ST. CHARLES, Mo. — When Missouri’s new athletics director went on one of his first fundraising visits in the St. Louis area, he brought a prized asset with him.
Laird Veatch, the AD, walked into the room last Thursday. So did football coach Eli Drinkwitz.
That Veatch hopped on the fundraising trail before working a day out of his office in Columbia is unsurprising — MU hired him with his track record of bringing in money in mind. It’s less conventional to see someone like Drinkwitz operating as the co-pilot.
Drinkwitz is at the helm of a team that is gunning for a spot in the College Football Playoff this fall. He’s been the justification for considerable financial investment by UM System administrators. Now, he’s on the fundraising trail too.
With all of those roles in place — including being one of the longest-tenured public-facing members of the Mizzou athletics department — is Drinkwitz becoming something of a prized asset?
“Absolutely,” Veatch said after he visited a donor with the coach at his side. “He’s engaging, people like him, they’re drawn to him. And he also is willing to do that. He’s willing to do all those little things that not all coaches are: be willing to go out and make calls and recognize the importance of getting those kinds of investments.”
It’s notable that Veatch has picked up on what Drinkwitz can do to support revenue generation after only a handful of days on the job. But fundraising is an immediate priority, given that half of the $250 million that will go toward a renovation of Memorial Stadium’s north concourse is expected to come from donations.
And even with all of Veatch’s fundraising prowess, the idea that it’s Drinkwitz who could be the one getting the project financially across the finish line deserves some credence.
“His investments of time and energy and relationships, it has a much bigger impact than an athletic director or anybody else when the football coach walks in and is willing to do those things,” Veatch said.
There’s also the simple matter of Drinkwitz likely knowing most current donors better than Veatch, who last worked with MU nearly two decades ago.
But a view of Drinkwitz that has less to do with an oblong ball and more about obtaining business is an interesting development.
“What strikes me is he’s is very creative, very innovative, and he’s not afraid of change,” Veatch said. “His mindset about organizing, running a program, it is a CEO-type mindset. He’s not looking at it just from a traditional standpoint. You have to have that now, right?”
Maybe, but that doesn’t seem to be the norm in college football. Drinkwitz detached himself from play calling ahead of last season, electing to lead the Tigers in a bigger-picture sense.
It very much worked. On the field, there was an 11-win season and Cotton Bowl victory. Off the field but still in the team facility, there were recruiting wins like securing five-star edge rusher Williams Nwaneri and transfers like lineman Cayden Green and cornerback Toriano Pride Jr.
Drinkwitz’s influence extended more broadly than that, though. In the Statehouse, he got a win when the Missouri Legislature passed a law that gave MU a leg up on competition when it comes to name, image, likeness, or NIL, compensation.
In a ballroom on the Missouri S&T campus last month, the UM System Board of Curators approved the Memorial Stadium renovations that Drinkwitz wanted.
Those things come with pressure in their own right.
There’s a “level of responsibility,” Drinkwitz said, “not only as a coach but as the staff and our players, we got to work really hard to make sure the shareholders get a return on that investment.”
And reaching this point, where he’s the asset at the core of the latest fundraising efforts, might be rather unintentional — a byproduct of the coach consistently trying to go with the flow of college sports to stay on the cutting edge.
“The coaches that have struggled, I think, have been stuck in the ways of the past and change is moving so fast,” Veatch said. “You don’t have time to stop and worry about it or regret it. You've got to just completely embrace it, jump in and take advantage of it. And that’s what he’s been doing.”
While Drinkwitz’s role is clearly cemented as head football coach, there’s an informal title he seems to take on when it comes to that mindset. He mentioned it to reporters when talking about the transfer portal in March, but it involves slotting into the other roles he holds, too.
“That’s just being a good steward of the University of Missouri football program,” Drinkwitz said of his duties. “You want to utilize whatever the rules or system in place (are) to maximize your advantage competitively.”
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