The 100-Yard Journey A Life in Coaching and Battling for the Win

Very few college football coaches earn the distinction of becoming their programs' winningest, but Gary Pinkel has done it twice. From his nine-year tenure at the University of Toledo to his career at the University of Missouri from 2001 to 2015, Pinkel has shown he has the talent and meddle to take his teams to the top.  These remarkable achievements have been met by challenges along the way in Pinkel's personal and professional life, including a DUI and a divorce, a threatened team boycott at Mizzou which dominated national news headlines, and ultimately, a decision to step away from it all following a diagnosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.  In The 100-Yard Journey, Pinkel offers a glimpse into the mind of a winner as well as an honest reflection on meeting and overcoming the unexpected. Follow along from the start of Pinkel's coaching career at Kent State, the same program for which he played as a tight end, through stops at Washington and Toledo, and finally, taking over at the helm of Missouri, a program he guided to 10 bowl games in 15 years, a No. 1 AP ranking at the end of the 2007 season, and SEC Coach of the Year honors in 2014. Whether you're a Tigers fan or just interested in what makes a successful head coach tick, anyone can find something to relate to in Pinkel's personal memoirs.

Dave Matter is the Mizzou athletics beat writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and STLtoday.com. Prior to joining the Post-Dispatch in 2013, he wrote for Columbia Daily Tribune for more than 10 years. He lives in Columbia, Missouri. Gary Pinkel won 118 games in 15 seasons as the head football coach at the University of Missouri, becoming the winningest coach in the program's history. During the Pinkel era, the Tigers posted five seasons with 10 or more wins and reached 10 bowl games. Prior to joining Mizzou, Pinkel was the head coach at Toledo for 10 seasons and an assistant under Don James at the University of Washington. He lives in Columbia, Missouri. This is his first book.