Written by Matt Zemek at Bloguin
The word “extraordinary” can be used casually, to the point that the word loses its heft and its force.
The past week for Missouri football was truly extraordinary… and it’s not even over.
A chaotic and bewildering week ends for Missouri with the Tigers’ game against BYU on Saturday night in Arrowhead Stadium. The dramatic events surrounding a program and a college campus have created non-stop news the past several days. Friday, the leader of the program — the man who brought it back to the mountaintop — resigned in order to devote full attention to his health and holistic wellness.
Just one week after Minnesota coach Jerry Kill had to step away from football at the age of 54, in a tearful and much sadder set of circumstances, Missouri coach Gary Pinkel called it a career at age 63 in order to fully subdue lymphoma, which he says he’s managing well.
In the short term, many will note and remember that Pinkel’s final act as a head coach was to support the players on his team who boycotted playing until internal changes were made at the university. For a lot of people, that might remain the lasting image of who and what Pinkel was. Plenty of reasonable people can (and will, and already have chosen to) debate the nobility of Pinkel’s actions there, but we come today to offer an appraisal of Pinkel’s career as a football coach, specifically at Missouri.
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