It was the fall of 1945.
V-J Day was just about a month in the rearview mirror. The Joan Crawford noir vehicle Mildred Pierce was spellbinding cinemagoers. Perry Como’s “Til the End of Time” was making people swoon the country over.
And, in Columbia, Missouri, Tigers football coach Chauncey Simpson was having a bit of a problem.
His gridders had started off the seasons with consecutive road drubbings at the hands of Minnesota (34-0) and Ohio State (47-6).
Whatever the PowerMizzou of that day was (a couple guys sitting at the soda counter?