The 2020-21 year of Mizzou sports provided plenty of memorable snapshots, some impressive debuts and promise for the future. But there was immeasurable loss, too. The coronavirus pandemic swept games off the schedule, emptied arenas and stadiums around Columbia and took athletes and coaches off the fields of competition for days, sometimes weeks at a time because of positive COVID tests and contact tracing.
A year ago, the college sports calendar was in jeopardy. But teams salvaged some semblance of schedules while taking massive revenue hits from all those empty seats. Nothing was normal about the latest school year in Mizzou athletics.
Only reduced crowds at Memorial Stadium could witness the arrival of football coach Eli Drinkwitz, who managed a .500 record during an ever-shifting conference-only regular season, only to have one last COVID surge keep the Tigers from playing in the bowl game to which they had been invited.
