~1988
At some point, I ended up with a key chain, one with one of those awesome, old-school, strutting tigers with the hats. It was, as far as I can remember, my first real, physical Mizzou thing, something I could bring to school in my backpack. And I did so every day.
Because of general anti-social tendencies, I had already adopted Missouri by this point, despite the Tigers' awful recent record, despite their total absence from televised football, despite growing up around OU fans in western Oklahoma. But there was no internet, no way to keep up with their results beyond reading the tiny box score in the Daily Oklahoman.