Mike Gundy had an ill-advised press conference Tuesday.
The Oklahoma State head football coach sounded more like Al Bundy, an unhappy shoe salesman on the old TV show: Married... with Children.
Bundy wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.
Neither was Gundy as he said he was planning on starting football back on May 1.
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Never mind that the Big 12 has a mandate not to have any athletic activities until after May 31.
Or that he and his staff are under orders not to even come to the office until June.
Or that all but three of his players have gone home to endure the COVID-19 and are taking classes online.
Gundy is a good football coach and Oklahoma State is a great university that has turned out hundreds of great engineers that deserved better than what it got from Gundy, its most high profile employee.
Gundy opened with a 20-minute speech in which he called COVID-19 a "Chinese virus," and compared it to the flu.
He claimed his players are young and could handle the virus if they got it, and they could be sequestered on campus.
That getting a herd of people outside would be healthy.
No one said he made good grades in science.
There's not a coach of any sport in the country who isn't getting antsy.
Who isn't?
They are hired to do a job that has wisely been abandoned while the coronavirus is being fought all over the world by leading medical experts.
Currently, Oklahoma is doing well with a ratio of 38 positives out of 100,000.
The last thing it needs is for more than 100 football players and a football staff to start commingling on a daily basis.
Granted, it was a smart idea that the NCAA allows coaches to convene via computers with their staff and players, but actually getting together would not be smart.
Many don't believe this virus has peaked.
Sure, Gundy is not the only one who refuses to take the virus seriously, but most are not in a position of authority like he is.
This is the head football coach of a Power 5 school.
And he just said he thought it would be okay to break all the protocols just so he can coach some football.
Gundy appears to have little regard for anything other than football.
He is a native of Oklahoma, which is under a shelter-in-place order.
He is loved at OSU because he snubbed the University of Oklahoma to play for the Cowboys where he became the starting quarterback midway though his freshman season.
The Cowboys won two bowl games with him at quarterback and had to 10-win seasons, although he shared the backfield with running back Thurman Thomas and Barry Sanders.
Other than one year at Baylor and three at Maryland as offensive coordinator, his entire career has been at O-State.
In 15 seasons as a head coach, he has a 129-64 overall record and 77-52 in conference play.
His only losing season was his first one, and the Pokes have been to 14 consecutive bowl games, winning nine of those.
No one has ever criticized his ability to win football games.
It is the other things that have cast him in a bad light, like screaming "I am a man," over and over again and "write about me" at a female sports columnist because she had written something about a player Gundy didn't like
Now, he's gotten into really unfamiliar territory.
That of a trying to be a leader off the field.
Everyone is missing sports and most officials are concerned if there will even be a football season this fall, but Gundy is ready to start football practice in the middle of this pandemic.
Maybe that's why he wears his hair in a mullet.
Sports on 04/09/2020