He’s still a man, but he’s now 50.
Ten years ago, Oklahoma State football head coach Mike Gundy had a rant for the ages on Sept. 22, 2007. The coach went off on the media for a column about a quarterback, Bobby Reid, who was benched in favor of a sophomore, Zac Robinson.
The column appeared in The Oklahoman, which Gundy said he doesn’t read “because it’s garbage.”
“If you wanna go after an athlete, one of my athletes, you go after one that doesn’t do the right things,” he screamed after he held up the newspaper, with pages falling out. “You don’t downgrade him because he does everything right, and may not play as well on Saturdays. You let us make that decision.”
“Where are we at in society today? Come after me! I’m a man! I’m 40! I’m not a kid! Write something about me or our coaches. Don’t write about a kid that does everything right, that’s hard-spoken. And then say that the coaches said he was scared – that ain’t true,” Gundy continued.
The epic rant came to an end with applause after he brought the press conference to an end saying “That’s all I got to say. Makes me want to puke.”
Gundy’s tirade ended up waking something up inside the program and it showed all the players that their coach was willing to go to bat for them.
The coach told Fox Sports Bruce Feldman, as transcribed by CoachingSearch.com, that the speech really did help the team.
“It’s funny. In recruiting, it’s faded out over the last three or four years. Two, three, four years afterward, I would go into homes to recruit – I remember being on the East Coast, and one of the players’ grandmothers came in and brought that up and talked about it for a couple minutes, then got up and left. She just wanted to talk about our willingness to support our players,” Gundy said.
At the time of the rant, Gundy was 13-15 as head coach of Oklahoma State. Since the infamous press conference, the team has gone 89-31 and Gundy has grown out a mullet. He became the head coach of the program in 2005.
The Cowboys are currently 3-0 this season and are ranked No. 6 in the country. They’ll be tested this Saturday when they face No. 16 TCU, who is also undefeated so far.