The Kansas City Star recently ran an article looking back at what Missouri had done in sports this decade. I found interesting that about one fourth of the article was devoted to talking about the scandals and unrest at Missouri.
In the span of eight seasons, from 2002 to 2009, Missouri played in two Elite Eight rounds of the NCAA Tournament. In between those stellar seasons, though, the Tigers suffered through the Ricky Clemons affair, which was one of the most public and humiliating periods of any college basketball program.
Tiger fans would love to forget the jailhouse tapes, when even the wives of an assistant athletic director and the university’s system president were acting like Kansas fans cracking on Missouri’s misery.
Ultimately, Missouri was handed sanctions for employing out-of-control young coaches who made questionable decisions, some of them against NCAA rules.
But it was not only the coaching staff and a couple of “crackers shaking” comments that embarrassed Mizzou.There was also the untimely Board of Curators meeting, which was called to consider firing athletic director Mike Alden over his handling of Quin Snyder’s ouster and occurred on the same day that Alden was to introduce Mike Anderson as Missouri’s new basketball coach.
I guess Missouri follows the adage of “No publicity is bad publicity”. This did get me thinking about the best moments of Tiger demise in the past decade. Was it David Padgett’s last second shot to close down the Hearnes center? Was it Todd Reesing’s pass the Kerry Meier in the closing seconds of the 2008 Border War? Or was the Ricky Clemons’ fiasco the best way to expose the country to Missouri’s blundering ways. Weigh in and let me know what your favorite MU embarrassment was.
