SPRINGFIELD, Mo. • The video cameras had been packed away and the big, buzzing vans with the satellite towers had pulled off the Hillcrest High School parking lot. The school's gymnasium was no longer packed with pom-pom holding cheerleaders and brass-blowing band members. The students had returned to class.

Forty-five minutes earlier, Dorial Green-Beckham, the most-wanted 2012 football recruit in the country, had stood in front of a microphone in a black shirt and white tie and made the crowd lean forward and fall silent when he said. "I will be continuing my education at … " He left the word hanging then took a black and gold Missouri hat out from beneath a table and put it on his head.

And just like that, the most anticipated announcement of the 2012 national signing day was over. Just like that, the University of Missouri beat out Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma and mostly Arkansas and secured its first No. 1 recruit since signing Florissant running back Tony VanZant in 1986.

But how?

Tracy Beckham answers that question with a story from five years ago.

It was a summer day, and her husband. John Beckham, took his foster son Dorial Green to a one-day Missouri football camp in Springfield. The boy did not yet own the 6-foot-6, 220-pound frame he has now, but his size misrepresented his age. It always has.

"What school do you go to?" Missouri offensive coordinator David Yost asked.

"I go to Reed," Dorial replied.

"Reed?" Yost responded, puzzled.

Tracy Beckham's smile flashes now. She explains that Yost soon found out that the kid who caught his eye was only 14 years old at the time, and that Reed was not an unknown high school, but a Springfield middle school.

"They (Missouri) have been around a long time," she adds.

According to Green-Beckham and his family, there was no single event or dramatic realization that resulted in the star receiver picking Missouri. Similar to the process that led Green-Beckham to identify with his adopted family, his college decision was based on the growth of a relationship over time and a connection with Mizzou that continued after that first meeting with Yost, who offered a scholarship after Green-Beckham's freshman year.

It was 2006 when Dorial and his younger brother, Darnell, moved into the house that sits on 60 acres of Springfield countryside. Originally from St. Louis, the brothers had bounced between group homes and family members in St. Louis and Springfield before finding themselves in the care of experienced foster parents John and Tracy Beckham. As a result of his Hillcrest football coaching job, John Beckham had temporarily housed an older brother of Dorial and Darnell. When he found out the two younger brothers needed help, the Beckham family made room. Slowly, a relationship grew. Dorial and Darnell Green started calling John Beckham "Dad" instead of "Coach." Tracy Beckham became "Mom." In 2009, the brothers asked the couple to officially adopt them.

Now known as Green-Beckham, Dorial's football career thrived. He took his first varsity pass for a touchdown. Teams tried to double- and triple-team him. They failed. By the start of his senior season, Rivals.com had named him the No. 1 player in the class of 2012, and every coach had heard about the can't-miss player from Springfield.

Offers flowed in, and Green-Beckham explored his options. He visited campuses, mingled with head coaches and NFL stars. The nation's attention never strayed. The dates of his campus visits were often leaked online. Paparazzi photos surfaced and spread over recruiting websites. Speculation reigned supreme as John Beckham struggled to maintain as much privacy as possible.

"I've heard Oklahoma is leading. I've heard Arkansas is leading. This team is in. This team is out. But you really never heard any of that from Dorial or myself," Beckham said. "People just make speculations. Somebody would put it on the Internet and it became a fact."

After setting a national record for career receiving yards (6,356) and winning nearly every national player of the year award imaginable, Green-Beckham cut his list of potential schools to Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. His final two campus visits came back-to-back at Arkansas then Missouri. On Monday, Green-Beckham told John and Tracy Beckham he wanted to go to Missouri. He slept on it and felt the same way again Tuesday. He announced his decision to his family.

"We all got in the living room and had a discussion," Darnell Green-Beckham said.

John Beckham had planned to make a pro-con list on the school his son picked. That list never happened. The family was in agreement.

"At the end of the day, Dorial just felt more comfortable with Coach (David) Yost, Coach (Gary) Pinkel and Coach (Andy) Hill," John Beckham said. "Those are just people he's been around, really since middle school."

For the Beckham family, a stable coaching staff was important. Some recruits sign on only to find out the coach they built ties with got fired or switched schools. An example is Garrick McGee, the offensive coordinator at Arkansas for the past two seasons who left the Razorbacks in December to become the head football coach at University of Alabama at Birmingham. John Beckham acknowledged McGee's move might have made an impact on Green-Beckham's decision.

Missouri's coaching consistency is one Tracy Beckham admired.

"Their coaching staff is one of the most stable in the entire nation," she said. "That's a big part of it. Coach Hill (Missouri's wide receivers coach) has coached for years there. They're not going anywhere. He is not going to have huge coaching staff changes. They're all content with their spots."

Another important aspect was completely out of the desiring schools' control. Green-Beckham wanted to stay close to his family. This requirement hurt Alabama and Texas, a school John Beckham said he and his son both liked.

"Despite Dorial and Darnell's age, we, on a relationship level are still a young family," Beckham said. "We need to, as a family, experience this with him. We just felt that if he was in Texas we wouldn't be able to do that. But at Missouri, we could."

The 170-mile, three-hour drive from Springfield to Columbia gave Missouri an advantage over every school other than Arkansas.

"That helps a lot," Darnell Green-Beckham said. "We can come to all of his home games."

It is the combination of a close relationship forged over time, a sense of consistency and a close proximity that led Dorial Green-Beckham to Missouri. Other schools offered some of each. But none offered them all.

"It was really important for me to pick the University of Missouri," Green-Beckham said Wednesday. "Not just because it's home, but for the people that have encouraged me the past few years."

It was Missouri that found him in the beginning. And it was Missouri that made it to the end.