This past week the baseball beat writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch took it on himself to attack the Missouri football program and it's fans. I decided to take the writer, Joe Strauss to task. Here is his original article followed by my email to him a day later.
Football Lite is the reason fans don't flock to MU By Joe Strauss ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 11/07/2007
If a No. 7 national ranking doesn't confirm Missouri's rise as at least a passing football power, Tigers coach Gary Pinkel offered irrefutable validation earlier this week. Pinkel defined his fan base.
"You have the seventh-ranked team in the United States of America. If we don't have 65,000, something is wrong," Pinkel (said) Tuesday night.
No matter if it's the first day of deer hunting season or the arrival of some gawdawful Texas A&M team and its tipsheet-selling coach, the Tigers' head whistle-blower believes fans should measure up to their team and attend Senior Day at Faurot Field on Saturday.
Pinkel could argue that an 8-1 team featuring an entertaining offense and a quarterback who deserves mention among the 10 most deserving Heisman Trophy candidates should enjoy overflow commitment from a long-starved fan base.
"This game is important," said Pinkel, who has yet to identify one as unimportant. "Fans make a difference. Great fans don't care who you play. They don't care if a team hasn't won a game or they've won all the games. They really don't care. It's more about their team and the team they're supporting."
Apparently great fans don't care that they've traditionally been fed a steady diet of non conference mush to complement the weaker division within a mid level power conference.
"Gimme a heapin' helpin' of that Illinois State (burp) to go with some Iowa State, then wash it down with some Western Michigan. The more directional and 'Football Championship Subdivision' schools the better."
Most of all, this is about self-perception. Mizzou makes no pretense about having established itself as a big boy. In many ways it still seeks an identity that mid level Southeastern Conference and Pac-10 schools long ago achieved. (Sorry, Ole Miss long ago landed in the SEC's Relegation League.)
An unscientific August survey of BCS conference schedules performed in the Busch Stadium press box concluded that Missouri and Kansas boasted the two weakest slates. The dividend is a top 10 ranking for each. The drag is that Pinkel must dare his fan base to show for Senior Day against a down-and-out conference foe.
"I think it's important first to build a culture of winning, a culture of being competitive, a culture of success," offers athletics director Mike Alden. "We're not talking about one year. I think you can revisit that at some point down the road."
Credit Alden for honesty. He makes no pretense about puffing up a 2008 home schedule that begins with Southeast Missouri, Nevada and Buffalo or that entices SMU for a home-and-home in 2009-10. El Tigres have three remaining open dates for 2010, four for 2011 and 2012, and five beyond that. Right now, Alden can't see deep enough into the future to predict a change in thinking.
"I think philosophically our intention would be to stay the course," Alden says, rightly noting the value of the Tigers' annual season opener against Illinois without savoring the value of, say, a home-and-home against Tennessee, Michigan or UCLA.
Alden mentions I-AA (the dreaded "FCS"), the WAC, the Sun Belt, Conference USA and the Mountain West as providing non conference filler for the foreseeable future. Tastes great, less filling.
Without huge non conference games, chances for national television exposure diminish. Recruiting remains confined. Give Chase Daniel the same numbers in the SEC and he doesn't have to buy a ticket to the Heisman announcement. Give him a bust-out performance against Penn State in September and maybe he takes the thing home.
"I think you have to consider that when you look at national recruiting," Alden concedes. "But are you winning? Regardless of whom you're playing, are you winning? It doesn't matter if you're playing Arkansas State or Arkansas. It matters that you win."
Alden believes the Internet and the crush of game day broadcasts make network coverage less relevant. "If you're winning, people are going to find you," he says. "I think the key is you're competitive and you're winning. That itself gives you a chance to get out there. It's not as critical to be out in Eugene, Ore., to have a greater presence."
But isn't greater presence exactly what Coach P. asks for this weekend?
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Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 2:13 PM
To: 'JStrauss@post-dispatch.com'
Subject: Your column shows that you are a biased man with no perspective or history
Hello Joe Strauss,
I have just finished reading your post on the stltoday.com web page attacking Missouri football and it’s fans and have to ask, first of all where does a guy who writes baseball get off attacking the football program of the state’s largest university? Do you really believe your lack of knowledge, perspective and history of Missouri athletics won’t be observed by the readers of your publication? Give us a break. We live here and there are more grads of Mizzou in the St. Louis area than any other institution. Your buddy Bernie Miklasz, a “Baltimore-Sun” carpetbagger, called for an easier schedule years ago. Both of you seem to be memory challenged. If you were just trying your hand at humor you failed miserably.
Stop showing your bias against the Missouri athletic department and fans. Miklasz, wrote the same column two weeks ago and was laughed at by Missouri fans the day of the Iowa State game. Don’t you have anything better to do than parrot Miklazs' lame column?
Stick with “covering” the Cardinals, and as long as you feel free to criticize Mizzou, I have a little constructive criticism for you too. Try getting off your butt and going into the visitor’s clubhouse every now and then. Baseball fans would like to see what the other team is thinking and not just read you quotes which are readily available on Fox Sports following every game. Oh, yeah and the visitors quotes are available on the Internet every day by going to the out of town publication covering the game. The Post-Disgrace may have a monopoly on the newspaper business in this town, but you have competition all over the net. Maybe it's why your circulation continues to decline in every metric employed.
If you have a justification for the excuse you call commentary let me know. Otherwise, I will attribute it to the bias of your managers or lack of effort on your part.
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Strauss responded in a personal email by thanking me for writing and telling me he was sorry he had challenged me "provincially".
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