Column:

Gundy outburst a valuable lesson

By Mike Bushnell

Published Sept. 25, 2007

Last weekend, Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy became famous not for being the coach of a 1-3 team or for being the guy who used to hand off to Barry Sanders.

Instead, in a three-minute rant on Saturday following the Cowboys' win against Texas Tech, Gundy unloaded on a columnist from The Oklahoman newspaper of Oklahoma City.

His rant against Jenni Carlson was in response to her Friday column that criticized the attitude of now-benched quarterback Bobby Reid, saying it was his attitude, not play, that led to Gundy benching him for Zac Robinson.

Carlson, citing "rumors," said Reid had thought about transferring multiple times since 2005. She also criticized a video of him laughing with strength coach Trumain Carroll in the final minutes of the Cowboys' stunning blowout loss at Troy, calling it "bad form."

Cut to Saturday: Gundy, instead of taking any questions from the media, berated Carlson in a rambling, occasionally nonsensical rant, throwing around a copy of the column and saying he hoped she had a kid that "gets berated and belittled" and "called fat."

Now let's forget the fact that Reid, a 21-year-old, is not a kid. And let's forget that Gundy, a 40-year-old man, belittled a female writer 10 years younger than him.

Let's also forget that Gundy said he regrets none of it, and that Carlson was doing her job, just as Reid does his, or at least did before he got benched.

As Gundy not so eloquently showed, there's a fine line that writers have to balance when covering amateur sports. They don't get paid to play the games (at least not officially), so they shouldn't be called out the same way writers would ridicule Marc Bulger or Larry Johnson after a terrible game, even if they screw up badly.

Even though Oklahoma State's athletes, who are the benefactors of a $165 million donation by sugar daddy T. Boone Pickens, aren't normal students, they are still amateurs.

"Regardless what people want to say, they're student-athletes, and they're not professional players," Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said yesterday in defense of Gundy. "Sometimes the ridicule or the way people are writing articles or the way they're talking about these kids, they don't realize that some of them are only 18, 19, 20 years old."

And that's the challenge for reporters.

That said, what Gundy did was unprofessional and selfish, no matter what noble cause he thought he was fighting. He overshadowed a hard-fought and potentially season-saving 49-45 win over the Red Raiders, and he forced his players to have to answer questions this week not about Saturday's game against Sam Houston State, but rather about why their coach sounded like Alec Baldwin leaving a message for his daughter.

More than that, Gundy's tirade has become the newest hit on YouTube.com. But after seeing what that site can do for Obama Girl and the crying guy who tells everyone to leave Britney Spears alone, maybe that's not so bad. And it was fun to watch.