Coach tirade needless, embarrassing
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by J Cunningham
By now I'm sure you've seen Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy's tirade toward columnist Jenni Carlson after Saturday's 49-45 win over Texas Tech.
By now I'm sure you've also formed an opinion on the rant.
I'm a tad confused as to the timing of the rant; I've covered sports long enough to know what to expect in a press conference following a game like Saturday's: coach comes in, makes an opening remark about how great the opposing team is, how gratifying the win was and how much harder the team will have to work the coming week. Coach then takes questions from the assembled media, largely repeating the earlier statement for his answers.
But Gundy didn't do this. No ... he entered the press room and immediately laid into Carlson for her column in the Daily Oklahoman -- a column in which she opined about why quarterback Bobby Reid was benched. For those who haven't read the article, she basically questioned Reid's mental toughness and, without actually saying so, called the young man a wuss.
That's when Gundy went off.
Now, I know what you're thinking: "Oh, here's a sports writer jumping to the defense of one of his brethren." Which ... okay, you're not entirely wrong there. But I have serveal problems with Gundy's actions ... most notably, the public forum with which he defended Reid.
I'm all for a coach backing one of his players; it shows a camaraderie not every team -- regardless of the level -- has. I have no problem with a coach standing beside his player and showing unflinching support. What I have a problem with is when a coach, like Gundy, publicly undresses another individual to do so. If Gundy had a problem with Carlson's article, then he should've found a time to pull Carlson aside and talked to her one-on-one about it. He had no business using a post-game press conference -- when other writers who had nothing to do with this article and his reaction to it have a job of their own to do -- to challenge her in front of television cameras and many of her colleagues.
I'm sure Carlson has thick skin -- you kind of have to in this line of work. And she stands by her article, as well she should. Gundy said, "three-fourths of this article is inaccurate," which is all fine and dandy. But there's one problem with his statement; he has to prove the inaccuracies. It's not up to Carlson to stand up and prove why what she wrote was accurate -- this takes us back to the journalists-revealing-sources debate -- it's up to Gundy to point to the inaccuracies and prove to Carlson and her readers why she's wrong.
It is also worth noting this was a column, not a news article. So Carlson was expressing an opinion, one Gundy clearly disagreed with.
Gundy berated Carlson for degrading a young student-athlete who was doing things the right way. He moaned about how Reid was an ameteur, and shouldn't have been subject to this kind of criticism. Because after all, Reid was just a kid, a kid who was working hard and doing things the right way. But what I wanna know is ... if Reid was working hard and doing things the right way, then why was he benched?!
Not only that, but both Gundy and Reid need to understand that when you play major Division I college football in one of the six BCS conferences -- and particularly in a town like Stillwater where your sport and your team are king -- you practically are a pro athlete. The revenue and exposure these kids bring to the schools and conferences warrant this kind of exposure and everything that comes with it -- including media scrutiny.
You don't want media scrutiny as a college football player? There's always Division III.
I read Carlson's article. Nothing Pultizer-worthy, but it was a readable piece. It was also your typical column in the sense of the style and flow it had. Though Carlson does attack Reid's character to a degree, there is nothing in that article worthy of such a meltdown from the coach.
A coach who hadn't seen the article until Reid's mother showed it to him.
But Gundy doesn't read the papers, or so he says. If he didn't read the papers, he wouldn't have paid this column -- or Carlson -- any mind. Generally, when someone publicly says, "I don't do this," they almost always do. And, as far as I'm concerned, if Reid himself doesn't have a problem with the article (and I haven't seen anything publicly to tell me he does), then what's the big deal?
Gundy showed incredibly thin skin in his tirade. His Cowboys had just completed a thrilling, emotional win over a conference rival and all he could think about was some column about his benched quarterback? This shows me a coach who's priorities are a little off-kilter and a fuse that's much too short. I think Gundy needs to re-examine things and concentrate on the thing Oklahoma State hired him to concentrate on:
His football team.
