Missouri Football Coach Gary Pinkel Retiring

Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel will retire at the end of the seasons for health reasons, the school announced Friday afternoon in a press release.

Pinkel was diagnosed in May with lymphoma, the release said.

“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 in the press release.

PowerMizzou.com first reported the move as a resignation.

It comes at a time of increased racial tension on campus that included the resignation of Missouri’s president.

A series of reported racist incidents on campus led graduate student Jonathan Butler to go on a hunger strike in protest until then-president Tom Wolfe resigned.

Missouri football players later announced that they were boycotting all football activities, with initial support from Pinkel, until Wolfe resigned, which he did a day later.

Pinkel was seen as a trendsetter and strong leader in the days following his show of support, which came in a tweet that read, “The Mizzou Family stands as one. We are united. We are behind our players. #ConcernedStudent1950 GP.”

Pinkel, though, seemed to back track from his position some.

“It had nothing to do with (removing Wolfe),” Pinkel said in a radio interview this week. “It was just about a young man that was really struggling, and that’s what it was about.”

He added that the hashtag, #ConcernedStudent1950, which refers to the group leading the protests, shouldn’t have been included in the tweet.

“No, what happened was is that I have somebody that tweets for me a lot to get information out, and that person should not have put that hashtag on,” he said.

In the release, Pinkel says he made his decision to step down on October 27. Butler’s hunger strike didn’t begin until November 2.