Every year, about 4,000 teenagers enroll as freshmen at the University of Missouri. Another 75,000 or so babies are born to families in the state. Many of those poor young people are doomed, in the sense that by virtue of their birthplace or their college admittance they will cheer for the Missouri Tigers.
I was both born in Missouri and chose to attend graduate school at Mizzou. I am twice cursed. I don’t remember the Fifth Down Game—I was about to turn three—but I lived through Frank Haith’s tenure as basketball coach and the loss to Norfolk State, the checkered career of former No.