On this Valentine’s Day, we wanted to share a love story that started at the GAMES!

Denny and Tracy Heinze of St. Louis, married for 32 years, look fondly back at the Show Me State Games as the place where they started to fall in love. They were acquainted with each other as students at MU, but they hung out together a lot during the soccer portion of the SMSG in the summer of 1987 at Hinkson Field. Denny was playing on a team composed mostly of MU soccer club players.

“I can remember it as if it were yesterday when Tracy came to watch the championship game on that Sunday afternoon,” he said. “She was wearing this pink sundress, which to this day she says was actually peach-colored. Yet regardless of the color, I was smitten and remember walking her to her car after the game and hoping to get to see her again.”

The couple dated through the rest of college and were married not long after they graduated. They returned every summer for about a decade to the Show Me State Games in Columbia where the MU soccer club team would reunite, compete in the tournament, and remember how fast they used to be.

The Show-Me State Games isn’t just about competing for the gold, it’s about community, togetherness, and creating amazing memories and relationships that will last a life time. Denny and Tracy’s story is just one of thousands made at the GAMES and we’re so happy we are a part of the beginning of their love story.

Happy Valentine’s Day