Head Coach Gary Pinkel Love and Appreciation Thread.

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You dont have to say a thing because your current players and former players have said it all.

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That was a great moment on TV. Big props to the few Mizzou fans that supported that team in KC, mad respect.

I'm glad he WAS our coach. But it's time to move on. We can do better. As long as we don't hire some scrub, I think we can have more success. Would really love to see Odom take over, Kul take over DC, and some kind of genius OC.

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If you don't appreciate what he has meant to our program, then you don't deserve to be a Mizzou fan.

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Amen.

His character and values built this program from the lowly bottom it resided in after the late 70's through the 90's. All in spite of a resistant administration in his early tenure for those that remember. It wasnt built on great recruiting classes in which the percentages were always in your favor. He built it with taking chances on young men that were overlooked and cast aside by traditional powers. He believed in them and they believed and loved in him in return. That is what Missouri and Mizzou is all about and I will never be "embarrassed" because of that, never.

So much respect for this man. Thank you for the memories MIZ

I wrote it in another thread, but I loved his cockiness and the arrogance of WDWWD - especially when he was rolling. His self-confidence in himself and his system was almost Mike Martzian.

And I love how players weren't just pieces of meat to him. He wanted them to succeed and change the course of their life (and the lives of their children) through their association with him and a University of Missouri degree.

His word was his bond for a full four years - to the point of hamstringing his roster at times - all while his coaching contemporaries were running sausage factories. You honestly felt sorry for kids who chose places like Tennessee because you know a third of them will get processed or never graduate.

Yes, he never won the big one.
Yes, he was sometimes loyal to a fault.
But dammit, he was loyal!!

He earned the love and respect of players and fans alike and I'm going to miss him.

It almost feels like a death in the family. Like when Whitey Herzog left too soon. I got the sads.

This is what I think of when I think of Pinkel and what he has done at Mizzou:

2007 Season my Mother was in the final stages of her years long battle with Cancer. She had less then a week left before she passed. Growing up in NWMO we got all Omaha stations growing up and got pounded by Nebraska forever. My mother was a huge sports fan, loved Mizzou and hated the Huskers. I remember visiting with my mother in her hospital room which she would die in just 4 days later. She kept asking me if I had watched Mizzou beat down the Huskers the night before. In her final days on this Earth, Mizzou had made her so happy beating the hated Huskers. I have always remembered this and truly thank Coach Pinkel for giving my mother something to cherish in that tough time.

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This is kind of bull shite. I'll say this...if we get someone who does better, and I hope we do, we'll have gotten pretty lucky.

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Absolutely.

Fist off, Thanks coach. Not just for the wins, but for how you ran the program, and took care of the kids who came through.

Second off, it'll be a great thing if we get someone better. Don't know that we will though. Some just can't appreciate the job that GP did here. Hope we don't have to go through several failed or mediocre HCs for them to gain the respect for the job GP did here.

I'm gonna miss him. I really think we take a step back the next few years.

GP is really all I've known at Mizzou football. I really didn't hear a peep out of the program while growing up at Lake of the Ozarks. After I joined the Air Force Mizzou football was a way I could connect to some thing from home. I joined the same year GP started at Mizzou. Fom the time he beat the Nubs for the 1st time, winning the most important boarder war game ever, to the Pinkel Dance, laughing at UGA when they lost to Florida, and the emotion he showed after the BYU game. Thanks for all the wonderful memories coach!