Missouri Football Coach Gary Pinkel Announces Resignation

Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel is resigning on Dec. 31, or until the Tigers hire a new coach, according to a statement issued by the school today.

The statement said that Pinkel’s resignation is due to health issues. The 63-year-old revealed he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in May. From the statement:

“I made the decision in May, after visiting with my family, that I wanted to keep coaching, as long as I felt good and had the energy I needed,” Pinkel said. “I felt great going into the season, but also knew that I would need to re-assess things at some point, and I set our bye week as the time when I would take stock of the future. After we played Vanderbilt (Oct. 24), I had a scheduled PET scan on Oct. 26thfor reassessment, and then visited with my family and came to the decision on October 27th that this would be my last year coaching. I still feel good physically, but I decided that I want to focus on enjoying my remaining years with my family and friends, and also have proper time to battle the disease and give full attention to that,” he said.

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“I want to make very clear that I’m not doing poorly, and that this is a manageable disease, but it’s one that will never go away,” Pinkel said. “So many people have bigger struggles with other forms of cancer and other serious diseases, and I feel blessed that I’ve got something I can fight and still enjoy a good quality of life. I don’t know how many years I have left, but I want to turn my focus to life outside of the daily grind of football,” he said.

On Sunday, Pinkel publicly supported his players as they went on strike until university president Tim Wolfe stepped down. Wolfe resigned on Monday. Tomorrow’s game is going to be wild.

[ Missouri Tigers]

Photo: AP

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