Football Coach Goes Insane. Oklahoma Looks Bad Again

[Edskin]

My latest...

www.edkleese.blogspot.com

Daily Oklahoman sportswriter Jenni Carlson is a moron.

Daily Oklahoman sports editor Mike Sherman is a moron.

Oklahoma State head football coach Mike Gundy is a moron.

The journalists supporting Carlson and Sherman are morons.

The fans supporting Gundy are morons.

That is basically all you need to know when attempting how best to “analyze” what went down at OSU’s post-game press conference after their victory over Texas Tech last Saturday.

Gundy is all over You Tube.

Carlson was on Good Morning America.

And once again, just like the folks they find to interview after the tornado hits, Oklahomans look ridiculous. Thank you very much, Jenni, Mike, and Mike.

For those of you living in caves, Gundy unleashed a raging tirade directed at Carlson and the Oklahoman in response to an article that appeared in the paper Saturday morning.

Rather than rehash the facts, I’ll just provide the links. The first is to the article, the second, the tirade.

http://newsok.com/article/3131543

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoMmbUmKN0E

First, let’s start with the article. The “chicken” reference is an incredibly amateurish low blow. Plus, she doesn’t even elaborate on how his Mom was feeding him. Was she handing it to him? Tossing it in the air to see if he could catch it in his mouth? Making helicopter noises and bringing it in for a landing? Either way, her attempt at establishing himself as a sissy or a “Momma’s Boy” fell totally flat. It was somewhat cruel, and perhaps bordering on leaning heavily on a racial stereotype.

It’s amazing she wrote it, and more amazing that Sherman allowed it to be printed.

Next, Carlson blurs the line between reporting and editorializing. She references “rumors,” but provides little, if any, hard evidence to support her “opinions.”

As soon as that article hit the stands, Mike Gundy and the OSU faithful had every right to call Carlson and Sherman on the carpet. They had every right to challenge their claims and defend their player. But instead of taking a rational, logical, intelligent approach to the situation, Gundy lost his mind. He blew up. He went on a verbal rampage that was dripping with what has become typical Oklahoma State Aggie inferiority complex.

Gundy could have easily addressed the situation in a civil manner. He could certainly have voiced his displeasure and even anger without pacing back and forth like a madman, pointing fingers, hollering, and screaming about “Mothers of children.” As opposed to what Mike? By the way, did he mention something about "fat kids" in there?

He said that three-fourths of the story were false, yet he only briefly expressed which parts he was talking about—and that was hard to detect through all of the flailing and blabbering. Given another chance on Monday to specifically address the inaccuracies in the article, Gundy refused to comment.

Carlson and Sherman produced a piece of journalistic garbage. But instead of taking out the trash, Gundy ripped the lid open and flung the garbage everywhere. Now, we have a real disgusting mess on our hands.

Unless, of course, you are an Oklahoma Sooner fan. For us Sooners, this is all quite entertaining. Yes, it makes Oklahomans in general look like fools, but that slight national embarrassment is well worth it in exchange for getting to witness a complete meltdown of Aggie Nation. Listening to talk radio and reading sports message boards, I can almost feel the steam rising from the ears of OSU fans. They are a group that feels slighted and dismissed in the first place. Now, they see their coach standing up for these “injustices” and they are just in such a tizzy. The majority of these fans are supporting Gundy’s actions. Once again proving that irrational, tyrannical, monologues are the only ways to communicate or connect with an OSU fan.

I’m a tad upset with all those mentioned above for making us all look so bad in front of a national audience.

But I’d by lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying the heck out it.

Morons. All of them.

[Screwball]

Well said, Ed.

I'll admit I love me a good head coach tirade - no matter what the sport. But this particular tirade was hard to get into. Not only was the content of what he was saying pretty weak (Hey, you hurt a 21 year old's feelings!!), but the tone and volume of his voice fluctuated so often it was hard to take him seriously. He would scream a couple sentences here, and then abruptly tone it down several notches as though he was trying to achieve a dramatic effect. Unfortunately, it wasn't working out for him. If he would've just yelled and hollered the whole time (a la Denny Green - now that's a tirade), methinks it would've come off a lot better.

[Unassisted]

That's been all over the news here. Texans never seem to mind seeing an unhappy Oklahoma coach. I chalked it up to youth and inexperience.

Texas Tech coach Mike Leach's comments were similarly entertaining from the same post-game presser. He basically pulled out a verbal flamethrower and torched his entire defense. The result of his tirade was that his Defensive Coordinator resigned yesterday.

Considering what sleepy backwaters Lubbock and Stillwater usually are, that presser must have been a real treat for for the reporters in attendance!

[NJReds]

I'm never surprised when a football coach loses it. These guys barely sleep from the week before camp to the last game of the season, and they are fiercely protective of their players. One of the reasons I ended my career as a reporter was the ever-growing necessity for being controversial with or without facts to back it up.

I lean to the side of the coach in this case. The reporter should be taken off the beat. Let her cover some high school sports for a while. You can be sure that the nation's columnists will run to her defense. Media types are great at circling the wagons.

This, by the way...

Injuries are tricky, of course. You don't want a guy to put himself in harm's way if he's really hurt, and yet, football is one of those sports in which everyone plays hurt.

...is one of those things that sports commentators do that drives me nuts. They bring up the fact that a guy doesn't play hurt with the caveat that you don't really know how someone feels. Sorry, once you bring it up, you're saying the guy is dogging it.

[Joseph]

Ed you bring up a good point in your assessment, this woman is writing an editorial not a report on a game.

If I have to choose a side, I suppose I'd be with the coach and the kid because she crosses the line several times. The article seems essentially without definable merit and mostly hyperbole at best.

[TeamSelig]

I love how he defended his player though. Defended him well too.

[durl]

I love how he defended his player though. Defended him well too.

+1

Kudos for him for sticking up for his guy. Writers too often write a column and move on but the negative effects remain for quite some time.

[Blimpie]

Here's ESPN's Pat Forde with his take on things....

Coaches Losing It
Congratulations to Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy (16), who showed he can be Bob Knight without the titles after his tantrum in response to a column by the Oklahoman's Jenni Carlson. In the Saturday paper, she questioned the toughness of quarterback Bobby Reid, who'd been benched by Gundy the previous week. Gundy responded by losing his mind after one of the few big victories in his 28-game career as a head coach, a shootout upset of Texas Tech.

On Monday, a completely unapologetic Gundy said it was "unfortunate" that his 3-minute, 20-second tirade took away from his team's victory. Of course, that was his fault, since he deemed trashing a reporter more important than acknowledging the Cowboys' performance.


Coaches have the right to take issue with journalists, and to do it in public. That's part of the job for a columnist to take what he/she dishes out. But this was such a shrill overreaction that the message was lost amid the screaming.


One of Gundy's big complaints was negative treatment of a "kid" who is not being paid to play the game. But coaches never object to the tens of thousands of fans fawning over that kid, the tutors arranged to help him maintain minimum eligibility standards, the training table meals he eats, the tricked-up locker room he changes in -- or the positive press most players receive most of the time. Hero worship is expected and encouraged; criticism is child abuse. It's quite the double standard.


(For the record, Reid is 21 years old. He was old enough to vote in the 2004 presidential election or to die in Iraq. But few people are afforded the means to grow up more slowly than major-college athletes.)


"Come after me!" Gundy bellowed directly at Carlson. "I'm a man! I'm 40!"

OK, if you insist. The Dash will go after Gundy.

The great orator said that the column in question was shown to him, "by a mother. A mother of children."

As opposed to a mother of walruses, presumably.

Gundy went on to say that 75 percent of the column was fabricated. He took issue with two points in the column. So maybe math isn't his specialty.

Anyway, The Dash hopes Gundy felt like a big man when it was over. Next time an ounce of professional decorum would be appreciated. Until then, try to worry more about improving that 13-15 career record that includes seven victories over Sun Belt and I-AA opposition.

(By the way: Gundy says he doesn't read the newspapers. It's The Dash's experience that the majority of coaches who say they don't read the newspapers are lying.)

[Hoosier Red]

I feel commentators would be better served with all athletes but particularly well suited not to brand each individual act as a character statement on the person they are covering.

You want to say the quarterback missed his reads, have at it, but don't say the quarterback is too lazy to do his homework on the opposing defense.

You want to say a certain right fielder didn't hustle out of the box, fine by all means, but don't say he's lazy.

Coaches and commentators created this problem, for years we've heard of "heroic performances, brilliant work by quarterbacks, and extolling praises for a winning performance.

By correlation if Tom Brady wins because of his exhaustive preparation, does Rex Grossman fail because he doesn't prepare enough?
If Willis Reed is heroic because he played on two bad knees, is Ken Griffey Junior weak because he won't play on a bad hamstring?


The fact of the matter which is ignored in almost every case is that talent wins most games. In cases where talent does not win, while determination and guttiness play a role, most often its luck which makes up the difference.

[Blimpie]

Nice post.

[GoReds33]

I love how the coach stood up for his player. Whether that was justified or not, I would still appreciate that my coach cared for me that much.

[Edskin]

GoReds-- While I am sure Gundy was standing up for Reid, this story goes deeper than that. I think Gundy was reacting to the beating he took in the press the preceeding week after their awful loss to Troy.

[IslandRed]

I feel commentators would be better served with all athletes but particularly well suited not to brand each individual act as a character statement on the person they are covering.

Well said.

I don't totally buy the "he's just a kid" thing. As Forde mentioned, college athletes are public figures whether they like it or not; depending on what state you're in, they're every bit as well known as pro athletes. If they're going to be glorified for their play, criticism of their play is fair game.

The key words there are "of their play." I don't have a problem with analysis or criticism of a college player's performance. But that column wasn't criticizing Reid's performance; it was calling his character into question. Now, maybe the article was 100% correct and it's well known within the program that he's a wuss. But journalists are supposed to have standards. If the writer couldn't get even one person to go on the record about any of that, perhaps it should have been left unsaid.