Where I Come From: How I became a Mizzou fan

and when I moved back to the KC area, I was given (from an inappropriate uncle) a “Bartles and James” knockoff Mizzou Sweatshirt. (It was a taller old Tiger and squatter, older Tiger “thanking me for my support”.) I wasn’t particularly concerned with college sports at that age, focused more on local HS and the Pros. But I was certainly never going to root for that OTHER red, white & blue school that kids wore sweatshirts for.

I came to Columbia for college (Columbia College, though; not Mizzou). But my fanhood was growing and college sports began to supercede the pros, and Mizzou was the natural, geographic fit. And so it was, so it is, and so it shall be.

I’ve told my 3.5 year old (as well as the 1.5 year old, though I’m not sure he’s getting it quite as well) that I won’t ever tell him who he SHOULD be a fan of, I’m just going to give him a small list of who he ISN’T ALLOWED IN A MILLION YEARS to be a fan of. (Kansas, Duke, Oakland Raiders, Denver Broncos, & the White Sox.) So its not a guarantee that he’ll be a Tiger fan, but I’m hoping!

That’s right. My Missouri fandom came in the mail.

My first Missouri memory (sadly) was Tyus Edney. Enough said.

I, like Ross, am cliché number 182 as well, although by the end, my degree said “Communication” instead of Journalism like I had originally intended.

Outside of Tyus Edney, the floods of 1993, the Arch and the professional sports teams, I couldn’t have told you a single thing about the state of Missouri.

Then I took the SAT in spring of 1995. I indicated that I was interested in journalism and communication. I also wanted to move away from New York City (my home all of my life).

So I was looking at Northwestern and Syracuse and North Carolina and Florida and (I’m ashamed to admit it now) Texas.

But then I received a big viewbook in the mail (this was so mid 1990s, when glossy full color viewbooks still existed) that contained an application. I looked through it, thought “It looks like a nice school” and then set it aside, figuring that I’d come back to it later.

Spring became summer and summer became fall. One day, I received a second viewbook in the mail, and this one had an application that didn’t require a fee.

A free college application? Okay, why the hell not? I filled it out and turned it into my high school guidance office along with my other applications that needed to be sent out.

In early January 1996 I was accepted. I felt good; I knew I had at least one option for college. But I still was waiting to see where else I got in. (I also didn’t finish the second part of the Texas application.)

About a month or so later, I received a scholarship that waived out of state tuition and granted me additional money to cover some fees.

That sealed the deal. I was a Missouri Tiger. But I was still unsure if it was the right choice. I knew I could always transfer if it didn’t work out after the first year.

I didn’t visit campus until Summer Welcome in July, but as soon as I got out of the car (as cheesy as it sounds) I knew I was home. No transfer would be forthcoming.

I was born and bred a Tigers fan. My parents met when both were at Mizzou, so it was a foregone conclusion that I, too, would be a Mizzou fan. I was raised right, learning from an early age that Kansas was an evil, terrible place.

My first Mizzou memory is one of two; I truthfully cannot recall which came first. At some point in my early childhood, I attended a game at Hearnes Center in which I watched Anthony Peeler play and dominate. In perhaps a more formative moment, however, my father and his best friend took me to Lawrence for the on-campus iteration of the Border War football game. We lost. That is the point at which I began to understand that being a Mizzou fan wasn’t just about liking our team when we won. It was about supporting them when they didn’t live up to my expectations, which remains the kind of fan I aspire to be – always positive.

I have other memories, good and bad, throughout my adolescence – the fifth down, the flea kicker, Gilbert going off, and all sorts of others – but what took my fandom from a somewhat low-key affection to a truly hardcore level came in college. After graduating from high school and losing all outlets for my competitive nature, I began following Mizzou more closely, watching every football and basketball game that was televised. I watched Quin Snyder implode, and saw the beginnings of some Texas-born quarterback’s career, but the moment that it really clicked wasn’t until the 2007-2008 year. Everyone knows about the football season – I was lucky enough to be at Arrowhead for what I believe is the best football game I will ever attend. But the basketball season clinched it.

I was frustrated watching the team play that year. They had talent, that was clear, but the effort level was streaky, and I wasn’t sure about Anderson’s style. Then the Club Athena incident happened. Suddenly, the starting lineup, most of whom weren’t Anderson recruits, was out, and in their place was a group of young guys who didn’t expect to play much, so when they got their shot, they played their hearts out. They didn’t do all that well – they just couldn’t play at a high enough level. But I remember sitting in my room one night, watching these guys play, and suddenly I realized what we had in Mike Anderson. Maybe we weren’t going to compete for a national championship, but here was a guy who suspended easily his 5 best players, dooming his season, and coached his bench to play the most fun, passionate, hard-nosed basketball I had ever seen a Mizzou team play. I enjoyed those losses almost as much as I enjoyed the wins the following season.

but likely the most recent…this past december, when i declined my place in the freshman class at champaign and enrolled to be a freshman this august at mizzou. my first mizzou memory was when i visited a friend in november, i went to an exhibition game against nw missouri….followed by 41-39 and then my acceptance. i spent all of december getting excited for this and quickly realized that this was familiar territory for me..

but then i found this website, boned up on some history, and, being the diehard sports fan that i am, got situated pretty quickly. i enjoyed giving shit to my girlfriend, i spent my cousins bar mitzvah at the bar in the lobby, and spent the rest of the season on espn360, which was wonderful for me here in chicago, even if sometimes i wish it wouldn’t have worked

by the time i ditched 7th period psychology, i felt like i never had rooted for that team in orange and blue, and quite frankly, looking at the big 10 from the outside in is hilarious. (im telling you, its not as pretty as you all think).

ive recently purchased my student tickets and im counting down the days until august 17. i cannot wait to finally step into faurot and finally stop reading and start cheering. M-I-Z!

I was born in Des Moines, moved to north MO like 3 months after and have been there ever since. I consider myself a Missourian, screw what my birth certificate says. The only sport my family really followed while I was growing up was the NBA and by the NBA I mean the Chicago Bulls. HUGGGEEEEEE Bulls fan, still am. However, it was probably around when I was 16-17 that I really started getting into college sports (right around the time I started losing hope in the Bulls) and naturally I fell in love with my state’s flagship program….the city, Faurot, Stormin Norm, Ricky Paulding, the downfall of Quin till the present day. I’m proud to be a fan of the best institution in the United States. M I Z Z O U

But for most of the beginning of my life I lived in Iowa and Oklahoma and wasn’t interested in sports at all. But eventually we moved back to Missouri and I took a small interest in Mizzou, mainly basketball. I remember I always wondered why the Lakers and the Tigers never played each other and I thought Clarence Gilbert was the best player in the world. The first game I can remember watching was the 2003 Mizzou-Nebraska game, the only actual play I remember was the Brad Smith throwback run. I also remember some of the woes: going to the three straight Kansas losses, watching Mizzou-Troy, listening to Mizzou-New Mexico on the radio, and eventually just giving up on watching Mizzou basketball. But everything has been turning upward for Mizzou since I started focusing most of my attention to sports and I hope the same for future 5-star recruits.

Two older brothers were huge Mizzou fans, it just passed on to me when I was old enough to care about sports. I don’t know how they became fans, nobody in my family had any connection to the university beforehand, I guess they just wanted to root for the state team.

My grandpa was a geology professor at Mizzou, and both my parents grew up Columbia and attended MU. And my dad and grandpa were both big fans, so I grew up going to lots of games (the first game I remember attending is the football win over Illinois in ‘83—I would have been six—I also have some pretty clear memories of attending basketball wins over Kansas and OU in the late 80’s). In short, I’m from a big Mizzou family. I also went to lots of state competitions and camps and so forth in Columbia over the years—I really was on the campus a lot growing up.

Then, when I applied for college, Wash U backed up the money truck with the sort of offer you don’t refuse no matter how much like Norm Stewart, so I went to Wash U. But, because Wash U is a Division 3 school located all of 120 miles from Columbia, I saw no reason to stop rooting for Mizzou, and once or twice a year my school friends and I would road trip to Columbia to get a taste of the Saturday game day atmosphere that our school was most definitely lacking (we were also motivated by the fact that Mizzou girls are, for the most part, a little nicer to look at than Wash U girls).

Then I went to grad school at Rutgers and lived in New Jersey for 8 years. But, by then we were deep enough in the age of cable TV and the internet that I could watch 4-5 football games and 7-8 basketball games a year without breaking a sweat, and I could read the sports sections from the Star, P-D, and Columbia Trib every day. And one odd result of me being on the East Coast is that I’m one of the few Mizzou fans to be there for Quin’s coaching debut (a loss to Wisconsin in a tourney in Syracuse—I was also there for his first win, over Princeton, the next night). I’ll admit that if RU and Mizzou ever play, I will feel torn in a big way, but I am still, at bottom, a Tiger fan.

i was born into the fan base.i was raised in a small town 20 miles east of columbia. grew up watching the tigers. noone in my family ever went to mu saddly. i will always be a mu fan i will raise my kids as mu fans. its all i know

Hardcore Mizzou fans that moved to Columbia in the late 60s so my mom and uncle could get the university education they never could. My grandparents went to every Mizzou football and basketball game from then until the late 90s when ticket prices outgrew their income.
They also made sure my brother and I were decked out in Mizzou gear from the day we were born. Growing up in Holland, I guess I stood out quite a bit, wearing black sweatshirts with gold letters spelling out the name of a place nobody there had ever heard of. Then we moved to Columbia in ‘98, for much of the same reasons my grandparents moved here. My brother and I never bothered applying to any other colleges.
It should be noted that, until 2000 (my freshman year), I really couldn’t be considered a sports fan. Little hipster me hated sports in Europe (mostly because all the popular kids liked it), and learning all the insanely intricate rules of baseball and football was quite a challenge at first. But then, one day, sitting by myself on a bench at Faurot Field, I had an epiphany. Instead of simply watching the game in front of my play out, I started hoping and praying that Mizzou would get a first down on the next play. Then Mizzou actually did get a first down, and I discovered the adrenaline rush of sports fandom. I was instantly hooked.
Now, a common love of Mizzou sports has become the language that helps my friends and I communicate. It’s the primary topic of conversation, a big reason for us to get together, an experience we all share. And in ‘06, during what turned out to be my grandfather’s last few months on Earth, the two of us bonded over talks about the Cards’ World Series win, and Chase Daniel’s success in leading Mizzou football back into the national consciousness. One of my favorite memories is from that year, when it was just the two of us, sitting in front of the tv with some KFC, watching Mizzou pull off the win over Texas Tech.
THIS IS WHY I’M A MIZZOU FAN

I had always rooted for the Tigers but I don’t think I fully became a Tigers fan until the fall 2007. I had just received my acceptance letter to Mizzou but at the same time I received an acceptance letter to Oklahoma. Because I wanted to and still am studying meteorology, Oklahoma is the best school in the nation for that. So I scheduled visits for both. I went to Mizzou first. It was a picture perfect day in all aspects from the weather, to the tour, to the meeting with my department, to even the free dinning hall meal. The campus just felt like home. When I went to Oklahoma, the campus just didn’t click like Mizzou. I knew as soon as i stepped on the campus that would be a Tiger. October 29, 2007 is when i became a True Tiger.

. . . in Missouri better than the St. Louis Cardinals and Mizzou Tigers? Not in my opinion (sorry KC fans). I fell in love with the Cardinals in 1958, the same year I started Little League baseball in DeSoto, Mo. Shortly thereafter, we moved to the depths of the Ozarks in south-central Missouri, where my only connection to sports was the Sunday Post Dispatch and the Cardinals on AM radio.
When I entered high school in 1964, football and basketball completed the season sports cycle for me, and Mizzou became my “other” team. I was the typical Ozark hillbilly kid fresh out of high school when I moved into newly-built Hatch Hall in 1968 with my Curators’ Award, partial scholarship and a desire to be the best sportswriter ever. My first article, other than local high school sports articles, was a tryout for the Maneater discussing whether the starting quarterback that year would be Garnett Phelps or Joplin Junior College transfer Terry McMillan. I got the answer correct, but didn’t present it well enough to get the gig.
Forty-two years later, I still love sports, and maintain my original allegiances – the Cards and Mizzou. During those years I have worked the trade in the Denver, Savannah and West Palm Beach markets, moving up from sitting out in the driveway trying to catch the “skips” on AM radio in my car (since my wife has no use for sports) to the early days of ESPN to internet radio to Dish satellite.
Now, retired and back home in the Ozark hills, it is my pleasure to see most Mizzou (and Cardinal) games and hear all of them. Life doesn’t get much better!
The icing on the cake has been RMN. I had tried several earlier bulletin board and blog sites, and gave up. After lurking for nearly a year on RMN, I came out of the closet last year, wanting desperately to give support to Mike Alden, Gary Pinkel and Mike Anderson – and all the rest of the excellent Mizzou coaches and staff. I now feel completely at home on this site, and am slowly learning the personality quirks of its many regular contributors. Hats off to all of you for this very valuable part of my day each morning and evening.
Mizzou rah, Mizzou rah, Mizzou rah – Tigers!

I grew up in Arkansas … a huge Razorback fan (the same Razorbacks led by Nolan Richardson and a young Mike Anderson). Upon graduating high school I had one dream, and that was to one day be on ESPN. I applied to a number of journalism programs, but for whatever reason, the University of Missouri never occurred to me. I eventually settled on a full-ride scholarship to Arkansas State University, which has a fair journalism program, but hardly world-class.

After two years, I had hit a wall and started looking for something new. So, it was in the year 2000 that I sent off my application to the best journalism school in the country as a transfer student, and was accepted shortly thereafter. I was a slightly more than a little scared of the move (knowing zero people in Columbia), but a trip to campus for Summer Welcome sealed the deal.

I’d like to say that I took to the Tigers right away and the rest is history. But for somebody who grew up knowing nothing about Mizzou … it took a little while to fully understand the history and tradition of this proud program. The first athletic event that I attended my freshman year was coincidentally a women’s volleyball matchup between the Tigers and the Arkansas State Indians. I was friends with a number of the ladies on the A-State volleyball team, and I showed up in my full Arkansas State regalia and cheered loudly for my Indians. However, before the match was over, I couldn’t help but chant along with the band on every single POINT-MIZZOU!

This event was what began my now nearly-10 year infatuation with the Tigers. I have since become immersed in Mizzou history and tradition, and for my money there is no better tradition in any program in the country.

Born in Atlanta, moved to one mediocre St Louis suburb, then to San Antonio, on to Detroit and then back to another, even more soulless St Louis suburb. (And no, I’m not a military brat: my dad worked for the phone company until he got angry at Ed Whitacre’s pettiness and found a job in somewhere whose main selling point was “It’s Not San Antonio”.)

I think I became a Mizzou fan on happenstance more than anything. While both of my parents are from here, neither of them went to Mizzou (rather, UMKC, since it was cheaper and they could stay/work at home). To make matters worse, my father did his post-grad at Nebraska during the Gill-Rozier years, and thus became a massive, though somewhat rational, Husker fan. (It could have been different, though: his choices for PhD studies were between the Nubs and Ohio State. Draw your own conclusions.) Plus most of my cousins from KC preferred Kansas, for reasons that otherwise escape me.

I remember watching all the big moments as a little nipper: Tyus Bleeping Edney, the bicycle kick (which produces as much argument between Mizzou/Cards me and Neb/Royals him as Don Denkinger’s call), the strange success of the early-Snyder era basketball teams, and even went to the ‘97 game against Baylor that clinched the Holiday Bowl berth but it didn’t really resonate to me then as it does now because college sports took a massive back-seat to the Blues. Yes, I was one of them: had my autographed Brett Hull ‘96-97 card (the year he got goal #500), hated Steve Yzerman with the passion of a thousand suns, thought Belfour was weak because he refused to start in games here, and only played with Sher-Wood sticks because that’s what Al MacInnis used. And make no mistake, I still support the Note and go to a few games every year, but distance and lack of TV coverage has cooled it a bit (though it will pick up A LOT more this year because the city 350 miles north on Highway 55 “magically” rediscovered the best game you can name, and I have to defend my honor against a whole bunch of smug people wearing hastily purchased—and because of the salary cap, obsolete—Byfuglien shirts.)

But I digress.

High school was my real epiphany, and the time when I really embraced the Tigers partially out of my desire to be a contrarian. You see, like most Catholic all-boys’ schools here, nine out of every ten people supported Notre Dame and Big Ten teams. And my high school years dovetailed nicely with the last period when those schools were actually good. So while everyone was going crazy about Brady Quinn and Troy Smith, I was stuck defending SEC football for being more innovative and hating ND based partially on them being over-rated (which they were), and partially because hipster lefty me thought firing Willingham was racist (which is debatable). Then around 2005, my AP US History teacher was a big Mizzou fan/grad, and taught us equally about the intricacies of Gettysburg and the pain and glory of being a Tiger fan…and that sealed it.

Do I still question my support, wish I had taken that scholarship from Wisconsin and gone off to the land of stability, money and I-formation draw plays? Yeah, every once in a while. But for all I gripe about Mizzou athletics (and if you’ve met me, I can do a LOT of griping), there’s those moments—Ressel this year, holding Blake Griffin to a pittance last year, the general “chill” attitude of your average Mizzou fan at games—that bring you back, and I wouldn’t trade those for much.

parents both went to mizzou, thats where they met in fact. All of my aunts and uncles are also Mizzou Alums so I never really had a choice of who to root for. Have lived in KC all my life growing up as a Chiefs fan, but also rooting for the cards (my dad is from st charles) I love missouri, theres no place I’d ever rather be than in KC or in CoMo. My first mizzou memory was the beginning of the pinkle era, that was the 1st year that I was old enough to go to the games.

.. grew up reading Grantland Rice (disclaimer: I am not over 40) and wanted to be that kind of sportswriter. Couldn’t afford Syracuse, so I took the other great J-school. Didn’t work out, but don’t regret going to Mizzou for a minute.

My parents didn’t graduate from Mizzou though my mom went there for a couple of years. My dad went to CMSU but was always a die hard Mizzou fan and even saw them play in the Sugar Bowl when he was growing up. From the day I was born, my dad would drive me up to Columbia from our house in St. Louis at least twice a year for a football game and the occasional basketball game. I’ve been wearing black and gold as long as I knew what college was and I always knew unless I got a golf scholarship to a decent school, I would end up at Mizzou. It was tough growing up a Mizzou fan, especially when you have relatives in kansas. I was 10 years when I saw the flea kicker unfold in person. At that time, I though this school was cursed. But luckily I was also there to see the Nebraska game in 2003 and it made the first 16 years of my life worth it.

I married a Tiger fan (who is really a Cal alum).

Watched the Tigers play Illinois in Brad Smith’s coming out party & have been hooked ever since.

Go Tigers!

in joplin or j-town in the local parlance. the sports loyalties around there were (and still are) pretty divided between ou, okie st, sms and mizzou.

first time i ever visited columbia was for a summer camp in high school. loved the campus and loved the town. i thought the columns were probably the coolest thing i’d ever seen. i remember being blown away by the rec center- i would get to know it very well in the coming years.

when it came time to pick a college, i knew in the back of my mind i wanted to go to mizzou, but i checked out arkansas and colorado among others. the clincher: my first tiger football game was the 5th down game. the way that went down really turned me off of cu and i’ve had a strong dislike for them ever since. cheating cheaters! i decided on mizzou the next week and never looked back.

i sat through a lot of crappy football and great basketball and wouldn’t trade it for anything. m-i-z…

I’ve been a Mizzou fan since I was cognizant of college sports. I am a Missourian; who else would I root for? When it came time for college, I was more interested in small liberal arts colleges than in big state universities, so I followed my scholarship money to Rhodes in Memphis. As a DIII school, it had no impact on my loyalties.

my parents both are DePaul alumns, but I never got into DePaul basketball because…well, they’re DePaul. I had a lukewarm affiliation with Illinois during the Dee Brown/Deron Williams/Luther Head/Roger Powell/James Augustine years, but my first real rooting interest in college basketball was Missouri.

I loved that 2002 team that made the Elite 8 as a 12-seed, with Kareem Rush being my favorite player back then. Thanks to that Elite 8 run, I became acquainted with Mizzou, and since I’ve wanted to do something in journalism since about sixth grade, I immediately took an interest in going there. So while I flirted with Illinois a bit in 2005, Missouri was pretty much where I was destined to end up.

Fun fact: I never had a positive rooting interest in college football until I actually came to Mizzou in 2007. I say positive because I was raised as a kid to hate Notre Dame, so my rooting interest in college football before 2007 was basically whoever was playing ND.

I am the son of two Columbia Transplants (Mom from Chadron, NE and dad from Wichita, KS) but they both met here in CoMO (attending Hickman) and eventually married here. I was born in CoMO (at University Hospital no less) and with the exception of my second grade year in Butler, MO and six months existing in Springfield, MO and a couple of years in Fayette, MO to attend the rest of my college (which I started at Mizzou) I have lived in CoMO. I love the Tigers, but not because I am supposed to (my dad is rather disenfranchised with MU and mom could care less about sports with the exception of Gymanstics) but because some of my favorite (and hardest to deal with memories) deal with Mizzou.

I was at the Flea-Kicker game as a student ready to rush the field from the front row, I watched the 5th Down game on TV at my grandparents house in CoMO while my parents were AT the game, I attended several Baseketball games as a fan and as an Usher at the Hearnes. As a student, I was ASKED to come out to VB, SB, Women’s BB, and of course Baseball by the athletes themselves (Lord knows at that time they needed the vocal support). I attended one of Coach Mac’s Baseball camps (even though I had no future in the game but have a passion for it). I was on the floor for 14-0 as an Usher (and hope I still have a peice of twine from the nets they cut down), and I was at the “revolutionary” win vs. a ranked kU squad (and I have goalpost from that game) and I could not score a ticket for “Victory” but have another piece of Goal Post (the base part) from that. I was at the Columbia, MO Baseball Regional and wondered if that feeling of joy at seeing MY College Baseball Stadium that full and that full of electricity will happen again (those were three Wonderful Days (damn Louisville 3rd baseman whom I will NOT dignify with his name)). I was born a Tiger from a non-sports loving family but am proud to be at the games. I am probably one of the loudest fans you see at the MU games, but I also know when its time to shut up. I love the history of Mizzou athletics and hope that one day we become a National staple in many sports. I fear the commercialization of College Athletics and am afraid that my days as an attending fan to games are coming to an end (I have not been to a home FB game in 5 years and my Basketball attendence has been less and less.) But believe me when I say that I am a Missourian and Mizzou Tiger through and through.

I’ve lived 20 minutes from Columbia most of my life. I was born at the University hospital. The only school connection I have to Columbia is my mother, a Columbia College graduate.
Attended several football games when I was young though I don’t remember too much about them. I was just excited to be where so many other people were.
Went to several concerts at the Hearnes Center but didn’t attend any basketball games until later in life, though I watched all that I could on tv (bball was and still is my fav sport).
The first game I attended was a loss to an eventual Denver Nugget during my senior year of high school. Didn’t matter that the Tigers lost, as with the football games I was at when I was younger, I loved the crowd (there were these Syracuse fans that were rather drunk and had a complete lack of sportsmanship).
My 21st has to be one of the best days of my life thanks to the Tigers (and some of my best friends). October 22, 2005.

I came out of the womb a Tiger. M-I-Z!

Grew up in Ft. Worth, TX. I grew up a huge UT fan, following them to all their bowl appearances, but when it came down to collegiate decisions, neither my heart nor gpa was drawn to UT. I wanted to get out of Texas; I wanted to experience a new culture, but I didn’t want a huge culture shock. I decided to attend Mizzou, and that’s that.

My parents had no connection to Mizzou (Mom went to SMSU and NEMO, Dad got his degree when I was in high school). However, my Mom’s 1st cousin was the long-time Vice Chancellor at Mizzou, so there was always a passing interesting Mizzou while I was a kid.

However, my parents were really only fans of pro sports, mostly the Cardinals. But, I do remember my mom just adoring Jon Sunvold, even saying when I was a kid that he was her favorite athlete ever.

I had applied to Mizzou and Purdue for engineering and remember getting my Purdue acceptance and waiting and waiting for Mizzou’s acceptance. I definitely viewed Mizzou as my second choice (as almost every aspiring engineer would), and certainly viewed it as beneath me. It was always the in-state school that was a party school and not for serious studies. I loved the basketball team, but the football team hadn’t been worth watching in my memory, plus, growing up in STL in the mid-80s, football held none of my interest at all.

I like to say that Mizzou got me because they beat Purdue in the “Great Eight” game in November 1994 (my Senior year), but really it’s because I got a full ride to Mizzou and almost no scholarships to Purdue. I came to Mizzou as a sports fan, but not as a Mizzou fan, per se.

My real fandom began when I joined my fraternity in 1996. I became more loyal to Mizzou and got connected to things like tailgating. Of course, 1997 soon came and I was hooked. There was nothing like the 97 and 98 teams. The feeling of campus with a good football team was electric. I have been die-hard ever since, and I’m raising my kids to be, also.

As my says: “Tigers eat jay-hocks!”

i as well am cliché number 182 Missouri fan. Having grown up on the southside of Chicago, daughter to a Southern Illinois University graduate and Lewis University Graduate, Sister to THREE Fightin’ Ilini of the university of Illanoy, i am the odd ball out of the family. The J school got my attention (along with a wait list from Illanoy) and I would not change it for the world now. the experiences i had were priceless and i am proud to stand up for my Tigers at family functions. I have bled black and gold since the fall of 2003 and will forever!! MIZ

I have been a Tiger fan since my birth. I was born in Omaha, Nebraska and lived there all my life until I started attending Mizzou. Really hope Missouri makes the College World Series sometime. Anyway, my entire family is from Missouri. My parents moved to Omaha for job reasons. Both of my parents went to MU and several other family members have gone to school there. My aunt currently works in the J-School so that is really nice. It was hard growing up in Nebraska in the 90s when Missouri was awful and Nebraska was winning titles.

and I decided on Mizzou.

My earliest memories of Mizzou football are the New Mexico home game (nightmare) and 41-24 over Nebraska (euphoria).

My earliest memories of Mizzou basketball are Moody/Gardner (euphoria) and Baylor/popcorngate (nightmare).

I feel pretty lucky on the whole, it seems I got to the bandwagon just in time for possibly the best era in the history of Mizzou athletics.

I’m a bit different. I grew up in Iowa, during the Fry/Dr. Tom heyday. As I went to a D-III school for college (Augustana College in the Quad Cities), I maintained my Iowa roots. Never saw the kicked ball, or the fifth down. Didn’t really mind any of the other Big 10 schools. But in February of my senior year of college, I decided I didn’t want to go to med school. Had to find plan B quickly. After talking to the Physiology professor at Augie (a Mizzou grad), I checked out down here. Turns out the physiology department was something else. Two chairs ago is in the National Academy. AND, my girlfriend, at the time, was coming too. So, I was Columbia bound.

When I got here, I bought into the whole Mizzou scene. It helped that I had a post-bac in my first class that was your “bleed black and gold” Tiger fan, who had former housemates that were in Law, Med, Vet, and Grad school. And they lived a block away. Also, I picked up a job as Shakespeare’s as soon as I got here (good thing I didn’t call Panera back). So, within a month, I was tailgating at Football games, hating the Jayhawks, rolling pizzas, and learning science.

But I did get a Mizzou t-shirt when I was in middle school, and it was my favorite, until its demise in a wicked game of knock-out….so maybe it was predestination.

It was either my first or 2nd trip to Columbia to see MU vs KU…I remember trying to sit on the hill during a light rain w/the now ex g/f and her family. Think we had to repostion ourselves at least 30 times from sliding down the hill and helping the kids back up it. I witnessed a fan run on the field that day, taking pictures w/the camera over his head aimed at the cops chasing him around the field is a memory I don’t think I’ll ever forget and ofcourse after MU beat Kansas the goalposts came down and the march to downtown to cut it up w/the chants of M-I-Z-F-K-U were as loud as ever.

I was a fan before my first trips anyway but that trip sealed it for me. I am now a lifelong Tiger fan. Any game that is on tv I don’t miss, the games at Arrowhead I never miss and the trash talk w/KU fans will never end.