Mizzou Tabs Six For 2022 Hall of Fame Class

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Six former Tigers have been selected for induction into the University of Missouri Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame. They represent the 32nd induction class since the Hall’s inception in 1990.

The 2022 inductees represent five sports and include Yusuf Alli (track & field), J’den Cox (wrestling), Jennifer (Sand) Devine(gymnastics), Lynn (Biggs) Malir (cross country/track & field), Gary Pinkel (football) and Pete Woods (football).

The 2022 class will be officially inducted on Friday, Nov. 18, 2022, at the Missouri Theatre in downtown Columbia. The awards ceremony is free and open to the public. 

In recognition of the 50th Anniversary of Title IX, Mizzou Athletics will also honor trailblazing female student-athletes from the 1976-77 season. That season marked the first year Mizzou had a combined intercollegiate athletics department, eliminating separate men’s and women’s athletics programs. The 1979 gymnastics team and 1996 soccer team will be recognized as the inaugural years of those programs.

The six members of the 2022 class will also be recognized on Saturday, Nov. 19 at the Mizzou Football game against New Mexico State. Game time and television network will be announced when available.

2022 MIZZOU ATHLETICS HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES

Yusuf Alli – Track & Field

• Alli was a prolific long jumper and sprinter from Nigeria from 1981-85 who was a four-time all-American at Mizzou and a three-time Big Eight Conference champion. He won the gold medal at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand, and still holds the Missouri outdoor long jump record at 26-feet, 9-inches, set at the 1982 NCAA Championships. 

J’den Cox – Wrestling

• The Columbia native is one of the most accomplished and successful athletes in the long history of athletics at the University of Missouri. Wrestling for Coach Brian Smith, Cox became the first three-time NCAA champion in any sport by winning wrestling titles at 197 pounds in 2014, ’16 and ’17. He was a four-time champion of the Mid-American Conference and only the program’s second four-time all-American, joining Ben Askren. 

Jennifer (Sand) Devine – Gymnastics

• Sand, from Burnsville, Minnesota, led the Tigers to its only Big Eight Conference championship in 1992 by winning the vault (9.65), beam (9.80) and floor (9.80) and finished second in the all-around. She also won a Big Eight beam title in 1991. Sand is one of only four gymnasts in school history to earn all-conference honors in three different years, having accomplished the feat in 1990-91-92. 

Lynn (Biggs) Malir – Cross Country/Track & Field

• A Liberty, Missouri product, Biggs was a standout 800-meter runner for the Tigers in the early 1980s. She won all-America honors twice, once as a member of Mizzou’s distance medley relay team that finished third at the 1982 AIAW National Indoor Championship, and once individually after finishing fifth in the 800-meters at the 1984 NCAA Indoor Championships. She won the 1983 Big Eight Conference indoor title in the 800.

Gary Pinkel – Football

• The winningest football coach in University of Missouri history (2001-15), Pinkel posted a record of 118-73 at Mizzou, won five conference division titles (Big 12 North – 2007, ’08, ’10; SEC Eastern – 2013, ’14), earned 10 bowl bids (with a record of 6-4), and finished ranked in the nation’s top-20 five times – fourth (2007), fifth (2013), 14th (2014), 18th (2010) and 19th (2008). In December, Pinkel will become the sixth Missouri coach to be inducted into the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame. 

Pete Woods – Football

• An outstanding two-sport athlete at Mizzou in the late 1970s who starred at the high-profile positions of quarterback in football and pitcher in baseball. On the gridiron he engineered two of the biggest upsets in MU football history – 22-21 at #2 Ohio State and 34-24 at #3 Nebraska. He led Missouri in passing in 1976 and ’77 and total offense in ’76 and was the Big Eight player-of-the-week three times in his career. In baseball, Woods lettered for Coach Gene McArtor in 1975 and ’76, posting a 1-0 record and a 2.19 ERA in three starts in ’75, then tied for the team lead in wins the following year when he was 8-1 on a Tiger team that went 46-22, won the Big Eight title and advanced to the NCAA Regionals.

The Mizzou Athletics Hall of Fame’s constitution and bylaws express its purpose – “…to recognize and honor those individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the achievements and prestige of the University of Missouri in the field of athletics, and who have continued to demonstrate in their lives, the values imparted by intercollegiate athletics.”

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