Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel denies he ever supported student movement: Report

Only days after being hailed as a hero for a tweet he wrote supporting the #ConcernedStudent1950 movement against racism at the University of Missouri, football coach Gary Pinkel stated that not only did he not author the now famous tweet, he said he does not support the #ConcernedStudent1950 movement.

The Mizzou Family stands as one. We are united. We are behind our players. #ConcernedStudent1950 GP pic.twitter.com/fMHbPPTTKl

— Coach Gary Pinkel (@GaryPinkel) November 8, 2015

Pinkel distanced himself from the Concerned Student 1950 movement Tuesday during a radio interview with Kevin Kietzman on WHB (810 AM).

The interviewer asked Pinkel, "Did you personally support #ConcernedStudent1950? Are you for what they are about?"

Pinkel, leaving absolutely no doubt, responded, "No. Not at all. My decision had nothing to do with it."

The coach, who will resign at the end of the season after being diagnosed with lymphoma cancer, said that someone on his staff wrote the tweet, which contained a picture of players, coaches and staff — black and white — indicating the team’s unity in support of a players boycott, and was marked with his initials as if he wrote it,

He added that they were wrong for doing so.

“What happened was that I have somebody that tweets for me a lot to get information out, and that person should not have put that hashtag on,” Pinkel told Kietzman. “That organization can do what they want to, no judgments on them at all, but that should not have come out.”

Pinkel's seemingly public stand, which was covered by virtually every news broadcast and sports radio show in the country, was credited with having a lot to do with the college actually acknowledging the concerns of black students on the campus and help oust President Tim Wolfe. 

The coach has consistently said he was supporting his players, who were motivated to help bring MU graduate student Jonathan Butler’s hunger strike to an end. Butler stopped eating Nov. 2 and vowed to starve to death unless Wolfe stepped down or was fired.

In the end, he is just a football coach.