9 minute read
Between the Stripes
A Mules Football Brotherhood
This is the house that football built.
This is the team that named the house that football built.
This is the coach that built the team that named the house that football built.*
The coach is a culture — a commitment to going beyond the limits you thought you had. The team is a brotherhood, spanning all eras of the sport that binds players like laces in leather. It’s a bond shared by everyone who has run, passed, blocked, tackled or punted between the stripes of Central Missouri’s field, whether painted on grass or turf.
Rob Park, ’94, remembers playing on the grass field in the early 1990s with teammates Bart Woods, ’94, ’98, and Joe Grubb, ’94, before returning to the house where they lived with three other Mules Football players. They lived and breathed the motto instilled in them by then Defensive Coordinator Jeff Floyd and Head Coach Terry Noland: “You can do more.”
“That’s something that I and most of my teammates that I played with still tell themselves every day,” Park said. “It really got you ready for life in that everybody thinks they have a breaking point, and they taught us how to go beyond that breaking point and still succeed. … Your mind is actually your weakest link, not your body.”
The Coach
After graduation, Park became director of the National Hot Rod Association, a position he held for 26 years before moving into an advisory role. He also serves on the UCM Alumni Foundation Board of Directors and is a founding member of Muleball Brothers for Life (MBBL), along with Grubb, fellow Alumni Foundation board member Marc Tuttle, ’94, former board member Paul Kaiser, ’97, and Deno Hairston, ’95.
“The commitment the five of us made was that we’d be accountable to each other and that would, in turn, hold us accountable to the university and all the other players,” Park said about co-founding MBBL.
Members spanning decades of Mules Football get together at the home opener, Homecoming and one or more away games every season. The group also helps alumni stay connected with the university and the current team. Those who serve on the Alumni Foundation board gain an inside view of the football program’s strengths and needs. One of the most immediate needs was renovating the Terry Noland Football Office Complex, which was first dedicated to the MBBL founding members’ beloved coach on Oct. 12, 2012.
On Sept. 7, 2024, Coach Noland stood on the field again as his former players, those who came after his time and those about to play their first home opener of the season gathered to rededicate the office complex that bears his name on the south side of the stadium.
“I’m just so proud and thankful that this recognition has been provided and that the Noland name will go on established with Central Missouri, because my proudest coaching moment was to be here,” Noland told the crowd of alumni, supporters and fans.
Noland became head coach at UCM in 1983 after assistant coaching positions at Drake University and the University of North Dakota. He led the Mules to an MIAA championship his first season and repeated that success in 1986, ’87 and ’88, claiming the Mules’ first undisputed title and earning MIAA Coach of the Year in ’86.
When current Head Coach Josh Lamberson took the helm in February 2022, Noland gave him his ’86 championship ring and told him to give it back when he won one of his own. It didn’t take Lamberson long to return the ring and give Noland a new one to add to his collection after the Mules captured the team’s 14th conference title in 2023. Like Noland in ’86, Lamberson was also named MIAA Coach of the Year.
Lamberson had served as offensive coordinator and recruiting coordinator for the Mules from 2010 to 2014 under Head Coach Jim Svoboda before becoming head coach at MIAA member Nebraska Kearney, then associate head coach, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for NCAA Division I Abilene Christian University.
The Team
As fans watched the touchdowns tally up with each cannon fired at the Mules home opener — nine in all for a 63–21 win over Northeastern State — they paid little attention to what was behind the mule logos on the front of the building, just to the right of the scoreboard. It is inside those doors that coaches and players gather to talk strategy, review practice tapes or opponent game video, grab a snack and, on occasion, put their feet up to relax.
Quarterback Zach Zebrowski watched the Terry Noland Football Office Complex renovation progress this summer, along with nearly 100 teammates who chose to stay in Warrensburg to practice, work out, swim, golf and just spend time getting to know one another.
“The coaching staff and players, they’re the best connection I’ve ever had with a team,” said Zebrowski, one of eight returning offensive starters, along with eight starters returning to the defensive line.
After setting four NCAA Division II records in the 2023 season, Zebrowski became the second Mule in history to win the Harlon Hill Award, the highest honor in D-II football. He was the first quarterback in the division and only the sixth in all of college football to throw for at least 60 touchdowns in a season and was named Offensive Player of the Year for both D-II and MIAA.
The son of the current co-offensive coordinator at the University of Kansas, Zebrowski was a ball boy for his dad at a young age; played football, basketball and baseball growing up in Woodbury, Minnesota; and has always wanted to be a coach. He is a redshirt senior pursuing his master’s from UCM in Sports Management.
Coach Lamberson shares Zebrowski’s sentiments about the 2023 team being the most connected he’s ever known. It’s a testament to a brotherhood that starts from Day 1.
“It’s a Mule brotherhood,” Lamberson said. “It’s not just a saying; they legitimately try to make each other’s lives better. The players live it out in real life, and that’s when it becomes culture, when it becomes the environment and when the special stuff happens.”
The House
At the rededication ceremony Sept. 7, David Neuenschwander, ’98, spoke about his time on the team, which started in 1993 when Coach Noland “took a chance on an undersized linebacker.” Before retiring last September, it had been decades since Neuenschwander, who lives in Ohio, had returned to Warrensburg. He didn’t waste any time coming back for a Mules Football game in October 2023 and for the first-round D-II playoff game against Henderson State University. He also played in the Mules Football Golf Tournament over the summer.
“I am a proud — and stubborn — Fighting Mule from Central Missouri,” Neuenschwander told the crowd. “And while I Ieft Central Missouri, Central Missouri never left me.”
Neuenschwander commended Coach Noland for teaching him life lessons such as hard work, preparation, resilience and selflessness, often reminding his players, “You play for the name on the front of the jersey, not on the back.”
Neuenschwander also said Noland kept every promise he made while he was recruiting him in the early ’90s, including that he would be a better man, equipped to handle life after college, when he left than when he arrived. The fulfillment of that promise is what gives them both the most satisfaction.
“We set high expectations not just during games but in practice sessions, in study halls, in the community with community service projects,” Noland said. “They were setting standards that were very high for themselves, and then that would relate to what would transpire later on in their lives with their families, in their communities. … It’s great that my name is on that facility, but there ought to be about 1,500 names on there. They’ve given their time and effort to the program, and now they’re giving back again.”
The Brotherhood
The remodel of the Terry Noland Football Office Complex aligns with objectives of the five-year strategic plan for UCM Athletics announced in August, providing a top-tier facility and championship-level resources for the program.
“This is going to be one of the best facilities in D-II from a learning environment perspective and also give our guys a great place to be proud of and to call their own on campus,” Coach Josh Lamberson said. “It’s an homage to Mules Football history but also a place where the present and the future are being written.”
Combined university funds and private support from alumni made the renovation possible, and the following spaces are named after former players.
• The Muleball Brothers for Life Lounge – in honor of Joe Grubb, linebacker, 1989-1992
• The Neuenschwander Family Lobby –in honor of David Neuenschwander, linebacker, 1994-97
• The Glaunert Family Defensive Coordinator/Linebacker Office –in honor of Paul Glaunert, linebacker, 1986-90
• The Hulet Family Defensive Backs Coach Office – in honor of Mark Hulet, defensive back, 1984-87; coach, 1988-95
• The Scott and Christine Taylor Office – in honor of Christine and Scott Taylor, kicker, 1985-88
• The Rick Moyer Family Offense and Running Backs Meeting Room –in honor of Rick Moyer, running back, 1998-01
• The Scott and Kerri Loveland Quarterbacks Coach Office –in honor of Kerri (’92, ’94) and Scott Loveland, quarterback, 1981-84
*Adapted from the nursery rhyme "The House That Jack Built," author unknown.
