
Hey Tiger fans! Here's another SAAC update from our meeting last Thursday:
We began the meeting with a quick game taken from the TV show "Minute to Win It". Dice needed to be put into piles of 2, 3, and 4 using a Styrofoam cup to shake the dice onto the stack. The two finalists were Jake Glore and Nate McComick, the two wrestling SAAC reps, with Jake Glore prevailing in the end. It was a good way to have a little fun before the meeting began.
Next, we had Emily Jannssen and Scott Nielson from marketing come present to us the new theme for Missouri Athletics: "One Mizzou". This new slogan will represent the idea that we are truly one team, united. A lot of the student-athletes in SAAC gave positive feedback and are looking forward to the implementation of this new theme.
Tyler Looney also came to the meeting to give a quick dining hall update. There is a possibility of getting "Red Mango" frozen yogurt samples in the dining hall...everyone was excited about that! Hopefully this will be implemented soon!
Alicia Hatcher had several updates: calendars with upcoming events were handed out to the SAAC reps, along with enough to pass out to their teammates. Also, for senior retreat, it has been decided that there will be a bonfire at Stephens Lake. It will be fun and seniors are encouraged to attend. National Student-Athlete Day is coming up; this is where Mizzou athletes will get a chance to hang out and play with some Special Olympics athletes from the Columbia area. The last two years have been a success, so we are looking forward to this event on April 9th. Lastly, Alicia handed out descriptions and expectations for the officer positions; we will be making our speeches and voting for next year's officers at the meeting on March 10th.
Jamie Mera and Terry Dennis gave us an update of the Life Skills and community service events coming up soon: The career fair will be Wednesday, March 2nd from 9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. at the Reynold's Alumni Center on campus. There will also be a networking reception to follow at 5:30 p.m. in Faurot Field's Tiger Longue. Student-Athletes are encouraged to attend, and will be awarded double Tiger Cup points for doing so. Student-athletes have also been given the opportunity to volunteer at Midway Elementary School; they need to contact Lindsey McCoy to set up specific times to go over to the school.
That's all for now. As the semester continues, keep checking back for more SAAC updates! MIZ...
Allie Heizelman
University of Missouri, Nutritional Sciences
Co-President - Student-Athlete Advisory Committee
Missouri Women's Gymnastics

LINCOLN, Neb. - The Mizzou track and field team wrapped up competition at the 2011 Big 12 Indoor Championships on Saturday (Feb. 26) and got huge performances from several student-athletes, including Lars Rise (Trondheim, Norway) and Laura Roxberg (Overland Park, Kan.) as both finished as the runner-up in their respective events. Rise took second in the heptathlon with a personal-best point total of 5,756 points while Roxberg took second in the 1,000m run at 2:45.56. In all, the Tigers had four second-place finishers at the meet and saw 14 additional athletes earn All-Big 12 honors in 11 different events on Saturday.
All-Big 12 Honorees - Day Two - Men
Lars Rise - Second - Heptathlon
Aaron Dixon - Third - 1,000m Run
Aaron Dixon - Eighth - 4x400m Relay
Corey Jones - Sixth - Shot Put
Tre' Chambers - Seventh - 60m Dash
Tre' Chambers - Seventh - 200m
Blake Irwin - Eighth - 800m Run
Mark Hughes - Eighth - 800m Run
Chris Davis - Eighth - 4x400m Relay
Jon Hughes - Eighth - 4x400m Relay
Tucker Bounds - Eighth - 4x400m Relay
All-Big 12 Honorees - Day Two - Women
Laura Roxberg - Second - 1,000m Run
Leslie Farmer - Eighth - 4x400m Relay
Lana Mims - Eighth - 4x400m Relay
Layne Moore - Eighth - 4x400m Relay
Sierra Gant - Eighth - 4x400m Relay

Austin, Tex.— In the first final of the night, Dominique Bouchard made history for Mizzou, winning the conference title in the 200 back in 1:52.02. Her time not only won her the event, it set a meet record and a new Big 12 Conference record, topping the previous record of 1:52.35 she set earlier this year.
Bouchard’s win is the first ever championship for Missouri in the 200 back, and the first swimming event championship since Kayla Durnil took the 200 breast title in 2009. It is only the fourth women’s swimming championship in school history.
Bouchard was also a member of Friday night’s third-place 400 medley relay, which set a new University record time. She also placed fifth in the 100 back and sixth in the 200 IM earlier in the meet.
When combined with Loren ‘Figgy’ Figueroa’s 1-meter diving championship, won last night, Bouchard’s victory is even more historic. Bouchard and Figueroa’s wins mark the first time in school history the Tigers have won multiple events at the Big 12 Championships in the same year.
Previous wins have come one at a time—Matt Ferrarelli in 2001 (400 IM), Mariona Costa in 2002 (100 breast),Rebecca Wolfe in 2003 (200 fly), Kayla Melnychuk in 2008 (platform dive), and Kayla Durnil in 2009 (200 breast).
Last night, Loren ‘Figgy’ Figueroa brought Missouri something no other diver ever has-- a Big 12 Championship in the 1-meter dive. Her score of 335.15 was not only enough to win her the championship, it also set a meet record by more than 5 points.
The Championship is the first ever for Missouri in the 1-meter dive, and just the second diving championship overall for the school. Kayla Melnychuk previously won the platform diving championship in 2008 with a 284.00. Figgy took second place Thursday night in the 3-meter dive as well, scoring 340.40.


Saturday, February 19, 2011
A year ago Missouri assistant track coach Dan Lefever wasn’t sure if he’d ever see Brian Hancock pole vault again. Years of vaulting and weightlifting had punished the senior All-American’s lower back, causing two stress fractures in his L5 vertebrae.
The prescription was just as painful: No pole vaulting for a year.
That meant two seasons on the sideline — the 2010 indoor and outdoor campaigns.
“We weren’t really sure if he would be able to get back to full form,” Lefever said yesterday.
“My senior year,” Hancock said, “just disappeared on me.”
That chapter in Hancock’s MU career explains yesterday’s euphoric celebration inside the Hearnes Center fieldhouse.
On his second attempt at 17 feet, 7¾ inches at the Missouri Collegiate Challenge, Hancock cleared the bar but tapped it just enough for a wobble, leaving the crowd breathless as he watched from the mat below.
“I clipped it a little bit, but I thought I had a shot,” he said later.
He did. The bar snuggled into place on the standard for a new Missouri indoor record. Hancock broke his own school mark in the event (17-7¼), last set during the 2009 indoor season.
“It wasn’t my most technical jump in the world,” he said, “but it went down as a make and a make is all that matters in the end.”
The record-breaking vault stands as the best by a Big 12 athlete this year and should establish Hancock as a favorite at next week’s Big 12 Championships in Lincoln, Neb. Even better for the fifth-year senior, he most likely clinched a spot in next month’s NCAA Indoor Championships. Yesterday’s mark is the seventh-best height eclipsed by a vaulter this season.
“I came into the season with a goal of getting my mark and getting it over with so I knew I was in nationals and I could relax and just focus on jumping high,” Hancock said. “Second-to-last meet of the year I get it. Almost every meet of the year I’ve at least had a shot at this bar. So it’s nice to finally put one together, especially in front of my home crowd.”
Hancock hoped to treat the crowd to another broken record, but he fell short in three attempts at 18-0½. On the final attempt the bar cracked him on the head after he nicked it off the standard. But a bump on the head couldn’t spoil the performance Hancock had been chasing since his back abandoned him last year.
“Like a lot of sports, if your back is hurting, it can debilitate you,” said Lefever, MU’s associate head coach who specializes in the jumps and combined events. “It’s like a golfer swinging a golf club. You can’t do that with a bad back. And that’s just holding a stick. You run full force and put a 15-foot pole into an immovable object — that’s a lot of force going through your body. And if you’ve got any pain in your back, it’s really hard to do.”
After sitting out last spring’s outdoor season — the injury required only rest, not surgery — Hancock refined his technique last summer while gradually getting back into shape. The rest and preparation have contributed to what’s become his most productive season at MU.
“It’s kind of clichéd,” Lefever said, “but the silver lining is it’s helped him become a better vaulter than he was before. It forced him to make some changes.”
He wasn’t the only Missouri standout during yesterday’s meet, which also served as the American Midwest Conference championship meet. Freshman Kearsten Peoples swept the weight throw (60-3) and shot put (48-0½), while teammate Chris Holly won the men’s weight throw (61-9¾) and MU’s Corey Jones won the shot put (56-6½).
Missouri’s Leslie Farmer captured the 600-yard run, setting a meet record with a time of 1 minute, 23.13 seconds, her second-best time of the season. Also for MU, Tre Chambers won the 60 meters with a meet-record time (6.84 seconds), also his second-fastest time this season.
MU sophomore pole vaulter Heather Green smashed the meet record with a personal-best height of 12-6.
“It was exactly the type of meet that we needed heading into Big 12s,” MU Coach Brett Halter said. “We had a lot of big things happen in the field events today, and we were able to give tune-ups to the people on the track that needed them.”

Irving, Texas—The Big 12 Conference, in conjunction with Chick-fil-A has announced the Winter Community of Champions. During the fall, winter and spring terms, one student-athlete from each institution is honored based on the following criteria:
Academics: An academic standard of a 3.00 grade point average or higher must be maintained.
Community Service: The designated student-athlete should be involved with at least one community service program. The program(s) could be a student organization on campus or within the athletics department.
Leadership/Sportsmanship: The student-athlete should demonstrate leadership and sportsmanship on and off the field.
The institution of the student-athletes’ on this list will be awarded $3,000 each year from Chick-fil-A for their efforts.


