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On Wednesday night at The Kitchen Grill & Games, the ZOU to YOU tour continued, only this time in a familiar spot home.
While I didnt stay for the fan event, which featured the sixth episode of Skyward: A Vision Built to Last , and Mike Kelly interviews with Dennis Gates and his new crew, Kellie Harper, and Eli Drinkwitz, I was on hand for the earlier media part of the event.
There, a small group of media and some lucky high school journalism workshop students, talked with athletic director Laird Veatch and head coaches Brian Smith, Shannon Welker and Kerrick Jackson.
(Caroline Westrup Gaetas interview started early and I heard about 45 seconds of it.) Veatch said these experiences the caravan hosted stops in St.
Louis, Dallas, Springfield, Kansas City, and Chicago (July 20), as well as additional stops in smaller towns around the state like Mexico/Hannibal, Kirksville/Macon/Chillicothe, Maryville/St.
Joe and Sedalia gives the staff the chance to interact with fans face-to-face and have a dialogue.
College sports brings people together, he said.
I think thats one of the greatest aspects about it, is how it brings people together.
#Mizzou heavyweights on hand for 'Zou To You' tour stop Wednesday in Columbia Hear from the top tigers tonight on @KOMUsports pic.twitter.com/RT8YCaqFe3 Aaron Ladd (@aaronladdtv) June 25, 2026 Laird Veatch, Athletic Director On the five-in-five eligibility announcement (athletes get a blanket five years of eligibility starting from their high school graduation): Our compliance staff has been working for some time anticipating this, so they put together several thoughts for our coaching in terms of how to prepare for this, how it impacts things, submitting questions to be answers and sharing that with all of our coaches.
On the decision to extend womens golf coach Caroline Westrup Gaeta: Its always fun and good to be able to award a coach for performance, and her success this year competitively, her team success, and how far shes come.
One of the things we talk about with coaches all the time is its not just where you are, but its about trajectory.
Are we showing progress for success? And shes really come in as a fairly young and inexperienced coach and taught herself and grown a lot, and its been really fun to see that.
So happy for her.
On what theyve learned now going into the second year of revenue share: A lot of it is more micro or smaller lessons you learn across the board in different ways on how you tweak things with contracts, or how we think about distributed funds, and theres a lot of lessons..
A lot of that is kind of by sport and by the market of that sport.
You learn and you refine.
I think overall we were fortunate to have a really good system in place here, as weve talked before with the Every True Tiger brands and the state law that allows to kind of build something that was built already.
So thats helped us continue to advance in that space.
Describing the 2025-26 sports season that was: I would describe it as good, not great.
We have a lot of really, really good momentum.
Really proud of a lot of our programs.
Id say its good but not where we want to be yet.
We want to get to the point where were competing for consistently for and winning championships, but we are continuing to climb and take the right steps in that direction.
Brian Smith, Wrestling On if the five-in-five eligibility rule is better for freshmen: There were so many freshmen in the national final.
That kid from Oklahoma State was a senior in high school and came into Oklahoma State in January and won the title.
So these kids, when you look at clubs and the way young kids are being developed in the sport, theyre ready to go as freshmen at different times.
On Aeoden Sinclairs busy schedule: Aeoden is the busiest guy in the world.
Hes on two world teams and almost wins.
Im trying to pull the reins in and slow him down.
I get nervous about it, but I love it.
We have a kid thats a 4.0 student whos going to graduate in three years, get an MBA and go to law school, and hes doing all this stuff out there.
[there was more here but my Otter recording was garbage and it was hard to hear, sorry] On the impact of the Zou to You events: We compete for ourselves but its a lot more fun where theres people in th stand and theres people supporting you.
The fanbase has just grown with our program as well, seeing football get sell-outs all the time.
Thats great for me with recruiting.
Basketball has a great recruiting class coming in.
I know Ive been here a long time, and this is like my 29th seasons.
When theres momentum like this in football and basketball, it adds to the whole campus.
Youre going to see students fired up and excited to be at Mizzou, and other people from outside the state saying, I want to go to Mizzou.
Its excited and I get pumped up about it.
Were going to be ranked somewhere in the top 10, and Im glad we have NCAA hosting again in St.
Louis.
How can we not be excited about that? On sports always being a part of culture: A long time ago, back in college, I was a history minor, and my favorite class was the history of sport in America, and it showed how culture kind of went with the way sport was going in the colonial days and mirrored it all.
There were sports movies, race tracks and running, and then as it progressed, and how Jackie Robinson made the change with getting into the major leagues, and how society started to change, because sport is the easiest avenue to bring people together.
Its happening with the World Cup.
Its bringing cultures together and causing people to realize that man, I see people coming over to the US and say people are nice here.
They have this version of Americans being mean, and theyre like, its unbelievable here.
Its beautiful.
We know why Americans dont travel because theres a different country in every state, and its neat that it brings people together.
On my team, I have guys from New York City, I have a kid on the team from Idaho, Montana, everywhere in the country we have guys, and they come together and theyre the best of friends and they have so many differences.
It proves that humans can get along, and when you see the stuff that goes on with the adults, like I say, the adults, we screw it up.
The adults screw it up.
But culture is so important and sport brings a lot to the culture.
A great night for ZOU TO YOU right here at home #MIZ pic.twitter.com/lnTIzPDsVt Mizzou Athletics (@MizzouAthletics) June 25, 2026 Kerrick Jackson, Baseball On what hes looked for when adding to this team : I think the biggest thing we needed, we know we needed that offense, and we had some guys that at the places where they were playing, where they were the guys that relied on for big hits to drive runs in.
So we needed guys that had experience doing that.
Were going to have the confidence coming to do that for us.
If you look at our pitching staff, were turning just about everybody, and we had a lot of success with our pitching staff last year, specifically when we look at some of those young guys that were crucial for us in big moments, and they had that experience as freshmen, so you cant ask for more.
On his desire to build something from the ground up in Columbia: Its been a slow drip, and thats been as much as Id like it for it to be, but were also moving in the right direction, so I think this year in having some continuity in our pitching staff and being able to bring those guys in and got in for the portal, I think well take that next step and put ourselves in position to be exactly where we need to be.
On his goals for next year: I want to be in a regional.
I want to put ourselves in a situation where were putting ourselves five games away from being in Omaha, and I told our guys that, hey, weve been through this league this year.
When we looked at some of the games that we played in conference play, we had seven games that were two runs or less losses right there, so theres toughness as part of that, and then just getting it done, and so now were in a position next year as we go through this, lets be ready to tackle those and make those things happen.
On how the new five-in-five legislation impacts his team: I dont know if it necessarily does as much, just because, when you look at baseball, because of the draft and junior draft and those kind of things, not too many guys are going to stick around for five years, and guys that are sticking around for five years is usually due to injury, or maybe because they were freshmen and didnt get to play a lot, so I think it wont impact us the same way as its impacting other sports..
You dont necessarily have that redshirt in baseball.
It could be advantage from the standpoint of older guys, but I dont think it will impact us that much.
On the new MLB legislation of not allowing high schoolers to enter the draft anymore and lowering the threshold to two years in college instead of three: I think that will affect us a lot, right? When youre talking about taking high school players, and when you really look at it in the big picture of things, theres probably about 60 high school kids a year that have a chance to be big leaguers, and so the rest of them end up going to school now.
So I think youre going to see some more of those younger kids having an impact right away.
And then the two years, were dealing with the portal so you only have everybody for a year anyway, and then you try and figure that out.
But what I do think that now that when you get some kids in, that will keep more kids in school.
Weve had some kids over the last three years that were drafted and signed and probably shouldnt have gone and potentially could get lost in the shuffle.
Now those kids end up on campus and have an impact for you.
On the incoming freshman class and the portal additions so far and who he thinks is going to step up: Really, I think its gonna be some of those freshman pitchers, right? You know that strong continuum, guys from St.
Louis and Sam Rosand, who was from DC, and those guys really, really bonded and wanted to make some things happen.
You know, youre gonna have Juliomar Campos come back and play a little bit he ended up getting injured so he didnt get to play as much.
But I think, you know, as a backstop guy and the catcher is kind of general.
I think hell have some impact course as well, and then you got DJ ( not sure who this is, sorry ) and BK (Brady Kehlenbrink), so I think its going to be a good mix of guys that will be discovered, but I think those freshmen from last year are going to really, really hold that thing and kind of move with it.
On the addition of the new hitting coach, Brandon Van Horn, and what he brings: I think the biggest thing for me was I wanted our guys to have some identity.
I think as an offense we know what we want to do offensively, but I think as a unit we didnt have an identity, so I wanted somebody thats going to give our guys an identity.
I think Brandon is going to be able to do that..
You know, when you look at the SEC, youre facing big league stuff every night, so now you have a guy thats been on that side that can kind of get our guys prepared and understand what that game plan is, and how we make adjustments throughout the course of the game.
Hes fiery, hes passionate, hes a teacher, and hes taken well to our guys.
Our guys have taken well to him already, so I look for good things happen from our offense.
Reminiscing on Wednesday night #MIZ pic.twitter.com/GtDSiVbL7F Mizzou Athletics (@MizzouAthletics) June 27, 2026 Shannon Welker, Gymnastics On the busy offseason and looking ahead to the 2026-27 season: Getting back to NCAA Championships, quite honestly, and getting back to the night session of SECs.
You know, we have a really talented group coming in, and I think theres a lot of excitement from the last couple of years and going into this season.
On the five-in-five rule change: Im sure its a little bit unique to all sports.
I think were going to figure out a way to maybe take advantage of that, quite honestly.
Weve always done that.
Weve been adaptable thats one of our core values and certainly adapt and make sure that it helps us win.
On the new class coming in and their transition: They should be here in early July and then well get going the following week.
Were pretty excited about them.
Its a top five recruiting class in the country.
We got the number one recruit in the country coming to the University of Missouri, so I think the expectation is hight, and rightfully so, and the confidence levels are high.
Were excited about it.
On not meeting the goal last year, and how it motivates the team moving forward: You have to learn from every success and every failure, quite honestly.
We have to put it in perspective, too.
We were 11th in the country, and we were just shy of that top 8 by very, very little.
And so when that feels like a disappointment a little bit, I think that actually tells you where the bar is and what the expectation is, so I think theres some positives to take away from that, but weve also got to learn from it.
Weve got to make sure we position ourselves a little bit stronger moving into next year.
I think that made our team a little bit more hungry at the end of that competition.
We gathered up and we said, lets not let this happen again next year, weve got to do something about it, and so theyre gonna respond positively, and I think itll be a much more successful outcome going into 2027.
On Imani White, the nations number one recruit: She is the number one recruit in the country, but we know theyre still young, and this is new for them.
This is a big life change, going to college, and theyre competing against some veterans that are really good.
It will slowly evolve into the number one recruit and hopefully the number one gymnast in the NCAA, but that will be a process.
And so youve got to taper a little bit of expectations, and I certainly think people are going to be excited and please with what they see out of Imani and the rest of the 2026 class.
On the addition of former UGA coach Oleksii Koltakov to the staff: Any time we can recruit somebody thats at another powerhouse SEC school [Georgia, who finished the season ranked no.
6], and them wanting to come to the University of Missouri, I think that tells you what kind of program and culture weve got going within the athletic department, and especially in our gymnastics program as well.
And so thats really exciting, you know.
Oleksii is a top tier coach in the country read my piece on him here There is a lot of movement in the coaching pool this year, especially in gymnastics, and I really feel like we walked away with one of the best hires in the country, quite honestly.
In regards to what events hes going to coach, I think were going to probably position him on floor and vault, and then Coach Whitneys going to be over on Bars, and Jackies moving to Beam, and then that frees me up to kind of be, have my hand in a little more areas right there, and so Im going to help out, probably on bars and floor and vault, and then make sure Coach Oleksii transitions in pretty smoothly as well.
Hes here and hes been out on the road recruiting.
We put him right to work.
On the specific challenges that the transfer portal presents for the gymnastics team in particular: We really competing against the SEC, right? I feel like we can be pretty competitive against any other conference out there, and even within the SEC right there.
So, you know, were all going after the top young ladies in the country and the top talent, and we just have to figure out ways that differentiate what we have versus what they have, and I still think young ladies are really looking for a great experience, a great culture, along with the winning piece of it.
On the increasing fan engagement in gymnastics: Its been exciting to see the steady growth of obviously not only our ranking but our fan base and attendance.
Were the third highest attended events on campus, right? We are number three behind football and mens basketball.
Were averaging 5,00o-plus fans per event, so that tells me that people are behind us, that the community is there supporting us, and we definitely feel that, so that parts as exciting as our ranking growing, but obviously those work together.
On sports uniting people in Columbia: Its something that everybody can get behind, right? In different sporting events, it obviously attracts some different demographics, but I think gymnastics really pulls in some of our youth, but I also get dads that come up to me, and theyre like, Man, we watch Friday Night Heights every weekend.
So I think it really has a reach on all kinds of different demographics right there, and its exciting, and gives people something positive to look for as well.
Kellie Harper, Womens Hoops While I wasnt around for Kellies segment with Mike Kelly, ABC 17 Sports Director Nathalie Jones got a 1:1 with Harper at the event.
Heres what she had to say about the teams foundation.
Watch my full chat with #Mizzou WBB HC Kellie Harper ( @KellieHarper ) On the foundation that last season help set: "People that know basketball, people that really know women's basketball, they're looking at us, right now.
They're like 'wow, what's going on over there?' pic.twitter.com/7bdNYlGB1J Nathalie Jones (@NathalieABC17) June 25, 2026.