Ten Thoughts for Monday Morning
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Over the last four days (and ending tomorrow) I’ve done a lot of stuff on the best of Mizzou this decade. So I wanted to continue the theme here in ten thoughts. I thought rather than focusing on the micro here (sorry, I’ve got no interest in breaking down a game against Chicago State and there’s not really a lot going on this week), I’d go big picture. Here are some scattershot ten thoughts from the last ten years, as one of the very few people who’s been around to see every bit of it as a paid observer. This will range from moments that stood out on the field to some behind the scenes stuff to stories (both positive and negative) that were among the most important things I’ll ever cover (while I say that, I realize that nothing I cover is actually very important in the bigger picture). There’s no real order to any of this. It’s just the order in which things popped in my head.
1) Man 2010 seems like a long time ago. Missouri was in the Big 12 and Gary Pinkel was the football coach and Mike Anderson was the basketball coach and the guys who just signed letters of intent were in the third grade. For God’s sake, my dad still had two years left on the job at the Kansas City Star. When I think of 2010, I always think of one day. I rose at 5 am to take my oldest son to the Quad for College Game Day. I’ve written this before, but that was a day that didn’t seem real. It was a day that happened at other places for other fanbases. Not here. Not for you guys. God it was fun. Over and over for the last 16 years I’ve told you guys that I just don’t look at things the same way you do. It’s work. And it is. But there are some days where it doesn’t seem like work. That was one of them. It was about 20 hours later before I left the press box at Faurot. I’m honestly not even sure I was tired. Because of the atmosphere, because I got to share it with my kid, because of Gahn McGaffie, because of everything, whenever I’m done doing this, it’s going to be one of the days I still remember.
2) When anyone thinks about the biggest stories of this decade around Mizzou, there can be only one thing that is number one. When we started this decade, I was covering a Big 12 team, which still seemed kind of weird and fairly new to someone that grew up watching the Big 8. But very early on, it became pretty obvious I wasn’t going to be covering a Big 12 team for long. I’m not going to recount conference realignment blow by blow. I’ll just steal a line that Vahe Gregorian used on the Kansas City Star’s podcast this week: “Conference realignment was like a coaching search on steroids.” Best description I’ve ever heard. In a coaching search, you’re constantly thinking “What’s going to happen next? Do I have time to eat? Can I put my phone down and shower? What am I going to miss?” That was conference realignment. For the better part of three years. One of the things I’ve written that I’m most proud of was my behind the scenes look at the process from Mizzou’s point of view on the five year anniversary. For any of you who weren’t members then and haven’t read it—or maybe just if you want to read it again—here it is.
3) The biggest single game I covered without a doubt was the 2013 SEC Championship Game.