It’s 2 p.m. on the Thursday before labor day weekend. As most students on MU’s campus are finishing their classes for the day, Jon and Robyn Clark are sitting in their lawn chairs under the shade of their tent in the Faurot Field parking lot, awaiting the kickoff of Missouri football’s first game of the year. The Clarks are one of the many dedicated Tiger fans tailgating outside of Faurot, eager for the new football season to begin. 

Jon and Robyn met in 1992, when they were both students at MU. Tonight’s season-opener is extra meaningful for the couple because their son Matt, a sophomore, will be live commentating the game for the school’s student radio station, KCOU. The Clarks now live just east of the Missouri river in Maryville, Illinois. The approximately two-and-a-half hour drive does not stop them from making the trip out to Columbia each fall for the few sacred afternoons when the Missouri Tigers play football at Faurot.

The Clarks have attended plenty of home games since graduating, and they have optimism for the 2023 season. When talking about his wishes for the year, Jon emphasized his desire to see progress from the team. 

“Hope,” Jon said, “is what a lot of Mizzou fans are looking for.”

Jon’s yearning for signs that the program is taking steps in the right direction is justified. While the program is arguably in one of its best eras of recruiting, the team has taken a comfortable seat in football purgatory. The Tigers have hovered around a .500 winning percentage every year in Eli Drinkwitz’s tenure. Not bad enough to start fresh and completely rebuild, but not good enough to compete with the top teams of the SEC. 

For some fans like Natalie Burton though, the record isn’t what matters. Natalie is from Kansas City and has been a Tiger fan for her entire life. Natalie didn’t provide her exact age, but let’s just say she was born sometime between Dan Devine’s glory years and the rough seasons of the 1980’s. Burton cherishes the bond that the team creates for her with her friends and family more than anything that happens on the field.

“I don’t care how bad we are, or how good we are. I’m always going to cheer for Mizzou” Burton said.

 Her dad passed down to her a love for MU sports, and she has done the same with her children. 

“We are a true black and gold family. My kids went to school where everybody was a KU fan, so they had to always show up in Mizzou clothes. Sometimes there were tears… I’d pick them up from school and they’d say ‘someone made fun of me for wearing black and gold today,’” Burton said. 

This teasing was not effective on Natalie’s children though, as her oldest is currently a student at MU and her youngest plans to attend next fall. 

The Missouri-Kansas rivalry — that the Burton children unfortunately saw the nasty side of — has created a plethora of unforgettable games. None more iconic than the 2007 thriller at Arrowhead Stadium, which longtime fans Nancy and Ron say is their favorite memory in their many years of watching Tigers football. Today the couple is in the exact place that they’ve spent many of their afternoons over the past 50 years: across the street from Faurot Field in Lot L. The couple has tailgated in the same lot so often that according to Ron, if anyone in their community is at a game, they’ll know where to find the couple.

“We could have five [guests], or we could have 50” Nancy said.

Though Ron expects the Tigers to have a great season, no matter how the team does this season, Nancy and Ron will undoubtedly be found in their familiar gameday spot. 

Edited by Chase Gemes 

Copy edited by Grace Knight