I love our coaches (and our players, obviously).

In light of recent... (cough-cough-cough-cough) .... less than stellar responses by some other sports teams and their coaches, we here at Rock M (and all of you Mizzou fans) can thank our lucky stars that we’ve got a couple of good ones. If this last week or so has taught us anything, our coaches are better than good... they’re GREAT, in fact.

But for real...

Back aboard the Cuonzo Martin Fan Club train (that I never got off of), Zo’s been talking to everyone, and I LOVE TO SEE IT. Adam Finklestein of ESPN and The Upside podcast posted his chat with Cuonzo, and it was great. You’d think, after all of the media rounds this week, that he’d be repeating himself, but each one has featured something new, and this interview was no exception. Here’s a few tidbits (of many) that stood out to me:

What are your thoughts on amateurism and how we can help black athletes, or all athletes?

For every student athlete that graduates, he/she should be able to get a job within a 30-50 mile radius of the campus and the university gives him/her a $50-100,000 check to help them get started, and provide job assistance. Because when you have black athletes, oftentimes those guys are still doing well in the classroom, and graduating with a 2.2-2.6 GPA, but their resumes just don’t look as good as other students that have 3.5, 3.7, 3.9 GPAs who could get to intern and get all these other opportunities. So where do they go from here? It’s OUR JOB to find them jobs. They are generating billions of dollars for the university, but we owe it to them to help them get a job, especially in the area, where those businesses have profited indirectly off their attendance at the university.

What about the hiring of black coaches? There’s a disproportionate amount of black head coaches to black athletes, as well as a disproportionate amount of black coaches who get second chances, as opposed to white coaches, if they do lose their jobs.

Cuonzo said, referencing coaches like Mike Davis and John Thompson III, who he thinks should be Final 4 coaches:

“Legit, those guys (Davis, Thompson, among others) should be running programs. When you look at coaches, and look at each bench at the P5 level, but if you don’t have at least 3 black men on your staff and the majority of your players are white, what are you saying? You can perform for me, but you are not educated enough to be on my staff... if you don’t have strong diversity on your staff, what are you doing?”

Next up! Not to be outdone by ‘Zo’s awesomeness, Drink and his team has made quite the name for themselves nationally with their recent peaceful protest, which ended in 52 new voter registrations.

It was Columbia native Martez Manuel’s grand plan, according to The Missourian’s Max Baker. After attending a protest in Jeff City with some of his coaches and teammates, he approached Coach Drinkwitz and Coach Walters with the idea.

“None of my coaches, even though they’re fairly new to me, have ever given me a vibe that I could be uncomfortable coming to them with anything,” Manuel said. “The way I was brought up, I’ve always been taught to voice my opinion and voice the way that I think things should be. That’s something that lit a fire in me.”

When talking about adding in the voting aspect (Coach Luper’s idea, according to an article by Peter Baugh in The Athletic), Manuel said:

“Just seeing all my teammates register to vote, something that if we didn’t do then, we probably never would’ve done this year,” Manuel said. “The youth isn’t active in politics, active in voting. Anyone can be a keyboard warrior and anyone can post some things on Instagram, but I’m big on voicing my power and voicing my concerns for that subject.”

I personally could not love this more. It’s not possible.

Local coverage:

• Eric Blum (Columbia Tribune)
• Mitchell Forde (PowerMizzou)
• Dave Matter (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
• Souichi Terada (KC Star)

Everybody picked this story up, even nationally!

• Washington Post (Matt Bonesteel)
• ESPN (Adam Rittenberg)
• Ari Berman (MotherJones)- I will point out that after I shared The Athletic article, he added it to the thread :)

On to the Links. Happy Friday! Oh, and...

Happy Birthday, Mom!

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Yesterday at Rock M

• Coach Bussen continued his defensive film room series with Part 6.
• COMING UP: You decide the winner of the Mizzou Tiger Legends Draft.

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More Links:

Football

• STL Today: Dave talked to a bunch of former Mizzou players who are now high school coaches, about how they are leading their teams during this situation. He also posted a video interview with current DeSmet coach and former Mizzou player (and former Minnesota Viking), Robert Steeples.
• PowerMizzou/Rivals ($$): Matt Hamilton analyzed film for Ryan Hoerstkamp (stay away, Bama!)
• Podcast Time! Dave & BenFred (STLToday) and Gabe & Mitchell (PowerMizzou) talked with Mizzou radio analyst Howard Richards on the state of the country and Mizzou Football in 2020.
• Columbia Missourian: 2012 grad, Harry Plumer, now a software engineer in Salt Lake City, wrote about his long trek back to CoMo to Mizzou’s first day in the SEC for the the Missourian’s First Pitches series. It is super entertaining; give it a read.
• Missourian (more): Andy Kimball wrote about Mizzou’s return to football, which starts Monday, and what is going on COVID-wise with other colleges (it’s not good, bob). Adam Cole covered the new that former Mizzou WR, Kam Scott, has a found a new home— Houston.

Hoops

• Several members of Mizzou’s basketball teams — Hayley Frank, Haley Troup, and Reed Nikko — shared their thoughts on social media on Thursday about what’s going on in the country. They clearly put a lot of time and thought to their posts, and they are well worth the clicks!
• The Athletic- CJ Holmes & Dana O’Neil talked with some black basketball coaches, including former Tiger Kim English, and Cuonzo Martin, about ruffling some feathers. It’s a great article. SUBSCRIBE TO THE ATHLETIC!!!!
• According to Jeff Goodman of Stadium, the NABC (National Association of Basketball Coaches), is making an announcement that strongly encourages coaches at ALL levels to give players Nov. 3 off to vote, as well as provide them information on how to register for absentee ballots. (More info at ncaa.org )
• According to Shams Charania of The Athletic/Stadium, draft prospects have until 10 days after the NBA draft combine (or August 3, whichever comes first), to withdraw from the draft.

Other Mizzou-related Links

• PowerMizzou (free): Gabe and Mitchell were back with some hot taeks in their Blowing Smoke, Presented by Weston Tobacco series.
• St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Matter was back with a new chat— here’s the Q&A.
• KC Star: Souichi looked at how Mizzou baseball may be affected by the the (shortened) 5-round MLB draft, as well as some other baseball topics.
• Columbia Tribune: Eric Blum covered information about the return dates for voluntary workouts for all remaining sports.
• According to James Palmer of the NFL Network, the Broncos have been impressed with Drew Lock’s offseason.
• Former Denver PG Fat Lever told Sean Keeler of the Denver Post that the Nuggets need to rally around Michael Porter, Jr (not his tweets).
• Sad news for Mizzou Golf and the PGA Tour... Scott Bess passed away (more from MUTigers.com).

Interesting/Non-Mizzou News

These are a few of the best sports stories & tidbits I found regarding some goings-on in sports and the world— Enjoy!

• On the heals of the latest episode of the SwimSwam podcast with Janet Evans, her longtime Fullerton swim coach Don Wagner recounted what it was like coaching her. (Side Note: I realize this is a super-niche topic, but it’s always cool to see how the greats are coached)
• The NBA owners approved a 22-team season restart plan, and The Ringer (a great website) was here to cover it: The Seven Most Important Takeaways by the Paolo Uggetti, Justin Verrier, Zach Kram & Haley O’Shaughnessy, as well as Ready or Not, Here Comes the NBA by Rob Mahoney.
• Sam Amick at The Athletic ($$) said the NBA is resetting, and he’s nervous. And probably so is Adam Silver.
• Recommendation time: It feels weird to say this, as a longtime Duke hater (though my own nickname when coaching was Coach K), AND a decided hater of this particular person, but y’all.... I started listening to JJ Redick’s podcast on The Ringer, and I LOVE IT. It feels weird to say this, but I am a FAN (shudders) of JJ Redick now. This week he talked with Jamal Crawford about current events- some spidery, and previously talked about a little bit of everything, from writing to romantic comedies, with THE AMAZING Shea Serrano.
• If you’re looking to sign up for ESPN+, Rock M Nation now has an affiliate link: click Here for ESPN+ Now! (** RockMNation has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though RockMNation may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links.**)