“Just let the boys play!” is taking on a whole new meaning this week after Mike Gundy’s comments.
The Oklahoma State head coach told reporters on Tuesday that he hoped to be back at practice by May 1. Oklahoma State has since tried to pump the brakes on those comments, saying it seems “highly ambitious.”
He’s also said that they need to play “for the benefit of the state economy”, which I think we all get how important major college football is to any school’s bottom line, but I don’t think now is the time to get on the table and start shouting it. Do you want to start paying them? Didn’t think so.
Let’s take a look at Gundy’s initial statements and dissect them a little, shall we?
“How fast that can happen based on the tests that are available, I can’t say right now, but that’s the plan,” Gundy said, according to ESPN. “We have to have a plan, and the plan right now is for them to start on May 1. It might get backed up two weeks. I don’t know. I can’t make that call, but if it does, we’ll start with the employees of this company, the ones that come in this building. Then we’ll bring the players in, and slowly but surely we’ll test them all in.”
So, let me get this straight. The world is shut down until further notice and all of the major sports leagues have essentially cancelled their seasons, with varied responses to whether they’ll be back, none seeming too likely. But college football spring practice? THE SHOW MUST GO ON.
“Maybe they don’t come back,” he said, “but the majority of people in this building who are healthy … and certainly the 18-, 19-, 20-, 21-, 22-year-olds that are healthy, the so-called medical people saying the herd of healthy people that have the antibodies may be built up and can fight this? We all need to go back to work.
Gundy appears to not understand literally anything about the coronavirus, which is odd considering it’s the only thing trending on Twitter EVERY DAY and news outlets (ESPN included) are running updates/stories 24/7. I don’t know why maybe because there’s NO SPORTS being played ANYWHERE.
“We get people that get the flu during the season. We quarantine them, we treat them, we make sure they’re healthy, we bring ’em back,” he said. “It would be the same thing here, but at some point, we’ve got to go back to work. We’ve got to get these guys back in here. … From what I read, the healthy people can fight this; the antibodies make it better. They’re doing some blood transplants now with the people that have already gotten the disease, that have gotten over it that have the antibodies that can fight it. There’s a lot of people who can figure this out. May 1’s our goal. Don’t know if it will happen. Players will come in after that.”
Mike Gundy, noted “flu guy.” I thought we had gotten rid of the last of the flu guys, people who dismissed it as just that, nothing worse than the common flu. But apparently there is one last survivor in this camp, a throwback if you will. Very retro.
I mean who cares that students nationwide aren’t going back to school this semester, and graduations have been cancelled, football players didn’t come to play school, they’re athletes. And their lives MATTER. Or, maybe they don’t according to Gundy.
He’s come along way since being a noted player’s coach and owner of an equally sweet mullet:
And starting to look a lot more like an owner’s coach, which just isn’t gonna fly in 2020.
Mike is an insult to the concept of higher education, intelligence, and leadership. Why does the University keep such an IGNORANT BUFFOON on its payroll.