Maria Thompson, 61, had just finished her closing shift at Mizzou’s Memorial Stadium (bleaching the tiger stripes in the locker room, scrubbing the Rock M, picking up the last of confetti from the South Carolina win). For 22 years she’s been the invisible heartbeat of The Zou, making $14.80 an hour and driving a wheezing 2007 Saturn Ion held together by prayers and zip ties.
As she shuffled toward the employee lot behind the north end zone, she spotted a silver Dodge Charger sitting lopsided, driver-side rear tire shredded to the cords. A tall kid in a black Mizzou hoodie was crouched beside it, phone flashlight shaking in the cold, looking like he’d rather face Nick Saban’s ’07 LSU defense than that lug wrench.
That kid was Beau Pribula — the redshirt junior quarterback who’d just thrown for 317 yards and 4 TDs in the Mayor’s Cup win over Kansas, the former Penn State transfer who’s turned Missouri into a dark-horse CFP contender and a Heisman sleeper.
“Sweetheart, you’re gonna freeze solid out here,” Maria called, her Columbia drawl thick as sorghum. “Let ol’ Maria handle that before you hurt yourself.”
Beau looked up, half-frozen and fully grateful. “Ma’am, I can call AAA, you don’t have to—”
“Boy, I changed my first flat when Luther Burden was still in diapers. Move over.”
Fifteen minutes later, with Maria doing the heavy lifting and Beau holding the light like a good holder on a PAT, the spare was on. Grease streaked her orange Mizzou polo; Beau’s hands stayed spotless. He kept apologizing; she kept waving him off.
“You just keep throwin’ them ropes like you did against Florida,” she told him, tightening the last lug. “That’s all the thanks I need. Rock M forever.”
Beau smiled that shy, dimpled smile that’s already on billboards across mid-Missouri. “Yes ma’am. I owe you big.”
She laughed all the way to her rattling Saturn. Thought that was the end of it.
The next afternoon, Maria was in her tiny duplex off Business Loop 70, stirring pinto beans on a hot plate, when a low rumble shook the windows. She peeked out and dropped her spoon.
A gleaming white Cadillac Escalade ESV — blacked out, 24-inch rims, tinted windows, Mizzou tiger-stripe accents on the fenders — sat in her cracked driveway. Out stepped Beau Pribula in gray sweats, flanked by head coach Eli Drinkwitz, athletic director Laird Veatch, and — because this is Missouri — Luther Burden III carrying a giant golden-wrapped box like it was Christmas morning.
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