As fans and alumni celebrate Mizzou Homecoming 2024, faculty member Matthew Ballou leads a legacy of embracing athletic excellence through creative work. 

This fall, continuing a tradition stretching back to the 1930s, Ballou unveiled hand-painted portraits of Mizzou Football’s four 2023 All-American student-athletes: Kris Abrams-Draine, Luther Burden III, Javon Foster, and Cody Schrader. The portraits hang alongside past All-Americans in Memorial Stadium’s South Endzone Facility.

A full teaching professor of painting and drawing in the School of Visual Studies, Ballou has held the role of Mizzou Football’s portraitist since 2019. He follows in the footsteps of others, such as Ted Watts, the famed sports illustrator responsible for most of the All-American portraits in the endzone facility.

For Ballou, extending and honoring this legacy takes a careful balance of tradition and innovation.  

“As the projects have developed, I’ve found my own approach to the portraits,” says Ballou. “I want them to have kinship with the portraits of Watts and other previous artists, but I make sure to give the works my own unique inflection.”