Game Day!

When we first started making plans to leave on this journey, there were two things that were fairly firm in our itinerary. We had reservations for Walt Disney World starting Sept. 21 and the Missouri/Illinois football game in St. Louis on Sept. 1. Although we have waivered back and forth on our WDW trip, seeing the Missouri Tigers was a date that was always firm. There is nothing like college football especially games on a college campus. Over the years we have seen Syracuse at Boston College, BYU at New Mexico, Notre Dame at Southern Cal, Miami at Clemson, Missouri at College Station, some no name team at LSU, and even flew back to Columbia, MO, four years ago to see Nebraska take on the Tigers. We actually discussed following the Missouri football team around this fall and also going to different campuses to take in the football scene. Since this is our first year out, we decided not to be so ambitious but wouldn't be surprised if next year we report from South Bend, Knoxville, Tuscaloosa, or one of the many other football hotbeds!

Although the University of Missouri has struggled on the gridiron since the mid-80s, we have always followed them closely. Russ remembers the days during the 60s when his father and friends would drive from St. Louis to catch the Tigers. Each year Russ got to go to one game and has many fond memories of those day trips. In fact he says he never considered going to another school as fall Saturdays in Columbia with the air crisp and the leaves turning colors are hard to beat. Missouri has a proud football tradition and during the decade of the 60s no college team won more football games than our beloved Tigers. In the "old days" schools did not schedule the patsies that they do today, and there was always a Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan, USC, Alabama, UCLA, and the likes on their schedule. Adding the annual battles against Oklahoma and Nebraska insured that Missouri played one of the toughest schedules in the country year after year. Throughout the 70s the Tigers continued the tradition of playing national powers and produced wins over #2 Nebraska, #2 Ohio State, #2 Alabama, #2 Nebraska (again), #3 Nebraska, #4 USC, #5 Notre Dame, #7 Arizona State, #7 Colorado, and #8 Notre Dame, during a 6 year period. For our Baton Rouge friends who believe that college football begins and ends with the SEC, Missouri is 17-8-1 against SEC teams. Included in that is a victory over LSU in their only meeting.

Don Faurot served as football coach from 1935 through 1956. His prime contribution to football was his innovation of the Split-T formation at Mizzou in 1941. In the post-World War II era countless universities adopted the Faurot formation — and more than 60 years later, it is still in vogue today at all levels of football. Several of football’s most notable formations — the Wishbone, Wingbone, Veer or I-attack and others — utilize Faurot’s option play as their basic concept. Missouri is also credited with starting a tradition in 1911 that almost all colleges and universities celebrate today. Yes, Columbia, MO, was the site of the first homecoming game!

Enough about the history....IT'S GAME DAY!!

We committed to taking the RV downtown to tailgate before the 2:30 kickoff. Like all big cities the streets downtown are narrow and congested, so we left the KOA Campground at 6am in order to be there when the gates opened at 7. We had looked at our route the previous week when we had been downtown to ensure that there would be no issues in driving a 40 ft. bus there. Everything was going fine until we got to our turn on First Street and found that it had been blocked off and was being used as a tailgate venue. John, who was with us, said just to go down to Wharf Street and we could go around. After traveling about 10 ft., the RV came to a screeching halt as Russ noticed the clearance of the bridge at the bottom of the street was 12 ft. 3 in. Normally this would not be a problem, but with the RV being 12 ft. 10 in. high, it would have definitely put a damper on the day if we would have continued! With nowhere to go, Russ chose the only option available and made a U-turn right in the middle of Washington Street! Too bad we don't have a picture of that!! After some more maneuvering, we finally made it to our tailgate lot and set up for the day's festivities.

We had arranged for 12 tickets together for the game and anticipated another 10 or 12 people joining us for the tailgate. Since we had arrived early, we had more than enough time to organize the food and drink for our party. I cooked breakfast for the four of us, and we spent the next couple hours drinking coffee and getting ready for the big game. Russ had an open beer in his hand at 8:30 so I guess that officially marked the beginning of our party! Most of our group arrived around 10:00, and by 11 the lot was full with equal number of Missouri and Illinois fans singing their school fight songs. Along with all the usual standbys, Russ grilled some chicken wings, beer brats, and Italian sausage. Many beers were had by all and even a few shots of Wild Turkey were consumed by the guys for old times sake!

At about 1:30 it was time to head up to the Edward Jones Dome, home of the St. Louis Rams, and get ready for kickoff. Russ said he would use game time to sober up as we still needed to drive home that evening! Our RV friend, Scott, stayed behind with the dogs and said that he enjoyed the quiet time away from the other chaos as it was his first college tailgate party.

The Tigers won beating Illinois 40-34 in a game that should not have been that close. Illinois staged a second half rally from 24 points down, and it wasn't until the Tigers intercepted a pass in the endzone with less than a minute to go that victory was secured. One of the great basketball rivalries is the annual Braggin' Rights Game in St. Louis each December between Missouri and Illinois. The tickets are as hard to come by as any in sports with one half of the arena in black and gold and the other orange and blue. The Missouri/Illinois football game is scheduled to be in St. Louis for the next five years, and on Sat. over 62,000 fans again split the Dome down the center adorning their team colors. College football....ya gotta love it!!

After the game, we returned to the parking lot to munch and have a few more cocktails while waiting for traffic to clear. The baseball Cardinals game a few blocks down the street was starting just as the football game ended so downtown was full of happy Mizzou fans, disappointed Illini fans, and excited Cardinals fans in the midst of another pennant race. We watched about half of the Cardinals game on the outdoor TV joined by many Illini fans who were also interested in seeing how the birds were doing. About 8:30 we were all packed up and started on an uneventful trip back to the KOA. It was a long day but well worth the effort.