Published on Show Me Mizzou Dec. 17, 2025
Story by Joe Walljasper, BJ ’92
As Mizzou’s sports information director in 1990, Bob Brendel, BJ ’75, was one of the key figures in establishing the University of Missouri Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame. Thirty-five years later, Brendel has joined the club.
“I never, ever would have dreamed I would be in it,” he says of his 2025 induction into the Hall of Fame. Describing it as “kind of a validation that I did things the right way,” Brendel credits an earlier Mizzou sports information director for his successful career. “I carried forward the legacy I was given by my mentor, Bill Callahan,” Brendel says. “To have integrity, be accurate, provide the media access, build relationships and mentor the next generation of sports communicators.”
At left, Brendel, who spent two decades in the sports information department and is currently the athletic department’s historian and archivist, offers his list of the five biggest Mizzou athletic achievements of the past 50 years.
Bob Brendel’s best
• Norm Stewart’s men’s basketball teams win eight Big Eight regular-season basketball titles, including four straight from 1980–83.
• Missouri joins the Southeastern Conference in 2012.
• Athletic facilities dramatically improve across the board.
• The football program takes a topsy-turvy journey “from the upsets of the 70s through the desert and back to prominence.”
• Brian Smith builds the wrestling program into a national power.
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