Anyone who knows him well will tell you that Gary Pinkel always has been one of those here-and-now kind of guys. He hates reflecting on the past, always preferring to live in the moment or continually press ahead. It's always the next play, next game, next season, next achievement.
"I just don't look back," the square-jawed Mizzou football coach said. "I've lived my whole professional life like that."
But here he was doing just that and he couldn't help himself. A room full of giddy boosters were upstairs at a private dinner inside the Edward Jones building in Des Peres, and they couldn't wait to hear Pinkel reflect on one of the seminal moments in Mizzou football history. What does it all mean when MU football is good enough to go big-game hunting on the high school recruiting trail and come away with the biggest prize of them all? What does it mean when his primary professional life's mission — making Missouri football stand for something special — is so close he can almost taste it?
What does it mean when Pinkel knows that over the past few weeks, a series of fortunate events keep happening to MU athletics, giving the football and basketball programs maximum brand-name exposure?
"It's been a pretty good few weeks for us, hasn't it?" Pinkel said Tuesday evening just before the annual Football Recruiting Night dinner with the St. Louis Tiger Club. "After (the nation's top football recruit Dorial Green-Beckham) made that announcement that he was signing with us on national TV, (director of athletics) Mike Alden came over to me and sat down. His eyes were watering a little bit and said to me 'Remember the Michigan State game?'"
Of course he remembered the Michigan State game, and so do we. It was the last game of Pinkel's first season at Missouri, when the Tigers went to East Lansing and lost 55-7. It was the moment when the program hit rock bottom before beginning the long climb back to respectability.
"I had players quit on me that game," Pinkel said. "They just quit. That had never happened to me before. Never. That was the lowest point, that was as bad as it could get."
But now the Tigers are on their way to the SEC, football's most demanding college conference. Pinkel has a football program that he is confident will not only play in the SEC, not only compete in the league, but ultimately win big in the SEC. Yeah, things certainly have changed a lot around here. It remains to be seen whether Pinkel delivers on those lofty goals, but he certainly has everyone's attention.
That's what happens when you land the top player in the country and two of the best players in the state. That's what happens when the talking heads on ESPN spend time on National Signing Day shows breathlessly praising Pinkel's recruiting class.
It's called confirmation. It's called credibility.
"In the last five years, a lot has changed," Pinkel said. "We've graduated 96 percent of the players. We're in the top 10 in wins in the nation. A lot of things are in place (for the program). But a lot of things still need to happen. We've won divisional championships but not league championships. We haven't won a (SEC) championship or a national championship yet. But we're constantly growing."
The growth from the mere resurrection of a program to becoming a major player in the ultimate power conference is the next great step for Pinkel and the Tigers. The implication here is that Pinkel has prepared his program well enough to take the next step. A decade ago, he was fighting a sad losing culture among the fan base, frustrated when they gave him "atta boys" every time Mizzou came close to beating a Nebraska or Oklahoma or Texas, as if coming close was an accomplishment.
Back then Pinkel's face used to turn furnace red when he was confronted with that acceptance of mediocrity.
"I used to have to tell people all the time, 'We're not here to just do the best we can. We're here to develop a program,'" he said.
Mission accomplished. The program is set. Now comes the real heavy lifting. The Tigers have flirted occasionally with life in the BCS's upper tier, but haven't finished the job. But Missouri football is a decidedly better place than when Pinkel arrived in 2001. It's the sort of program that can go big-game hunting on the recruiting trail. If MU wins enough of those hunts in some of the best prime recruiting areas in the country, you start putting together a program that can win consistently in the mighty SEC.
"We're getting our brand name down in Atlanta. We're in South Florida, Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando," Pinkel said. "But we're back to like we were when we first went into Texas. You have to sell yourself. They have a great pride in the SEC down there (in Georgia and Florida) and you're welcome down there. But it's just like when we first went into Texas, and the coaches would tell us, 'Okay these (five-star) guys are going to Texas, Oklahoma and A&M. You can't talk to them. But you can look at these guys.' Well, they don't do that in Texas anymore. They say, 'These are our best guys, go recruit them.' Well, now when we go into SEC territory to recruit, we hear, 'Well, these guys are going to Alabama or Auburn. But you can talk to these guys.'"
Pinkel chuckles when he tells you this. He doesn't take it personal. Instead, he takes it as a personal challenge.
"It's okay," he said. "We have to prove ourselves. Any time you go into someplace new, you have to prove yourselves, you have to earn respect."
And Pinkel can't wait to do that. He can't wait for the first spring practice, for the next big recruiting trip, the next new challenge. He and his coaches already are working on drilling the new cultural message into the players' heads as they embark on this new SEC adventure.
The past is over. The future is now.
"That's all we've been talking about to our football team," Pinkel said. "That's what it's all about. Proving ourselves. No one knows us in the SEC. We have to earn their respect, and that's exactly what we're going to do."
