MICHAEL ATCHISON

Tigers A to Z

Michael Atchison

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it pales next to out-and-out thievery. When Sports Illustrated’s sensational Steve Rushin recently unveiled his A-to-Z list of historic sporting figures (from immortal boxer Muhammad Ali to nearly immobile racehorse Zippy Chippy), I went from “I wish I’d thought of that” to “I don’t mind if I do” in half-a-heartbeat. So, with a tip of the cap to Rebecca Lobo’s better half, I offer the Alphabet, Missouri Tiger-style.

The fact that Al Abram led the basketball team in scoring and rebounding in 1959 is impressive in and of itself; the fact that he broke the color barrier in Mizzou athletics is something else entirely. He gets the A for historic effort.

Some killer B’s have buzzed about in black and gold, from John Brown and Phil Bradley to Herb Bunker, Melvin Booker, and Chester Brewer, none of whom rate as our second letter carrier. Who could better Booker, Bunker and Brewer? Tom Botts. In 26 years as head coach, Botts led the track and field and cross country squads to ten conference titles and the 1965 NCAA indoor track and field national championship.

Though shot putter extraordinaire Christian Cantwell could chuck him a country mile, the C belongs to Derrick Chievous, who scored 18% more points than any other Tiger basketballer. D, on the other hand, demands no debate. D is simply Devine.

E stands for Everything, which is what Gentleman George Edwards was to Mizzou over parts of five decades. After playing basketball, football and baseball for the Tigers before World War I, he returned to Columbia in the Roaring Twenties and served at various times over 30-plus years as basketball coach, golf coach, tennis coach, assistant football coach, athletics director, sports information director, and professor and Dean of the physical education department. That might be enough to warrant two letters but for the immovable object in the next spot. F is reserved for the father, the founder, the favorite son of Ol’ Mizzou. F is for Faurot.

Bruce Geiger merits consideration for our next letter by virtue of playing on the 1961 Orange Bowl champs, and he gains bonus points for allowing me to marry his daughter. But a major deduction for routinely schooling me on my own pool table opens the door for Mel Gray, Missouri’s all-time G-man, a champion sprinter and brilliant wide receiver who starred for years in the NFL.

For anyone who ever witnessed her fluid, explosive grace, there’s no doubtin’ Mary Houghton, one H of a gymnast. Late 1980’s basketball hero Byron Irvin was cool personified, but fellas, what’s cooler than being cool? Ice – Harry Ice – the 155-pound halfback formerly famous for gaining 240 yards on eight carries against Kansas in 1941, but now known as the preeminent I of the Tigers. Keeping up with the Joneses is a popular pastime, but keeping up with quarterback Corby Jones proved nearly impossible. For leading Mizzou’s late 1990’s football mini-renaissance, Jones earns the J.

K is for Natasha Kaiser, a two-time Olympian and six-time All-American sprinter, while L is a toss-up between Kaiser’s teammate Teri LeBlanc, a record-setting heptathlete-pentathlete-sprinter, and Ed Lampitt. We’ll let them wrestle for it, which gives the decisive edge to Lampitt, the grappler who captained Mizzou’s squad to an undefeated 1968 season and later earned a place in the national Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Though he belongs more to Wisconsin than to us, Walter Meanwell – Missouri’s M – won 94% of his games in two championship seasons as Tiger basketball coach, a brief detour on his way to becoming a charter member of the Basketball Hall of Fame. In Mizzou’s sporting history, N might as well stand for Next-to-Nothing. Not a single N in the MU Hall of Fame, nor among all-conference performers in football or men’s basketball. The most underachieving mainstream letter gives us license to dream a little and project a certain alphabetical immortality onto Damien Nash, the junior running back with limitless potential.

O! what a quandary! Onofrio, Olivo and O’Liney are obvious options, but we’ll pick a palindrome (the list’s sole one) and go with Otto – not hard-nosed fullback/linebacker Gus, but hard-throwing, hard-hitting pitcher/DH Dave, an All-American player and scholar in the mid-1980’s. In picking a P, we proffer a preference for Anthony Peeler, a pinpoint passer, prolific pilferer and prodigious point-producer – ppppphew! – who ranks first, first and third, respectively, in Tiger hoop history in assists, steals and scoring.

In Tiger lore, the letter Q hasn’t given us much quantity or quality, just one substantial Quirk – Ed Quirk, our Q – a bone-crushing fullback whose Missouri career, interrupted by service in World War II, preceded four seasons in the NFL. R, on the other hand, is rife with candidates from Andy Russell to Kareem Rush, but none is as synonymous with past glories as Johnny Roland, the do-anything All-American offensive and defensive back from the 1960’s.

A serious question for John “Hi” Simmons, Bob Simpson, Sparky Stalcup, Bill Stauffer, Bob Steuber, Steve Stipanovich, Anton Stankowski, Dave Silvestri, Jon Sundvold, Quin Snyder, Willie Smith, Doug Smith and Brad Smith: Would it be too much to ask for one of you to change your name to Xavier or Xylophone or Xena, Princess Warrior? While S presents the deepest field in this whole shebang, it’s also a no-brainer. Here’s the rule. If you’re an All-American basketball player and a national champion baseball player who returns home to coach the basketball team to a boatload of conference championships over a 32-year run, you make the list. The man with the S on his chest is Norm Stewart.

With apologies to superstar swimmer Susan Tietjen and pigskin pioneer Ed “Brick” Travis, the most prominent T in Tiger history isn’t a person, it’s an idea hatched in the diabolical mind of Don Faurot. Our T, the Split T – unveiled by Faurot in 1941 – introduced the option play and revolutionized college football.

Though golfer Stan Utley was utterly amazing and women’s hoops star Evan Unrau was simply unreal, U is for Ray Uriarte, a first team All-American at third base in 1958. And in this election year, it would be a traveshamockery not to acknowledge that V is for Vogt, Paul “Deerfoot” Vogt, the high-jumping, high-scoring center who helped to lead Missouri basketball to regional and national prominence at the time of the first World War.

W is a paradox in and of itself. One letter, three syllables. And the choice for W’s letterman is no less paradoxical. Gridiron greats Wehrli and Winslow continue to maintain high fame despite being mere consensus All-Americans, while the clear but hardly obvious choice – 1921 national basketball player of the year George Williams – rests in peaceful obscurity.

If Christmas can be Xmas, our X-man can be Pitchin’ Paul Christman – err, Xman – the golden boy of the first golden age of Mizzou football, and the third-place finisher in the 1939 Heisman Trophy balloting.

Who is Y? In the higher-profile sports, the pickings get slim toward the end of the alphabet, thus giving us opportunity to branch out and recognize someone who gave considerable sweat for comparatively little glory, like Margaret Yanics, who all but owned the volleyball record book at career’s end in 1988.

A handful of Z’s have worn the Missouri uniform through the years, but we’ll save the last letter for you, the fans, who on six Saturdays a year, turn an old football field into The Zou.