Not since Herman Edwards or Jim Boeheim has a coach’s meltdown been this good. Going off on a tirade of epic proportions sure to be replayed by YouTube users for weeks on end, Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy made a fantastic fool of himself Monday following his team’s down-to-the-wire win against Texas Tech. What should have been a quiet press conference about one of Gundy’s landmark victories turned into anything but.
Instead, Gundy decided to substitute the planned Q&A session for a personal attack on a reporter from The Oklahoman newspaper. It was short. It was “sweet.” However, the taste that it left in probably everyone’s mouth is one of a sour nature.
It all started soon after backup quarterback Zac Robinson found Brandon Pettigrew in the back of the end zone for the game-winning score with 1:37 remaining. Just like the end of every other home game, Gundy walked off the field and into the conference room at Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater, Okla. All appeared to be normal as Gundy approached the stage in his customary, military-march manner. However, something was different: in Gundy’s left hand was a crisp copy of the Sept. 22 edition of The Oklahoman. The paper that seemed out of place in Gundy’s grip soon became the focal point – and the only point – of Gundy’s slap-happy press conference.
Gundy’s “impassioned” – no, delirious is more like it – defense of his season-opening quarterback, junior Bobby Reid, began with an announcement that he had been receiving complaints from an unnamed player’s mother. Upset that one of his amateur athletes was being criticized for his play on the field, Gundy began to directly address Jenni Carlson, a member of the conference audience and the writer of the column that he apparently so severely disliked.
Labeling all newspapers as “garbage,” Gundy stated that he thought “three-fourths of [the article] was inaccurate. Fiction.” On Tuesday, at a separate press conference, Gundy was pressed to clarify on what specific parts of the article were false. Of course, Gundy was unable to espouse any clear or concise statement as to what exactly was wrong with the piece. Said Gundy, “I’d rather just let it go.”
Unfortunately for Gundy, the university, the state of Oklahoma and all those with a computer and in need of a good laugh will not “just let it go.” It’s not that this is an alarming case of violent verbal abuse against the journalistic profession. No, that’s certainly not why this video will linger longer than the smell of spilled spoiled milk or a nasty batch of coconut curry cupcakes (say that three times fast). Journalists have been taking flak left and right for thousands of years. Heck, even those ancient Greek reporters who covered the first Olympic Games were spit on and told to get a real job by the first group of athletes and trainers. OK, so that’s a lie.
Bad jokes aside, the reason this viral video will be on repeat for many years to come, just like Jim Mora’s infamous “playoff” diatribe and Allen Iverson’s “practice” jeremiad, is because of its golden playback quality. To be more precise, there are three snippets from the conference that are not only inherently confounding but also downright hilarious:
1. Referring to Mama Reid who physically handed Gundy the paper: “This was brought to me by a mother. A mother of children.” As opposed to … aliens? Baby pigs? Nature?
2. Phrasing a hypothetical situation in which writer Jenni Carlson were to be a mother of a morbidly obese child with butterfingers and would thus understand not to be critical of people who can’t make plays: “If your child goes down the street and somebody makes fun of him because he dropped a pass in a pick-up game or says he’s fat and comes home crying to his mom, you’d understand.” OK, so journalists are supposed to be like cheery, old housekeepers insofar as they should coddle the subjects of their articles. Makes sense, right?
3. Gundy then gets philosophical while demanding that writers only critique the coach and not 21-year-old children: “Where are we at in society today? Come after me! I’m a man. I’m 40!” To be fair, Carlson’s depiction of Reid in her article as being fed by his mother does paint the picture that Reid is an adolescent unable to use his own hands to eat chicken. But then again, Gundy supposedly didn’t read that part.
Do yourself a favor. Go watch this video. They say laughing adds three years to your life.
And word has it that Gundy is on the verge of joining the likes of Bob Knight and Dennis Green in the Hoot-and-Holler Hall of Fame. So go ahead and laugh. You’ll want to live as long as possible to ensure you see the next one as good as this.
