The day the story broke that Missouri head football coach Gary Pinkel was arrested for a DWI, a class 2 misdemeanor, I hit the streets around campus to talk with Tiger fans and students to get their initial reaction to the news. There was not a lot of sympathy and not a lot of room for leniency given to coach Pinkel.
As you’ll hear from the sample of people I spoke with, there was more disappointment than angry. The people I talked with didn’t feel Pinkel deserved to be overly punished in the way of losing his job, but almost everyone said he shouldn’t receive any special treatment. Some fans were worried that Mizzou would take on a negative image with the SEC and they were more concerned with public image of the team and university as a whole.