CLASS OF 2019 Dr. Tony Berry (Stockton High School/Southwest Baptist University) Lanny Curnes (Reeds Spring High School/University of Central Missouri) Dre Dokes (Kickapoo High School/Northern Iowa/CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders) Tyler Evans (Strafford High School/University of Oklahoma) Chris Hanna (Springfield Catholic High School/Pittsburg State University) Beau Jackson (Branson High School/Missouri State University/Evangel University) Phil Johnson (Kickapoo High… Read more »
News
Year: 2019
Fast Break Club
The Fast Break Club grew out of conversations, in the early 1980s, among business and professional women in Springfield, brought together by Dr. Mary Jo Wynn for the purpose of brainstorming ways to support the women’s athletic program at Missouri State University. Challenged by University of Texas’ winning women’s basketball coach, Jody Conradt, in October… Read more »
Filbert Five – Class of 2019
CLASS OF 2019 Women’s Team Jill Esely Durnin (Savannah High School/William Jewell College) Dr. Tammy Erwin (Walnut Grove High School/Southwest Baptist University/College of the Ozarks) Carrie Long Green (Skyline High School/Southwest Baptist University) Brittany Percival Lyon (Hartville High School/Missouri Science & Technology) Kelsey Williams (Eminence High School/Moberly Area Community College/Lincoln University, University of Central Missouri) Men’s… Read more »
Mark Fisher
The phone call came into Mark Fisher’s office in early 2003, and on the other end of the line was the longtime athletic director of Springfield Public Schools asking to go to lunch. At the time, Fisher was pretty content. He was 22 years into a successful high school basketball coaching career and, that year,… Read more »
The Fry Family
Had anyone in Oak Grove been asked about The Fry Family in the late 1980s, locals might have told you this: There won’t be a trophy case large enough to house all their hardware. At Oak Grove High School alone between 1986 and 1995, Shaon won three state wrestling titles, Ryan a baseball state championship… Read more »
Winston Garland
Garland, a Gary, Indiana native, turned down a scholarship offer to play for the Indiana Hoosiers and coach Bobby Knight in 1985. He also stiff-armed Jerry Tarkanian’s UNLV Runnin’ Rebels on the recruiting trail, among others. However, Garland took a chance after he and his parents forged a tremendous connection with Coach Charlie Spoonhour, a down-home personality who… Read more »
Chris Gervino
There’s an old saying in sports that you better be ready when your number is called. Back in the late 1980s, while still a student, aspiring sports broadcaster Chris Gervino certainly was ready when the University of Missouri asked if he could serve as the public address announcer … for none other than coach Norm… Read more »
Dave Gill
Thumb through the scrapbook of old newspaper clippings, and it’s easy to see why Dave Gill is held in such high regard in the mid-Missouri community of Ashland. “1981 State Champions” screams one headline below a worn photo of a softball team. Stretched across the top of another sports page, a headline reads “Gill retires… Read more »
Glendale High School Baseball Program
The safe assumption would have been a modest start, maybe a few challenging years before building up toward a tradition and earning a huge dot on the state sports map. Obviously, the Glendale High School Baseball Program tossed that script in the trash bin. In 1967, only three seasons after their inaugural 1964 spring, the… Read more »
1977 Greenfield High School Football Team
Back in 1977, a football season that had begun in the warmth of the late-summer sun reached the Class 1 state championship game only to be faced with two opponents – one being an ice storm. Quarterback David McNeel remembers it being 9 degrees. Coach Jim Dykens says it was a little warmer, maybe 10,… Read more »
Hallsville High School Baseball Program
Just off Highway 63 in Boone County there’s a town called Hallsville. Yes, it has only one stoplight but, if you assume nothing is big here, you’d be wrong. Baseball rules. Has for decades. In fact, over at the post office, a black-and-white framed photo hangs from the wall, depicting a town team in wool… Read more »
Heart of America Beverage Company
On a float trip on the scenic Buffalo River in Arkansas in 1975 and with his life pushing 30, Jim Ferguson declared this idea to three buddies: One day he would become the Coors beer distributor in southwest Missouri. Lo and behold, what seemed like a longshot idea actually became a reality in 1978 and,… Read more »
Cindy Henderson Snead
The unfairness of life didn’t derail her even though it could have. You see, public schools didn’t field women’s sports teams during her childhood and teen years, and her only shot to earn a college softball scholarship was, well, old-school. In fact, this was the scene for Cindy Henderson Snead back in 1971: She and… Read more »
Bruce Hollowell
Back in 1949, long before he beat a future 13-time PGA Tour winner and owner of a Master’s green jacket – and years before he himself would win the Kansas Amateur, Missouri Amateur and Missouri Senior Amateur – Bruce Hollowell found his calling. Or, more accurately, golf found him. You see, when his dad was… Read more »
Ryan Howard
He was the longshot who didn’t just make it but made it big. Who drew only mild interest from an NCAA Division I Power 5 school. Who ended up being a scholarship-less walk-on at Missouri State University. And yet who smashed his way straight to the top of the big leagues. Of course sports fans,… Read more »
Steve Hunter
For years, Steve Hunter’s basketball teams “pressed the dog out of you.” Those were his words and for good reason. In the early 1990s, after about seven years as a high school coach and clearly frustrated, Hunter and assistant Rick Boyce installed their own version of the run-and-jump press while at West Plains High School,… Read more »