Mizzou Tigers coaches talked sports with KC fans ... in person. What they said

The event was known as the Tiger Takeover. Missouri coaches and athletic administrators came to Chicken N Pickle in North Kansas City to greet fans, tell stories and preview teams. Standard goodwill stuff.

Except for this: Tuesday marked the first such occasion since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down sports and mostly shut in fans more than a year ago. Jackson County eased its mask mandate last Friday. The restaurant limited seating to 150.

Mizzou football coach Eli Drinkwitz said this was his first face-to-face meeting reporters since early 2020.

“Not on a cell phone or zoom,” Drinkwitz said.

So it was for men’s basketball coach Cuonzo Martin, women’s hoops coach Robin Pingeton and athletic director Jim Sterk, making the rounds with tables of black-and-gold fans.

The games have gone on in the past year, but with limited schedules and attendance. Tuesday felt like how sports interactions were enjoyed before the shutdown.

Including with reporters.

Kansas City television stations traded interview subjects, and one delivered a live shot.

There was plenty to catch up on.

Drinkwitz just hired his second former NFL head coach, Scott Lineman. He joins the staff as an offensive consultant. That gives Lineman a limited role with players but he’s staying busy.

“Yesterday he and I spent three hours watching red zone offense and working on how we can improve in the red zone,” Drinkwitz said. “But he can give us ideas and we take it to the meeting room.”

Lineman, who spent three seasons as the St. Louis Rams head coach, joins former Arizona Cardinals coach Steve Wilks on the Tigers’ staff, and Drinkwitz was asked if he knew of another program employing two former NFL head coaches.

“There’s one,” Drinkwitz reminded. “Alabama. That’s it. They got two. We got two. Not that I knew that.”

Indeed, added to Nick Saban’s staff this year are former Houston Texans’ coach Bill O’Brien and Doug Marrone of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Saban is also a former NFL head coach.

Martin, who took the Tigers to the NCAA Tournament in his fourth season, is reshaping his team after losing six players to the transfer portal, gaining four and hopeful to soon award the final available scholarship.

Embracing the coming and going was the only approach, Martin said.

“We were prepared for it as a staff,” Martin said. “We didn’t run current guys off the team. Those guys felt like they wanted to do something that was better for them. It was helpful for us to get players we felt could help our team.”

The transfer portal — populated with student-athletes who were granted an additional year of eligibility because of the pandemic, graduate students and anybody else who wanted a change of scenery — is just another new issue confronting college sports.

The loss of revenue because of the pandemic and athletes soon to cash in on their name, image and likeness — Missouri became the latest state to pass a law that is set to begin in August — have changed the college sports game.

“I found in my planner graphs of when they thought the virus was going to decrease,” Sterk said. “And I’m like when did athletic directors have to start looking at pandemic graphs?

“It’s kind of worn everyone out.”

But on Tuesday, as Sterk shook hands and posed for photos, things seemed a little more normal.