The 100-Yard Journey

by Gary Pinkel

  “No, Coach, I’m being perfectly honest. You’d win national titles there.”

  If nothing else, when I look back it makes me think about where things led in my career. I have no regrets about staying at Missouri. We got the program to the point where we made a lot of progress and won a lot of games. We had national respect.

  • • •

  Even though he became a first-round pick, I couldn’t help but wonder what Blaine Gabbert could have done with another year in college. He had all the measurables, but he was still fairly inexperienced. He was hurt a lot in high school then started just two years in college, half of which he played on a bad ankle in 2009.

  But for us, we had to move on. James Franklin was next up. He played some as a freshman behind Blaine and gave us a true dual threat. He was a unique player in more ways than one. He told me once, “You know, I’m not sure I want to play in the NFL.” That gave me some pause. It wasn’t a bad thing, but he didn’t necessarily approach the game like a lot of his peers. Great kid, great player. He won a lot of big games for us.

  In 2011, three of our first five games were on the road, at Arizona State, Oklahoma, and Kansas State. We were competitive but lost all three. We finally won the next week against Iowa State, but we couldn’t get on a roll. We lost to Oklahoma State, won at Texas A&M, lost at Baylor, and beat Texas.

  The Texas win was bittersweet. Finally, we beat the Longhorns on my watch after five tries. But we lost our best player, running back Henry Josey, who was having a breakthrough year, already hitting 1,000 yards through the season’s first nine games. And he was just a sophomore. But he suffered a crippling knee injury along our sideline, so bad we wondered if he’d ever play again. I spent most of that night visiting Henry in the hospital. He was crushed. It was crushing for our team. And the week was just getting started.

  • • •

  The next Wednesday, I had dinner out with some friends and then went to a friend’s house for a couple glasses of wine. After that I drove around for a while on Highway 63. Sometimes I’d like to get in the car, listen to music, and just drive along the same roads where I’d ride my motorcycle. I was driving well below the speed limit when a police officer got behind me and turned on his lights. I sped up but didn’t signal a lane change.

  He pulled me over and I went numb.

  I declined one of the roadside tests because my Achilles’ tendon was bothering me. He had me say parts of the alphabet and count backward, but I didn’t do so well with that. I had called Bogdan Susan, my attorney and friend, who lived nearby, and he came and talked to the officer. By then I was in handcuffs in the backseat of the patrol car. A million thoughts were racing through my mind. I’d never been in a police car in my life. I’d never been in handcuffs.

  I told the officer, “My whole world’s about to change.”

  It’s not like I had a lot of experience in that situation. That was never something I ever imagined would happen to me. They had to take me to the hospital for a blood test. Thankfully, they took off the cuffs there. Later I was processed at the police station.

  I didn’t contest the charges. I pleaded guilty to first-offense DWI. The results of the blood test were never released. I was going to pay the price no matter what that number read.

  When I got home I called my agent, John. He said, “Gary, you’ve built up enough goodwill, but you’ve got to take responsibility. You’ve got to stand up and take the bullet. What are you going to do tomorrow morning?”

  “I’ll probably stay home.”

  “No, you’re not,” he told me. “You’re going to get up and go to the office. They have to see you.”

  He was right.

  As the night became morning I called Mike Alden, our athletic director, my boss. Before we could talk, I had initially texted him about the DWI and that I was unbelievably sorry. At first he thought I meant a player had gotten arrested. Nope. It was me.

  Obviously it was devastating for me personally. I never got in trouble in high school. Ever. And the reason why was my sister Kathy and my brother Greg. The last thing my parents needed was me getting in trouble. They were so consumed with taking care of my sister and brother and their disease that I never broke the rules. I waited until I was almost 60.

  I was incredibly embarrassed. I let down our program. I let down the university. Most important, I let down my family, my kids, and grandkids. And I let down my other family, my team—my coaches, my players, and all the people in our program.

  I couldn’t get past the thought of how much I hurt people. I had never hurt anyone who trusted me. That thought crushed me. It was so difficult just to get through the day.

  The next day, I met with my staff and they just stared at me, like, “What are you talking about, Coach?” They were shocked. They probably went through a brief scare thinking I might be fired, which would have totally disrupted their lives and careers. You make one bad choice and you impact everyone around you.

  I just prayed that I had stored up enough goodwill and credibility through my whole career that I could survive this.

  Later I met with Mike at his office. He didn’t waste any time.

  “We have to suspend you,” he told me.

  Of course. I understood. He was disappointed. But nobody was more disappointed than I was.

  “I get it,” I said.

  I was suspended for a week, including that Saturday’s home game against Texas Tech, a crucial game because we needed one more win to become bowl eligible. I was suspended for a week without pay and donated that week’s salary to the MU Wellness Center. My salary was also frozen for a year, and I was not eligible for any bowl bonus for the season. The financial impact would be more than $300,000.

  But this wasn’t about losing money. I wasn’t upset at all with the punishment. They could have cut my salary in half. I let down thousands of people with my decision to drive that night. They believed in me and I let them down. No punishment they wanted to give me was too big. I put Mike through hell with that decision—not just Mike but the administration and everyone associated with the program.

  My players always respected me for how we ran our program and how we treated people, but now I had to face them. Before our practice that Thursday, I told the players. Obviously, they knew what had happened from the news reports. I went into our team meeting and broke down in tears. I apologized. It was just an awful moment in my career. When people trust you and respect you and you screw up like this in such an irresponsible way, it’s just a devastating feeling.

  As the day went on I realized I couldn’t feel sorry for myself. I couldn’t mope around. Deep down, I wanted to walk away for a month, just escape and not have to experience all this hurt and grief. But I knew my players were going to watch how I handled this situation. My leadership was crucial. We always say you lead by example, and that’s exactly what I had to do. I had to lead after the incredibly difficult situation that I had gotten myself into.

  The terms of my suspension said I couldn’t be at the team facility for the week. My secretary, Ann, put together some stuff from my office, and I took it and left for the week. That afternoon I went to lunch at Panera Bread and got stopped by a few people, there and other places, like the gas station and the grocery store. A few didn’t hold back. “Coach, we’re really disappointed in you. We know you’ll handle this right, but we’re disappointed.” I apologized to anyone who approached me. I wanted to run and hide and not face another person. But I couldn’t. My kids and my players had to learn something from this. They had to see me respond.

  I spent game day with two of my closest friends, Hal Cook and Al Speicher. We went down to my condo at the Lake of the Ozarks to watch the game on TV. It was such a weird feeling watching my team play. It was also excruciating, because it was senior night and I wouldn’t be there to greet each senior when he was introduced before the game. If we would have lost the
game it would have been my fault, but a young defensive lineman named Michael Sam clinched the win in the final seconds with an interception just shy of the goal line. If we had lost the game, that would have been my loss to endure forever. My staff kept the team together all week. Dave Steckel served as interim head coach, and Dave Yost ran the show on offense. They asked me if I wanted to drive to the stadium after the game and address the team in the locker room, but that didn’t make sense to me. That was their moment.

  The next Monday we had a press conference at my attorney’s office. We were scheduled to play Kansas the next Saturday, and I wanted to address the media before the game so I didn’t take anything away from our preparation. A reporter asked me if I had a drinking problem. No, that wasn’t the case. I made a bad decision that night. If I could go back and erase one night of my life, that’s the one, without any question.

  After the arrest I talked to my sister. Kathy was so understanding. My kids were great, too. “You will overcome this,” they told me. “You made a mistake. We’ve all made mistakes.” It’s pretty humbling when you’re 59 years old and your kids are counseling you.

  What I didn’t expect was a knock at the door of my home that next Tuesday. It was Beau Brinkley, our long snapper.

  “Beau, what are you doing here?”

  “Coach, can I come in and talk?”

  Of course. He came in and sat right next to me on my couch—not across from me, but next to me, just a few feet apart. He looked me right in the eye.

  “I’m going to do what you did to me,” he said. “It was the best thing that happened in my life.”

  I was completely stunned.

  “Coach, I got a DWI a couple years ago,” he said. “You brought me in your office and told me, ‘You’ve got a choice how you’re going to handle this. This is going to make you a better person or it’s going to make you worse. One or the other.’ When you said that, I looked at myself and changed things I needed to change so that would never happen again.’”

  He gave me a hug. Not a quick hug but a long hug, for like a minute.

  “Coach, I love you,” Beau said. “Everything is going to work out. The team’s got your back.”

  Then he walked out the door.

  I sat there absolutely numb. Tears fell down from my eyes. Wow. It was one of the most touching moments of my life.

  We all get judged when we face adversity in coaching. This was different than losing a game or anything you can experience on the field. But the goal was the same. I kept telling myself one thing over and over again—earn your respect back. My response was going to define who I was in the eyes of these players, my coaches, my bosses, our fans.

  The suspension ended Thursday. We had two more days before we played Kansas at Arrowhead. I wanted my players to see me, see my face, before anyone else in the building. It was Thanksgiving, so they didn’t have class that day. I stood in front of the locker room and hugged every single player when they got to the door. I thanked them. I told them I appreciated their forgiveness and I loved them. I had to bare my soul. I had to show my players I took 100 percent responsibility. And I had to earn their respect back. And their trust.

  From that point on, it had to be business as usual. We had to move on. They had to move on.

  I had never been in trouble before as a kid or as an adult, but I had to deal with players getting in trouble all the time. This made me more sensitive to players dealing with problems. I became more understanding. Before the DWI, I ruled with an iron fist. There was no tolerance for any misbehavior in my program. After that I changed. I still held players accountable. We still had consequences for poor decisions. You break the team standards, you paid the price. But how I interacted with them, how I dealt with them had to change. I had to be more compassionate, more empathetic. Sometimes I’d use my mistake as a reference point. “Remember when I got in trouble with the law? You now have a choice in how you’re going to handle this. You can earn your respect back just like I did.”

  Finally we got to Arrowhead to play Kansas. It was our last game in the Big 12, our last Border War against the Jayhawks. Three weeks earlier we had officially joined the SEC and would start playing in that conference the next season. We said good-bye with a 24–10 win.

  • • •

  We went back to the Independence Bowl for a third time and beat North Carolina to finish off 8–5, a step back from the previous year, but we’d go into the new year confident we could compete in the SEC.

  For me, personally, it had been a difficult year. In January, Vicki and I separated. We would get divorced later that year.

  I wanted to make it through life without getting divorced, but it happened. When I told my agent, John, he gave me very good advice. He had other clients go through similar stages of life. “Brace yourself,” he said. “This is very, very difficult. Make sure your kids always know what’s going on. Keep in mind, too, no matter how great your family is—and you’ve got a great family—issues are going to come up. Those issues always come back around if you don’t address them.”

  Our kids were understanding and supportive. This decision was not shocking to them. Vicki and I just hadn’t been getting along for quite some time and had grown apart.

  I had to tell my players, too. I wanted them to hear it from me. In the spring we put out a statement to the media saying we were separated. I thought we had to be transparent. For a couple months I moved in with my daughter and her family until I bought a new place. It was a challenging time for me and my family. Just like on the field, your personal life experiences wins and losses. But ultimately in each experience, no matter the score, you learn and you grow and become better.

  Mizzou vs. Vanderbilt

  October 5, 2013 Nashville, Tennessee

  Coming off a disappointing debut season in the SEC, we began league play in 2013 with a trip to Nashville.

  Team Meeting Thursday, October 3, 3:30 pm

  “I know you’re excited about playing and competing in the SEC. We learned a few things about it last year.

  “Number 1: It’s great playing and competing in the best conference in college football.

  “Number 2: We get to play and compete at the country’s greatest stadiums.

  “Number 3: It’s no big deal. It’s just like the Big 12. It’s still college football. You play against really good teams with good players. That was the challenge and opportunity in the Big 12, and it is no different in the SEC.

  “It’s still about preparation. It’s still about being a physical team. Let’s have some fun, not just in this game but the remainder of the season. I want you to have fun competing. I don’t want you worrying. I want you playing on your toes and attacking. If you make a mistake, screw it and get back to having fun competing for the next play.

  “Men, you have been grinding since last January. You are finishing the preparation for this week’s opponent. Now it’s time to get in the blocks and run the race. The men in here will not be denied. Have fun playing. Have fun competing. This team needs you. Have fun kicking their ass!”

  Final: Mizzou 51, Vanderbilt 28

  James Franklin threw four touchdown passes as an explosive offense made it first statement in the SEC on our way to a division championship.

  8. Mizzou: Welcome to the SEC

  In the fall of 2011 Texas A&M had announced plans to leave the Big 12 for the SEC. That left the Big 12 with nine schools. The SEC had 13. It was logical to assume the SEC wanted another school to even out the membership. By then Missouri had gotten involved in discussions with the SEC. I had my concerns. The SEC was by far the country’s best football conference. Our program could compete in the SEC as long as the university committed to competing in the SEC.

  I told our chancellor, Brady Deaton, “Don’t do this unless you’re going to invest. Do everything you can to stay in the top half of the league in everything yo
u do. Otherwise, we’ll get run over.” That was true then and remains true.

  We couldn’t even think about making this move unless we were serious about constantly investing in facilities. It’s like hiring a coach or an athletic director. Those decisions aren’t quick fixes. Neither was this. This decision was going to guide the university’s athletics maybe forever. Brady and Mike Alden and the curators had to understand you can’t join the league and then sit back and relax. “You have to keep investing,” I insisted.

  That was my input. I also knew from a coaching perspective that it was going to be much more difficult to win because there are more quality teams. That turned out to be very true.

  Once we committed to joining the SEC, we had to plan as a coaching staff how we’d adjust. We always recruited to win championships, so it’s not like we had to drastically change what we were doing. But you learn pretty quickly that the line of scrimmage is significant in the SEC. When we started analyzing the SEC, I’d say two-thirds of the league had elite players along the line of scrimmage. You always need a good quarterback and talented skill players, but you can’t win without the right combination of size and speed and athleticism up front. We had to recruit and develop our players at a high level in the Big 12 to compete with Oklahoma and Texas and Nebraska. In the SEC you just had more quality opponents that were elite up front.

  We left the Big 12, and right after we finished recruiting for our 2012 class, I attended an SEC meeting in Birmingham where I was sitting alongside Les Miles, Nick Saban, Steve Spurrier, and all these SEC coaches. I had met most of them. Obviously, I knew Nick from our time together at Kent State. The league was full of great coaches, all good guys. They were all concerned about being healthy for spring football. That was the conversation. Looking back, it was such a concern because this league is so physical. The Big 12 is physical, too, but there are just more big, physical teams in the SEC. That makes staying healthy a premium. You’re going to get beat up. Alabama’s depth was at a different level than Missouri’s. That’s when I started to realize the importance of staying healthy in this conference and how vital depth becomes.