Click on the picture below to read Grant Ressel's, of the Mizzou football team, story written by Laura Lindsey of the University of Missouri College of Arts and Science Department.

The Mizzou track and field/cross country program was honored by the US Track and Field/Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) for its academic success over the past calendar year. Both the men's and women's cross country teams were honored as All-Academic teams as fall grades have been announced. The women's cross country team earned a term grade-point-average of 3.467, earning the 44th-straight All-Academic honor for the Mizzou track and field/cross country program, doing so in every semester since the inception of the award 16 seasons ago. Mizzou is the only program in the nation to have accomplished that feat. The Tiger men's cross country team finished the fall semester with a term GPA of 3.06, earning the All-Academic award as well.

"We are certainly very excited about our women's team's continued great success in the classroom," head track and field coach Dr. Rick McGuire said. "I know that they take great pride in continuing the tradition of academic excellence that has long been the hallmark of Missouri track and field. This is not an individual thing, but a whole team recognition that has now extended through 16 years and literally several generations of women's track athletes. They've all done such a great job. We are Mizzou!"

Two members of the women's cross country team - Shannon Leinert (Eureka, Mo.) and Kaitie Vanatta (Littleton, Colo.) - earned a perfect 4.00 GPA during the fall 2009 semester, while Phillip King (Columbia, Mo.) brought home a perfect GPA for the men's team.

The success during the fall semester for the program did not stop with the cross country student-athletes. In all, the women's track and field team compiled a cumulative GPA of 3.289 and four others - Cortni Ervin (Marshall, Mo.), Leslie Farmer (Jefferson City, Mo.), Laura Greenfield (Liberty, Mo.) and Katie Vanarsdall (Buckner, Mo.) - all joined Leinert and Vanatta with perfect GPAs. The term GPA of 3.289 means that the women's program will garner its 45th-straight All-Academic team honor from the USTFCCCA when those are announced after the outdoor track and field season.

In all, 18 of the 40 women's track and field team members finished with a GPA better than 3.50 and 30 of the 40 women's track and field student-athletes finished with a GPA better than 3.00.

The Tiger track and field program is currently on winter break, but the team will return to Columbia for its first scheduled indoor meet of the season - the Missouri Invitational - on January 8th, inside the Hearnes Center Fieldhouse. That meet will begin at noon and will serve as the first of four home meets for the Tigers during the indoor season.

On behalf of the Total Person Program, we hope you have a safe and happy holiday season!

Commencement ceremonies were held this past weekend on the campus of the University of Missouri. Among the December 2009 graduates were 25 Mizzou student-athletes. These 25 student-athletes have embodied Mizzou’s core values of academic integrity, social responsibility and completive excellence during their time at MU.

Below is a list of those student-athletes who are now University of Missouri graduates.

Danario Alexander- Football
Jaron Baston- Football
Allison Bennett- Women’s Swimming & Diving
Ian Berger- Baseball
Stacy Delaney- Softball
Denaye Dollens- Women’s Golf
Mallory Forst- Soccer
Kurtis Gregory- Football
Amanda Hantouli- Volleyball
Jake Harry- Football
Aimee Hukill- Women’s Swimming & Diving
Luiza Jarocka- Volleyball
Kyle Mach- Baseball
Andy Maples- Football
Lindsey McCoy- Soccer
Shernelle Nicholls- Women’s Track & Field
Meghan Pfeiffer- Soccer
Hardy Ricks- Football
Chelsea Schriewer- Women’s Golf
Eric Smith- Men’s Swimming & Diving
Carlin Sullivan- Women’s Swimming & Diving
Kat Tarr- Soccer
Zaire Taylor- Men’s Basketball
Tremane Vaughns- Football
Sean Weatherspoon- Football

GO TIGERS!

Mizzou junior Madison Marcolla was one of 25 semifinalist for the Wooden Citizenship Cup, an award given for the most outstanding role model among athletes.

The Wooden Cup is given to a collegiate and a professional athlete who have made the greatest positive influence in the lives of others. The 2009 Collegiate Wooden Cup recipient will be announced at the award ceremony Jan. 19.

Finalists for the collegiate division include:Zak Boggs (Soccer, University of South Florida), Colt McCoy (Football, University of Texas), Brianna O'Donnell (Field Hockey, University of North Carolina), Rebecca Poskin (Soccer Dartmouth College) and Melissa Schellberg (Softball, Harvard University). The award recipients will be announced at a ceremony held at Atlanta's East Lake Golf Club on Wednesday, January 19.

Founded by Athletes for a Better World (ABW), a non-profit organization committed to changing the culture of American sports, the Wooden Cup is unique in that it is open to athletes in all collegiate and professional sports. Nominations come from every conference in the NCAA.

The Wooden Cup is named in honor of John Wooden, one of the most successful coaches in collegiate history. Wooden's legacy as a person of integrity, high moral character, compassion, and civic-mindedness continues to make him one of the most admired coaches in the history of sport.

Recipients of the Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup are chosen by a committee chaired by Vincent Dooley, former University of Georgia athletic director, and other distinguished individuals involved in athletics across the country.

I am very thankful for being given the opportunity to be a division one athlete at Mizzou. Although Columbia is a long way from my home in Houston, Texas, getting to come here has been a great experience. Gymnastics before college is strictly an individual sport; now I am able to compete for something much bigger than myself: my team, my coaches, and my school. I am proud to be a Mizzou tiger!

Athletics has also created new ways that I can become involved in the community; the Total Person Program helps coordinate events where we can visit and speak at local elementary schools, be active at Special Olympics events in Central Missouri, visit children at the hospital on campus, read to children at local schools from a location on campus via video chat, and the list goes on. This has been a huge help for me getting involved. While athletes are busy with their sport and schoolwork, having the Total Person Program organize events for us makes doing community service so much more convenient; I have gotten involved in the community a lot more because of their help.

I am also thankful for the free tutoring we receive. Balancing class work and practice can be challenging, and this service provided to us has been a huge help! Having a nice computer lab and many individual quiet study rooms in the Sheldon Academic Resource Center provides us with a good place to meet with tutors or study when needed.

Overall, I am just lucky to be here and thankful for being given this great opportunity to be an athlete at Mizzou. GO TIGERS!

Allie

On Wednesday November 11, 2009 The Total Person Program had a function involving our student-athletes and members of the Missouri Student Veterans Association (MSVA). The simple intent for this function was to involve our student-athletes in this activity as a means of thanking our service men and women for their heroic efforts.

Click to read a great article on Mizzou gymnast Allie Heizelman making a huge impact in the community.

Below are a few snapshots taken at the first annual Networking Night hosted in Mizzou Arena's Stalcup Room during a recent men's basketball game. The event brought in approximately 30 business professionals from the Columbia, St. Louis, and Kansas City area who networked with 30 Mizzou student-athletes in a relaxed setting. After the event, student-athletes joined the business professionals while watching the Tigers defeat Tennessee-Martin.

After four years as a member of the Mizzou Tigers golf team, I'm now paying for my own golf tournaments... That is the downside to being a young gun in the world of professional golf. The upside, however, is that I do have the opportunity to make money playing a game that I have loved for the last 10 years of my life. As long as the weather is decent, I go to work everyday in the greatest office the world has to offer: a golf course!

In May of 2009, I graduated with a degree in Communication, and was suddenly no longer a student-athlete. While all the responsibilities that go along with being a student-athlete definitely can make life seem pretty stressful, I quickly realized that the "real world" has stresses of its own. All of a sudden I was paying more bills than ever (because I had to pay for my own entry fees and travel expenses for golf tournaments), and I wasn't getting a scholarship check anymore. I wanted to play amateur golf for one last summer, too, which meant no cash winnings from the golf course. Needless to say, I was feeling a little strain by the end of the summer.

Despite financial hardships, I knew that I had the motivation, talent and desire to play golf professionally, and I set about making that a reality towards the end of the summer. After achieving a life-long goal by winning the Tennessee State Amateur with a 72-hole scoring record in early August, I set my sites on making my professional debut. But I needed financial help. So I put together a Limited Liability Company (LLC) called PeterMalnatiGolf, and filed it with the State of Tennessee. I then offered "shares" of my company to family, friends and anyone else who wanted to support me. The money from the shares will fund the first 16 months of my professional golf career, and my shareholders are entitled to 80% of all winnings and 50% of all sponsorship income during those 16 months. I didn't quite raise all the money for which I was looking, but I had more than enough to get me started!

So start I did. In September, I traveled to a little town just north of Lincoln, Nebraska and made my professional debut in the Nebraska Open. I shot 70, 65 the first two rounds to sit in the top 10 heading into the final round. I learned an important lesson the last day, though: you can't think about the money while you're playing! After a great front nine had moved me up the leaderboard, I began to see dollar signs over every shot. The result was a lousy back nine and a final round 71 which dropped me into a tie for 18th. It was an expensive, but valuable, lesson to learn, and I still consider that a nice tournament for my debut.

Since then I've had some real successes (I shot 68, 63, 69, 66 to win the First Stage of PGA Tour Qualifying) and a disappointment (My four-under-par total at the Second Stage of PGA Tour Qualifying was not quite good enough to advance to the finals), but overall I have played very well and I feel really good about the trajectory of my career. Because I didn't make it all the way through PGA Tour Qualifying, I will start the year next year with no status on either of the major professional tours in the United States, but I will be playing on a smaller professional tour on the East Coast and will have the opportunity to play in weekly qualifiers to get into events on the major tours. 2010 is a year that could send me in a lot of different directions, but I am just thrilled that I will get to do what I love every day, and potentially make some pretty good money doing it!

As far as where I'm living... I wish I had a good answer to that. I still have a place in Columbia and love everything about this town except the weather. I will spend plenty of time here. I grew up in East Tennessee almost on the North Carolina line. That is a convenient location for the tour I will be playing on quite a bit next year, so I will likely spend a lot of time there as well. I'm trying to relocate to the Orlando area for January and February, but the aforementioned budget issues are hindering that plan. I'm still thinking I will find a nice family or couple to rent me a guest room affordably for a couple of months, but it just hasn't happened yet. I'm still hopeful. I'll be a little bit of everywhere next year, though, and it should make for a fun year!

Lastly, I just want to say that I miss being involved with everything that goes on in this place (MIZZOU!). I'm so thankful to all of the people that really helped me while I was a student-athlete, and I know that some of the friendships I made while here will last a lifetime. Oh, and as for things lasting a lifetime, this Tennessee boy's blood now runs Black and Gold. Let's go Tigers! Tigers are winners--in sports, in school, and most importantly, in LIFE!

Contact me at malnati_peter@yahoo.com and follow me on my blog at petermalnati.blogspot.com

1) The Sandlot-- I grew up watching the Sandlot, and whenever I watch it, it brings me back to my childhood and all the days I spent with my friends growing up and playing baseball.

2) Miracle-- Whenever I watch Miracle, I feel immense joy knowing that anything is possible, and it is almost always determined by how hard one works.

3) Gladiator-- Maximus is my hero. The strength and honor he displays is an example that all Mizzou Athletes should strive to emulate.

4) The Rocky Series-- Rocky Balboa is a true American figure. One who demonstrates the "eye of the TIGER," the Rocky series is a feel good movie that always inspires one to reach their potential.

5) The Lion King-- The cinematography and epic action sequences in this movie continue to astound me every time I watch it since it was released in 1994.

Dr. Dre

On Saturday, November 28, the University of Missouri football team will took the field wearing the Nike Pro Combat uniform, a new system of dress and the lightest football uniform Nike has ever created. Missouri was one of ten elite football programs to debut the Nike Pro Combat uniform this month before they are officially introduced at the start of the 2010 season.

Missouri is joined by Clemson, Florida, Florida State, LSU, Miami, Virginia Tech, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Texas and TCU as the schools debuting the Nike Pro Combat uniform this month. Nike designed the Nike Pro Combat uniform to address the evolution of the game: today's players are stronger and faster and the collisions are more violent and explosive than ever before. Nike also worked with coaches and administrators at Missouri to bring inspiration to the Nike Pro Combat uniforms that the Tigers wore on November 28th.

Below Nike explains “Beast Mode” and tells what the new motto is all about.

The MU Tennis team has been voted the "Community Service Team of the Month" for its outstanding efforts to volunteering in the Columbia area. They volunteered for the Central Missouri Food Bank, helped promote and raise money for the United Way Mizzou vs. Kansas Challenge, and participated in a Dance Marathon to raise money for the Children's Miracle Network.

Way to go Tennis team!

Walk through a "Day in the Life" with Mizzou Women's Golf scholar-athlete Marissa Cook.

As a student-athlete I am thankful for the many opportunities golf has given me. I have had the opportunity to travel the United States with some of my best friends to compete with other top golfers in the country. I get to study and workout in a top-tier facility and with a staff who does any and everything for us.