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Jackassery in Oklahoma
September 27, 2007It's been almost a full week since Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy's now legendary rant against Daily Oklahoman columnist Jenni Carlson - an instant classic on sports radio - but the story's finally starting to die down a bit.
While Gundy busily prepares his team for Sam Houston State Saturday night at home, Carlson is no doubt back at work preparing to cover it - just two professionals getting back to their jobs and on with their lives, as well they should.
Too bad that all that professionalism was lost on them when it counted.
Carlson's irresponsibility in selecting her angle for a column about now-deposed Cowboys quarterback Bobby Reid plus Gundy's irrational reaction to it equaled total jackassery and the whole country got to watch.
Carlson may or may not gain a reputation as no-nonsense, hard question-asking sportswriter and Gundy may or may not have found a way to galvanize his locker room, but both are losers in my eyes.
Look, a sportswriter/columnist has every right to print his or her opinion on whatever he or she chooses to write about.
However, they also have an obligation to consider not only the subject matter, but also their opinion's possible reception. Additionally, it might not hurt to give a fact-based opinion rather than a low-brow psychological diagnosis.
To be fair though, coaches don't necessarily have to be emotional firebrands - but if you are, then that's what you are.
Yet, if you're the face of your program and the prime example to follow for a room full of still impressionable young adults, you've got to conduct your affairs with a bit more decorum than Gundy's meltdown showed he has the ability to.
Thus proving that confronting a jackass by acting like a jackass never works out in your favor.
Hopefully their ridiculous circus act is over, but with eight games left in the Cowboys' season - including the Bedlam Series - there are still ample opportunities for more nuttiness.
Unless, of course, professionalism just happens to win out.
Posted by Stephen Smith at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
