True to their commitment to their friends, sophomore Jeremy Porter and junior Sean Radcliff spent last weekend in San Antonio watching another friend graduate from Air Force Basic Training.
On the way home in Oklahoma, their car was involved in an accident that claimed the lives of both men.
Both Porter and Radcliff were members of Marching Mizzou, as was the car’s third passenger, junior Ryan Iadanza. Marching Mizzou Director Brad Snow said the fact that the men were traveling so far to visit a friend said a lot about them.
“That’s the kind of guys they were,” he said. “They didn’t care how far out of the way they had to go for anybody or anything.”
Porter, of Independence, died Sunday and Radcliff, of Ste. Genevieve, died the following day from injuries sustained from the accident.
This August, Porter would have entered his sophomore year at MU and had not yet declared a major within the College of Arts and Science. Radcliff was going to be a junior majoring in music education.
Friends noted how different Radcliff and Porter were — but how strong their friendship was despite this.
“Even though — or maybe because — Sean and Jeremy were so opposite in their natures, they were great friends,” sophomore Catherine Gravemann said.
Radcliff was an especially strong leader, Snow said. He was selected as the saxophone section leader for the upcoming marching season and was one of Snow’s student workers in Loeb Hall.
“Sean was a very promising music education major that wanted nothing more in life than to be a band director,” Snow said. “He was always helpful and willing to do whatever needed to be done while on duty.”
Porter, also a saxophone player, strayed a bit more toward the quiet side, Snow said.
“Jeremy was a little more reserved, from my point of view,” he said. “He showed up to everything and you could tell that his friendships in Marching Mizzou were very special.”
And both men’s friendships within Marching Mizzou were very special indeed, affirmed Gravemann and sophomore Dan Lang.
Gravemann struggled to think of a single memory of the two, as she said there were so many.
“Every time I try to come up with a memory of Jeremy and Sean to share, I think how silly it is,” she said. “There isn’t one moment or day that defines them. They were my best friends — my rocks when I needed support, jokes when we needed to laugh and a friendly face after a grueling day.”
Be it watching movies on Netflix, cooking in Radcliff’s kitchen or having sleepovers, Gravemann said every moment with the two men was memorable.
“Sean would always call us right after class and see if the three of us could get together for lunch, then he’d show up late because he saw someone he knew on the way over and would stop and talk to them for a while,” she said.
This was because Radcliff loved people, she said.
“Sean was a classic extrovert; he hated being alone,” she said. “I’d just sit on his couch and study while he played video games or listened to music for one of his classes.”
Porter was just the opposite.
“Jeremy didn’t need to be around people all the time,” she said. “At least one time he’d told us, ‘No, I can’t hang out. I need to sit alone in my room and listen to the quiet.’ He needed to decompress after a long day.”
But when Porter wanted to hang out, his ideas for friendship were boundless, Lang said.
“If there was ever a rainy Sunday evening and I wasn’t already with him, I would get a really excited phone call: ‘Dan! Let’s go on a rain adventure,’” he said. “I would always respond, ‘Are you crazy? It’s cold and rainy.’ He would go out in the rain regardless of the temperature or wind. If he wanted to go on a rain adventure, by lord no one was going to get in his way.”
Just like Porter’s adventures were impossible to avoid, so was Radcliff’s smile.
“Sean always gave the best hugs,” Gravemann said. “He’d pick you up and give you this big bear hug and sometimes spin you around. He just managed to brighten your whole day. He had a great smile too. I barely ever saw Sean without a big smile on his face.”
Marching Mizzou has banded together since the accident, Snow said. Plans are already in place to celebrate Porter and Radcliff’s lives this season.
“This has been rough on the entire Marching Mizzou family,” Snow said. “I can’t begin to explain the bonds that are formed through an activity like Marching Mizzou. I received around 50 calls and texts starting around 5 a.m. … from my students that were in shock.”
The plan of action, then, was to celebrate the lives.
“We all want to do something special to memorialize both,” Snow said. “I have already spoken with the Athletic Department and we are planning a moment of silence at the first home game and we will dedicate this season to their memory.”
Gravemann spoke for everyone in Marching Mizzou when she said she was going to miss the band’s lost members.
“There were such a big part of our lives and they will be missed,” she said. “We will never forget them.”