Originally published at: https://pistolsfiringblog.com/out-of-his-world-mike-gundys-message-of-bravado-comes-at-the-worst-possible-time/
It was not a good look for OSU’s head coach on Tuesday.
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Kyle, I knew Gundy’s “Chines Virus” would trigger a response from the more sensitive reader. I sensed that the politically correct espn writer was offended by the undeniably accurate and intentioned remark. I aplaud his optimism and we needed a target to rally around, as well.
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“Stanley eye roll” I’m extremely concerned about what’s going on, but what’s wrong with a little optimism? The moron in charge of the US downplays it. (I’m a Republican)
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Ok, I hear where you’re coming from but I kind of agree with Gundy to an extent because this thing has totally gotten blown way out of proportion. Yes, we need to be cautious with the virus, but that doesn’t mean we shut down all of society. It means we shown concern and take a few extra steps of precaution around those that are immunocompromised, but there is absolutely no reason we should have gone to the extent that we have.
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Gundy should have waited until April 28 or so to say this but May sometime is a good target. At least by end of May. We gotta do something or might create a great depression. In May sometime. Maybe not yet but in May have to start thinking of economy.
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I mean… I’m not going to lie, I think this is totally overblown. I get that blogs like PFB need content to survive this dark sports time. I don’t think this is nearly as big of a deal as writers are making it out to be.
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Here’s how ESPN covered the same thing. Really disappointed in PFB right now. The ESPN article conveys a completely different tone:
Heather Dinich ESPN Senior Writer
Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said on Tuesday that his goal is to return to the football building on May 1 because he hopes that tests for the coronavirus will be available in three or four weeks to clear both employees and players.
“How fast that can happen based on the tests that are available, I can’t say right now, but that’s the plan,” Gundy told more than a dozen reporters on a teleconference. “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.”
In what was roughly a 20-minute opening statement, Gundy talked about the national and state response to the coronavirus. COVID-19 has shut down sports across the globe, and college football has set no date to return to practice. Gundy, who has been working remotely from his home and spending time on his farm, said that if somebody were to test positive after returning to work, that person would be quarantined “just like we do people that get the flu.”
“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,” Gundy 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.”
Gundy said there could be people who work in the football building who are older or “maybe have some type of underlying condition.”
“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.
“I’m not taking away from the danger of people getting sick,” he said. “You have the virus, stay healthy, try to do what we can to help people that are sick. And we’re losing lives, which is just terrible. The second part of it is that we still have to schedule and continue to move forward as life goes on and help those people.”
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As always, Gundy is going to get raked over the coals and bashed and in a short while will be shown that he was actually thinking ahead of the curve. Business leaders, especially small businesses, know that what he is saying is absolutely right… We have to start planning for how to come out from under this thing and that’s going to have to be in stages. Yes, it’s too early right now to reopen but now is the time to plan for how we will before we run out of time to do it in a controlled fashion.
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ESPN did a stealth edit. Boone’s pulls were from the original version.
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I live in Tulsa and we just had a 22 year old die from COVID-19. I believe we had 16 die today. I wonder how Gundy would feel if it was one of his children who died from COVID-19? He acts like young people don’t die from this virus but they do. I want football too but I don’t want it at the expense of OSU players and fans dying. If football games have to be played with no fans in the stands to prevent the spread of COVID-19, so be it. I can’t believe at this point anybody would think this is not a serious and deadly virus, much more than the common flu. The stats bear that out, the bodies being loaded in semi-trailers bear that out. Gundy needs to go talk to an ER doctor and hear what they are seeing if he doesn’t understand this silent killer.
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So did Boone make his tweet that led to the post based on an ESPN article? or did he review a video or transcript of the entire press conference? I know PFB wasn’t there. But did they review the full context of the quotes before tossing a match into a tank of gasoline? I haven’t even been able to read the whole thing, yet the balance in what I’ve seen of Gundy’s quotes in ESPN’s (edited?) article are not to be found in my first scan/reading of Porter and Boone’s posts (and the tweet’s I’ve seen so far). I am still trying to catch up as I was enjoying dinner before this exploded. Right now I’m pretty disappointed in PFB. Maybe I’ll change my mind as I learn more.
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There’s nothing else to talk about, gotta go clickbait right now.
I believe his posts were pulled from the ESPN article. Porter said they didn’t participate in the conference.
I haven’t seen anyone pushback on those quotes as untrue.
Not inaccurate but incomplete (The entire audio is in a Twitter thread of Adam Lunt’s). There’s nuance lost in sound bites.
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The only audio I saw was 2.5 minutes. It was an hour long including a 20 minute monologue.
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You’re right, I was about to edit my post to say it was only a couple mins of a really long conference. So even the nuance in that is missing context lol.
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I was not present either but my take from both articles is Grundy was trying to be upbeat and talk about what they are planning for, I.e.start practice after May first. it can be argued that the timing was poor and choices such as “Chinese virus” though grammatically correct, is politically wrong. His point that hiding from in houses is not the only way to mitigate the consequences of Covid19. Quarantine and isolation (which are different), along with liberal testing can slow cases and deaths as well as mitigate economic loses and collateral consequences such as expanding the opioid epidemic.
My take is Gundy poorly communicated his point and put himself in a position to look insensitive and out of touch but Kyle put himself in a position to look like he is piling on and overreacting.
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He’s also saying what a lot of people in business are saying right now. No one wants to risk lives (beyond the normal every day risks) but the current situation is becoming more unsustainable every day with less and less actual benefit. Plans are being made right now in how to emerge and what the steps will be to get back to performing work in a more normal fashion. For me personally I have two projects that we are currently twisting ourselves in knots in order to keep on track because we have to balance: 1) The safety and well being of our employees 2) The safety and security of their employment and 3) Our commitments to our clients. This means having to think weeks ahead and guess what the landscape will be then and putting plans and backup plans and backup to the backup plans in place. In normal situations we can plan it months out, now I am pressed to have a clue two weeks out. At the same time the people that work for me are looking to me for guidance and leadership which right now means being positive and optimistic. I may plan for the worst but I am certainly not going to advertise the worst to my people. Instead I set the goal of hitting the main plan (Gundy’s May 1st) because if I don’t there’s no way it will possibly happen.
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After being ripped a new one by Kyle Boone (on FB responses), I’m done with this site. He wants to write articles, but not take opinions on it. Then belittles he’s readers by telling them they’re wrong on an opinion piece.
There’s enough competition for our eyes.
As always, Go Pokes…just not supporting this site anymore (and I know some will say he won’t need me. Cool)
Add this to the long list of Dumb stuff he’s said that make him and OSU look bad, along with People on Twitter live in moms basement, liberalism is to blame for transfers and poor people being uniformed. He has to know everything he’s talked down on the past couple years involves most if not all his players right? Arrogance, cockiness and ignorance all on full display with our head coach
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