In the final hours Tuesday of a tight and tense campaign for Missouri state senate that fell short, Martin T. Rucker II stood clad in a University of Missouri stocking cap and Royals jacket as he courted voters in the chill outside the polling precinct at Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Among the dozen or so stops the radiant former Chief and Missouri All-American tight end made that day, maybe none presented more of a kaleidoscope of his life, illuminated his sense of purpose in running and spoke to the peculiarities of politics as we know them.
Appearing between shifts here by his forever community-devoted parents, Rucker found affirmation and encouragement from former coaches, teachers, a band leader, parents of schoolmates, a man who reminded him he had once fished in his back yard and inquisitive voters he seemed to charm not just with style but with substance.