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The season-opener is four days away, but Missouri’s coaching staff already has made a puzzling choice.
Quarterback Maty Mauk and center Evan Boehm launched a commendable undertaking this spring, recruiting fellow Missouri offensive linemen to join their “Beards and Mullets” movement. The duo even revealed their surefire strategy at SEC Media Days in July.
Apparently associate head coach/quarterbacks coach (and unwise heathen) Andy Hill slayed the movement, resisting all attempts at reason from more enlightened gentlemen.
“It’s dead,” Boehm announced Monday in a shocking development at the Mizzou Athletics Training Complex.
Boehm and the offensive line retained a sliver of their dignity by keeping the beards and shaving their heads, as Tod Palmer of the Kansas City Star reported.
Everyone in the position group apparently complied with the exception of Connor McGovern, perhaps a brainwashing victim of the draconian Hill.
“Coach Hill kept on telling Maty that the beards and mullets wasn’t going to happen,” Boehm said. “We were trying to push it and we were trying to push it, but he stuck with the answer no.
“Out of respect to coach Hill and the coaches not wanting Maty to do the beards and mullets, the offensive line decided … to grow the beards out and shave their head.”
Life is about silver linings, even in the face of senseless loss. Boehm and the offensive line are trying to stay positive, embracing their shaved heads as a method to combat the heat.
It’s a slippery slope, of course. One day you’re forcing your players to avoid terrible hair and feel shame about their unkempt facial hair. The next day the same players are shying away from blocks and faking injuries. The loss of strength is a given. It’s biblical. Have you ever heard of Sampson and Delilah?
It’s probably OK for the South Dakota State game, but Missouri fans must hope Hill and the coaching staff reverse field before SEC play begins.
We should all break from our mourning to tip our caps to Boehm, who managed to summon the will power to tow the company line despite his obvious sorrow.
“It disappointed me,” Boehm said. “It really did. But you know what, you have to respect what the coaches say. I think this new look looks just as good as the beards and mullets does.”
An itinerant journalist, Christopher has moved between states 11 times in seven years. Formally an injury-prone Division I 800-meter specialist, he now wanders the Rockies in search of high peaks.
