Former Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel was charged Friday in Camden County with a class B misdemeanor stemming from a July 7, 2025, arrest, after court documents showed he was the one who waved down the trooper who ended up arresting him.
The probable cause statement says the officer saw Pinkel flagging him down around 11:30 p.m. in the parking lot of a Big O Tires on Bagnell Dam Blvd. in Lake Ozark, where Pinkel was dealing with a blown tire on his car. The trooper reported that the back right tire on the SUV had blown and had been driven on the rim “for a significant distance based on the damage.”
Once the officer began asking questions, the scene shifted. The probable cause statement says there was a “strong odor of an intoxicating beverage emitting from (Pinkel’s) breath and person,” and that Pinkel’s speech was slurred and he was swaying as he talked.
Pinkel first told the trooper he had “just a very small drink” and had stopped drinking three hours before the tire blew. He later said he had “like two drinks” and that his last drink was two hours earlier.
The trooper then put him through multiple field sobriety tests, and the probable cause statement says Pinkel could not recite the alphabet starting with E and stopping at R, and also could not count backward from 78 to 62. The officer also noted “lack of smooth pursuit” when Pinkel was asked to follow the trooper’s finger with his eyes.
A preliminary breath test registered a blood alcohol concentration of 0.128%, above Missouri’s legal limit of 0.08%. Pinkel was arrested, taken to Camden County jail, and later released.
Pinkel is 74 and coached Missouri from 2001-15, leading the Tigers to multiple Big 12 North and SEC East division titles. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2022.
This was not his first DWI case. Pinkel previously pleaded guilty to a DWI in Boone County after a Nov. 16, 2011, arrest.
Court documents say Pinkel has been summoned to appear in Camden County on July 28, 2026, to plead to the charge.
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