Throughout the week leading into the football game on September 24th vs Delaware State, the Mizzou student-athletes took part in an initiative called Extra Yard for Teachers. That initiative was created by the College Football Playoff Foundation, and its mission is rooted in helping elevate the teaching profession by inspiring and empowering quality teachers.
There are two parts to what the student-athletes were involved with. The first part involved AJ Logan, Grant Jones, Lindsay and Sophie Cunningham, and Jonah Dubinski. They took the time to make a trip back to their elementary or middle schools to reconnect and show their appreciation for the teachers whom they felt assisted them in getting to where they are today. It was interesting to watch the reactions of the teachers because some were immediately overwhelmed with joy, while others took a bit of time to recognize the face of the student-athlete, as it had been so long since they saw them.
The other objective was to have the student-athletes from across all sports take a selfie with a professor on the campus of Mizzou. By using the #MizzouScholarlySlefies, we were able to filter through over 70 photos of student-athletes and their professors, all of which were shown on the display board during warm ups at the football game. Hayden Buckley, who has taken upon the role of Chair of Community Service for SAAC, had this to say, "I wanted to take a selfie with a professor that I had two years ago during my freshmen year because I felt that he had a great impact on the academic portion of my experience thus far. It was a bit awkward at first to randomly ask for a selfie, but once the ice was broken it was nice to follow up with a conversation of appreciation of what he did for me. I know it meant a lot to him because he told me how appreciative he was that I chose to take my photo with him."