The 100-Yard Journey
Page 24
When I see my boys and how they’ve grown up and become parents, I see myself in them. I’m just so proud of what my kids have accomplished. Now that I’m retired we can establish set holiday traditions that in the past were always dictated by football and my busy schedule.
Missy’s children, Mira and Jace, have introduced me to a whole new world of activities that I get to watch and experience up close, from dance competitions to track meets, basketball games, and band concerts. When I decided to retire, Missy was afraid I wouldn’t be ready for this new kind of active lifestyle with her and her children. But it’s been a blessing as I’ve gotten adjusted to my new pace of life. One day, not long after I retired, we were watching one of Mira’s dance recital rehearsals. I’m pretty sure the former football coach was the only male in the entire building. Life moves pretty fast, right?
• • •
Before I made my retirement plans public, I visited with Mack Rhoades a couple times to talk about Mizzou’s next head coach. Barry Odom was my guy. Publicly, I didn’t back any potential candidates for the job. Privately, I pushed hard for Barry, who had been my defensive coordinator. Mack didn’t know much about Barry, but I told him he was the right guy for the job. There would be some transition, but even though we were coming off a tough season, he had been part of the program when we were winning at a high level. I was thrilled when he got the job. Nobody wants Barry to win more than me. I want to see him take the program that we built and guide it to another level and win the championships that we didn’t.
The team’s first game in 2016 was a strange day for me. The Tigers were playing at West Virginia. I was back home with a house full of company to watch the game. Missy joked that she wanted to get me a headset to wear while watching the game to avoid having withdrawal. That was a surreal experience to watch the Missouri Tigers on a sofa.
The next week, Mizzou’s first home game, was remarkably uncomfortable for me. Before the game I met some Mizzou alumni and longtime supporters at their tailgate outside Memorial Stadium. I had never tailgated before. Missy called a bunch of my friends and had them all meet at one tailgate so I didn’t have to wander around the parking lots. I felt uneasy by the scene. This wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing hours before kickoff. I was able to kid my friends a little. “My life’s on the line every Saturday and you guys are out here drinking and having a good time?” I kept thinking I was supposed to be on the field, not having a glass of wine while hanging out with my friends. I went around that day and visited with so many people around the stadium. I don’t think I was ready for that. I adjusted my game day routine as the season went on and usually watched the game from a private suite. I had to sit down and lock into the game. I still watched it unfold like I was coaching. Later in the year, we went to road games at LSU and Florida, and those were fun experiences. I was able to relax more on the road.
But back to the 2016 home opener. It was September 10 against Eastern Michigan. Before the game I got to see something I’d never witnessed in 15 years at Memorial Stadium—the national anthem. The teams are always kept in the locker room during the pregame ritual. On this day, as the sun started to set over the west side of the stadium, I stood up and turned toward the flag waving in the wind, just as Mike Alden stood, too, alongside me. He put his arm around me as we looked over the field, the program’s future in new hands.
• • •
So how do I want to be remembered? When you walk off the field for the last time and pack up your office of memories, you’re supposed to think about your legacy, but that’s not something that crossed my mind. I’m proud of what we did at Toledo and Missouri. Mizzou had two winning seasons in 17 years before I took over. Back then, you weren’t supposed to win at Missouri. If by chance you did, it would be nearly impossible to sustain. We built a respected program that became nationally relevant over time.
We came to Missouri with a structured player development program that had its roots in the system I learned under Don James. Over time, we gave it a name: Mizzou Made. We defined Mizzou Made as our program’s approach to developing student-athletes academically, athletically, and socially better than any program in the country. It was how our staff shaped the lives of our players, on and off the field. We had four core values in our program.
1. Honesty
2. Treat women with respect
3. No drugs
4. Respect cultural differences
On the field, becoming Mizzou Made started with work ethic and discipline. Pat Ivey, our esteemed strength and conditioning coach, set the tone for our principles in our summer workouts and offseason Winning Edge program, our five-week session of winter morning agility drills.
We taught our players how to compete and how to avoid distractions. We taught them the values of teamwork, commitment, and accountability. We worked in a no-excuses environment and developed players into self-starters.
Kenji Jackson, a safety on our team from 2008 to 2011, came up with the term Mizzou Made when he worked on our staff as a graduate assistant. It became our philosophy, our brand, our catch-all term for the way we developed players, students, and people in our program.
Our Mizzou Made program is how we developed the less-heralded prospects into productive playmakers, many of whom embraced our system and earned all-conference honors and reached the NFL. Many of these players arrived on campus with little fanfare but left as cornerstone players in our program. To name just a few: Sean Weatherspoon, Ziggy Hood, Danario Alexander, Andrew Gachkar, Justin Britt, Michael Sam, and, most recently, Charles Harris, a player who came to Mizzou with only one scholarship offer from a major conference school and left as a 2017 first-round draft choice by the Miami Dolphins. Overall, 37 players who came through our program during my time as head coach were chosen in the NFL draft, including eight in the first round.
I’m never comfortable talking about individual honors, but I was fortunate to earn some recognition over my career, getting inducted into the hall of fames at Kenmore High, Kent State, Toledo, the Mid-American Conference, and the state of Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. I was so touched and honored by all of those acknowledgments. I was also voted coach of the year in three different conferences: the MAC (1995), the Big 12 (2007), and the SEC (2014). Those awards were a reflection of the coaches around me. I left Toledo and Missouri as the career wins leader at both schools. Only two other coaches in major college football history also own the wins record at two schools: Bear Bryant (Kentucky, Alabama) and Steve Spurrier (Florida, South Carolina). For me, that kind of distinction is a statement of consistency—and also reflects that I didn’t move around much, maybe to a fault.
I’m too much of a homebody to hop from job to job. I like my friends. I like going to the same gas station or same coffee shop day after day and saying hi to the staff there. At Washington, I got my hair cut at the same place for 12 years. I’d go into the same 7–Eleven all the time for a Big Gulp and I knew the guy behind the counter. It’s the same in Columbia, Missouri. I like the familiarity. It’s difficult for me to think about picking up and moving all the time—even more so when you’re raising a family.
From the day we got to Missouri to the day I stepped down, the program went through radical changes. But it took five years to create the right kind of environment for the players. It was hard, but it was rewarding to see it develop and finally take hold. The first glimpse was beating Nebraska in 2003. That was the sign of good things to come. I knew it was going to be difficult. Most people in coaching knew that. Time will tell for the future at Mizzou, and I hope Barry can do it, too.
When I became a head coach, I always wanted to go to bowl games every year with no setback seasons. Maybe we could have kept the streak going had we stayed in the Big 12, but in the SEC, the margin for error is slimmer. In both 2012 and 2015, we needed to win just one more game to be bowl eligible. It was disappointing that I couldn’t find a way to get that done both y
ears. But what I’m proud of is after the 2002 season, we responded to our few difficult years and improved the following season and always reached a bowl game. That’s a true test of how strong our program became. In 2003 we had a winning season. We struggled in 2004, but we came right back in 2005. In 2012, we didn’t overcome our injuries and had another tough season. We recovered quickly and won the division the next two years. We always responded by staying loyal to the process. On top of all that, our graduation rate was consistently recognized for being among the best in our league. We did the right things for kids. We helped the university grow.
Obviously, I wished we could have won a conference championship. I coached in two conference championship games at Toledo and four at Missouri, two in the Big 12 and two in the SEC. I was so proud that we won enough games to be in position for those championships, but we still came up short. That’s disappointing. I don’t dwell on those losses, but as a competitor I wanted to win championships. Twice in seven years we were one win away from playing for the national championship. One win away. Whenever I hear someone say you can’t win big at Missouri, I point to those seasons. Don’t tell me you can’t compete for a national championship at Mizzou. We were right there.
Our fans matured so much over the years, too. We started winning more in the Big 12 and our fans stopped rushing the field after big victories. That was okay at first, because fans hadn’t experienced much winning. But over time they had to make the same adjustments our team made when we joined the Southeastern Conference. SEC fans are just different. There’s more enthusiasm for football in the SEC and a deeper commitment at most schools. Our fans understood that and helped elevate Mizzou’s program.
• • •
In 2000 it was Mike Alden who had the vision and faith to hire a head coach from the Mid-American Conference and give my staff a chance to build our program at Missouri. I warned Mike when he hired me that there was going to come a time when I needed his support, when there would be pressure to continue the Mizzou tradition of cycling through coaches when adversity strikes. Mike was incredibly loyal and supportive during our 14-year run working together. During my first year we lost at Colorado, and outside the locker room at Folsom Field I told him I wish we could just fast forward to a day when the program was fully installed and we were competing for championships. Fortunately, he was patient. He’d later say he was struck by my passion and commitment that day, but it was Mike’s commitment to my plan, my process, that helped us reach 10 bowls in 14 years and win five division titles.
So many people work within a football program, but I owe special gratitude to Chad Moller, our media relations director, for the bulk of my time at Mizzou. Chad and I shared many late-night phone calls when we had to tackle difficult incidents, but he also played a vital role in promoting all the positive things that happened within our program. His loyalty is greatly appreciated. There are countless others who made our organization run at a high level. Rex Sharp, our trainer. Pat Smith, our team surgeon. Pat Ivey, our strength and conditioning coach. Dan Hopkins, our director of operations. Bryan Maggard, our assistant AD. Tami Chievous, our academic coordinator. Don Barnes, our equipment manager. Ann Hatcher, my secretary.
Most importantly, I had a great staff of assistant coaches working around me. It took a group of hard-working and loyal assistants to change the culture at Mizzou, to recruit players that met our standards, and to develop players who would win big games and compete for championships. A head coach can’t run a program on his own, and I had lots of help from a diligent, sharp staff that stayed true to our core philosophies but also stayed on the cutting edge of change. We preached relentless evaluation, and when the team would have setbacks we always found ways to recover through hard work and innovation. I used to joke that maybe I wasn’t mean enough when the media or fans asked about our unparalleled continuity, but truthfully, our loyalty went both ways. I valued their commitment to our program.
You can’t have a team without players, and at Toledo and Missouri our success came down to players making plays. I’m so grateful to all the players who chose to play for me and my staff and the dedication they gave our program. I’ve named names in these pages, but it was difficult to single out a few when my 25 teams were built by thousands of young athletes who grew into men under our watch. We broke ground in many ways and experienced a lot of firsts together. All I ever wanted to accomplish was to impact their lives in a positive way, the same way Coach Fortner and Coach James had changed mine forever.
I’ve truly been blessed. MIZ!
Appendix
GARY PINKEL
1974–75: Kent State, graduate assistant
1976: Washington, graduate assistant
1977–78: Bowling Green, receivers coach
1979–83: Washington, receivers coach
1984–90: Washington, offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach
1991–00: Toledo, head coach
2001–15: Missouri, head coach
RECORDS
Toledo: 73–37–3
Missouri: 118–73
Total: 191–110–3
CHAMPIONSHIPS
Mid-American Conference: 1995
MAC West: 1997, 1998, 2000
Big 12 North: 2007, 2008, 2010
SEC East: 2013, 2014
BOWL GAMES
Player
Tangerine Bowl: 1972
Assistant Coach
Sun Bowl: 1979, 1986
Rose Bowl: 1980, 1981, 1990
Aloha Bowl: 1982, 1983
Orange Bowl: 1984
Freedom Bowl: 1985, 1989
Independence Bowl: 1987
Head Coach: Toledo
Las Vegas: 1995
Head Coach: Missouri
Independence Bowl: 2003, 2005, 2011
Sun Bowl: 2006
Cotton Bowl: 2007, 2013
Alamo Bowl: 2008
Texas Bowl: 2009
Insight Bowl: 2010
Citrus Bowl: 2014
HEAD COACHING SEASONS
1991 Toledo: 5–5–1
1992 Toledo: 8–3
1993 Toledo: 4–7
1994 Toledo: 6–4–1
1995 Toledo: 11–0–1, MAC champion
1996 Toledo: 7–4
1997 Toledo: 9–3, MAC West champion
1998 Toledo: 7–5, MAC West champion
1999 Toledo: 6–5
2000 Toledo: 10–1, MAC West co-champion
2001 Missouri: 4–7
2002 Missouri: 5–7
2003 Missouri: 8–5
2004 Missouri: 5–6
2005 Missouri: 7–5
2006 Missouri: 8–5
2007 Missouri: 12–2, Big 12 North champion
2008 Missouri: 10–4, Big 12 North champion
2009 Missouri: 8–5
2010 Missouri: 10–3, Big 12 North co-champion
2011 Missouri: 8–5
2012 Missouri: 5–7
2013 Missouri: 12–2, SEC East champion
2014 Missouri: 11–3, SEC East champion
2015 Missouri: 5–7
Coaching Honors
1995 Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year
2007 Big 12 Coach of the Year
2014 SEC Coach of the Year
Hall of Fame Honors
Kenmore High School Hall of Fame
Kent State University Athletics Hall of Fame
University of Toledo Athletics Hall of Fame
Mid-American Conference Hall of Fame
St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame 2014 Sportsman of the Year
Missouri Sports Hall of Fame
Acknowledgments
This process began with an interview at Lakota Coffee where Gary Pinkel shared his experience of watching Mizzou’s first game of the 201
6 season from the uncomfortable comfort of his couch at home. As he settled into retirement, we began to discuss working together to tell the story of his life and career. From there, the process took off quickly. I’d like to thank John Capinagro for believing in our idea and helping turn a concept into a project. We tell the story through Gary’s eyes and voice, but I needed others to share memories and perspective and provide color and detail. Three women were especially valuable with that process: Kathy Grinch, Gary’s sister; Erin Hendershott, Gary’s daughter; and Missy Pinkel, Gary’s wife. I can’t thank them enough for their time and candor. Mike Alden and Chad Moller, two colleagues who worked closely with Gary at Mizzou, were incredibly generous with their insight. I’m indebted to my wife, Molly, twin boys, Jackson and Connor, and infant son, Will, for their patience and understanding with my chaotic sportswriter schedule, but they sacrificed even more during this project. I’m forever grateful for their love and inspiration.
Lastly, I was thrilled that Gary Pinkel agreed to let me help tell his story. Having covered his time at Mizzou for the Columbia Daily Tribune and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, I was intimately familiar with the highlights of his career, but for this project we had to tackle other points along the way and travel roads he’s rarely uncovered for others. Gary won more games than any head coach at Toledo and Missouri, but his story transcends wins and losses and championships. His 15 years at Mizzou touched on compelling issues and pivotal moments that shaped his career and legacy. I’m forever thankful to be able to tell those stories in these pages.
—Dave Matter
A few weeks after I officially retired, I had many people ask me if I was going to write a book.
I smiled and said, “I don’t think so.” Yet, Chad Moller, University of Missouri athletics media director, and I always joked about the journey of my career. “You can’t make this stuff up. Save it for the book.” Honestly though, I really never had intentions. I’m a football coach.