COLUMBIA — Starting in the era of long-sleeved football jerseys and 25-cent hot dogs, Murray Olderman spent his days hanging around big league athletes, writing stories and transforming the players into cartoon versions of themselves for newspapers and card decks.
Olderman's professional career as a sports cartoonist and journalist began in 1947 after his time as an intelligence officer in World War II. He started off as a rookie in 1941, when he published his first illustration in the Columbia Missourian as a journalism student in his junior year at MU. The drawing depicted Bob Steuber, a halfback on the Missouri football team.