He would become Mizzou’s career leading tackler, a husband and father and, ultimately, Mizzou’s defensive coordinator. But here was DeMontie Cross, 20 and dying.
“What I remember is laying down on the ground on someone saying, ‘Hey, he’s bleeding bad!’” Cross recalled during a quiet moment with me last week. “The next thing I know, I started to lose consciousness. I was light-headed. And then I just kind of blacked out.”
It was a lifetime ago. He’s 41 now. When the St. Louis native was hired to run the defense for which he once played, he said: “Mizzou is in my blood.