to-be manager of the St. Louis Cardinals’ Double-A Springfield club. Said Chris Maloney, who had readied Ankiel’s pitching prowess at the… Read more »
Tony Armstrong
It’s almost as if an author dreamed up one of the most compelling American sports stories, grabbed a notepad and, lo and behold, produced a New York Times best-seller. After all, how else to explain Tony Armstrong’s coaching career? He was the kid who once shot hoops in a southwest Missouri armory and years later,… Read more »
Gary Barnett
The plan after four years of playing football at the University of Missouri seemed straightforward enough: Go to law school and then into the real world. However, Gary Barnett stopped himself. After earning a letter on the 1968 team and graduating, he still felt the pull of the sport: The times growing up in the… Read more »
Howard Bell
He might have played pro baseball if not for a car wreck in his early 20s, and who knows where his journey would have taken him. Fortunately, the baseball gods had a great plan for Howard Bell as a high school baseball coach. “He was a kid magnet,” said Mark Stratton, the longtime Glendale High… Read more »
Travis Brown
He could have left his legacy only on the basketball court as a star guard and gone on his way in life, telling stories years later of leading Sumner High School to a state title and landing in the record books at Missouri Baptist University. Instead, Travis Brown far greater dreams, such as putting school… Read more »
St. Louis Browns Baseball Club
The story goes that, after the inaugural 1901 season of the American League, founder Ban Johnson was convinced the circuit could compete in the same major cities as the National League. However, the AL had one issue: Its last-place Milwaukee club needed to be rescued. Thus was born the St. Louis Browns. Relocated thanks to… Read more »
Isaac Bruce
Ask Isaac Bruce about his storied career and the first thing he’ll tell you is pretty simple: He was successful only because others were great. Quarterback Kurt Warner, lineman Orlando Pace, running back Marshall Faulk. The list goes on, with no mention of himself, the receiver who starred in jersey No. 80. “From 1994 being… Read more »
Mark Buehrle
On the day he threw the 18th perfect game in Major League Baseball history, Mark Buehrle was as surprised as anyone. “I never thought I’d throw a no-hitter, never thought I’d throw a perfect game and I never thought I’d hit a home run,” Buehrle told the Chicago Tribune that day, July 23, 2009. “Never… Read more »
Christian Cantwell
For him, it was Freshman Year or Bust. That was the scary reality. You see, the college track and field coach offered only a token scholarship and, more worrisome, the finances back home likely weren’t enough for anything beyond if it all didn’t work out. Christian Cantwell loves telling the story from the spring of… Read more »
Kerensa Barr Cassis
She still remembers it like yesterday: A basketball in her hand, dribbling and shooting baskets, and competing in summer camps. And this was years before she starred for West Plains High School and the University of Missouri basketball teams. Yes, Kerensa Barr Cassis breaks into a smile just reminiscing about it all. “I was probably… Read more »
Christian Brothers College High School Soccer Program
For the most storied sports programs across the country, there is one common thread beyond the wins and state championships. In essence, walk off the bus and on to the field with the name of your school emblazoned on that jersey most times, it seems, they’ve won the game before the coin flip. Which may… Read more »
Frank Cusumano
After 25 years covering sports for KSDK TV, after tons of awards and numerous World Series and two Super Bowls – after everything – you would assume Frank Cusumano would put it on cruise control. Hardly. In October 2018, there he was on assignment at inner-city Roosevelt High School, reporting on a Public High League… Read more »
John Cyrus
Sit with John Cyrus as he talks about his nearly 27-year career with the Missouri Highway Patrol — or his moon shots off a tee box on area golf courses – and his stories are hard to believe. At one point, he had no choice but to fire on an emu on I-44 in southwest… Read more »
Karen Davis
Back in 1984 and, like any recent college graduate, Karen Davis was willing to climb the ladder from the bottom up in hopes of one day landing her dream job — as a high school volleyball coach. That day came sooner than expected. Days before Davis was to begin teaching at St. Joseph’s Academy in… Read more »
Diamond High School Volleyball Program
As Diamond High School chased a 1983 state volleyball championship, then-senior hitter Whitney Beckett Weakley remembers thinking, “We weren’t going to let anybody deny us.” As then-sophomore setter Beth Greer put it, “We thought we were going to go up there and meet some powerhouse and get destroyed. And we ended up being the powerhouse.”… Read more »