jenni carlson

Posted Sep 25th 2007 6:17PM by Brian Grummell
Filed under: Oklahoma State Football, Big 12, NCAA FB Media Watch, Featured Stories, The Word

Desmond Howard, on ESPN's College Football Live earlier today in response to Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy's outburst towards a reporter:

So I read the article, and as I started to read the article I was like, she started drawing a reference to this kid's mom giving him some chicken. I'm like is this kid's mom ... where is she going with this? It painted a picture.

He's sitting there holding a cell phone and you see like this big black hand with a chicken leg come into the screen and feeding him. Or is she taking a knife and fork and giving him a chicken breast?

I didn't know where she was going with that. So then I started to read some more and she never really wrapped it up. She just tried to allude to this mother's boy image. I'm like come on little lady you must not know athletes - some of the toughest players I've ever played with were mama's boys.

It might have been meant innocently, or maybe it was intentional - hopefully Mr. Howard can clarify that mangled statement. I'm just as confused as him about the article but I also don't know how far he was going with his comment. Reid is a black player and it's not hard to see how people might confuse Jenni Carlson's description of a scene between Reid and his mother as slyly racist.

If Howard didn't mean to infer as much, he needs to be more careful in how he says things. If Howard suspects as much, then it's not a leap to think others are suspicious that race was one of Ms. Carlson's calculations about Bobby Reid and how she described him. And if that's true, race is another element to this ordeal that should be given attention instead of hiding in the shadows to simmer in peoples' hearts unaddressed or left to vague allusions.

All I know is this thing has "more trouble to come" written all over it and everyone involved in it comes out soiled from Carlson to her editor to Mike Gundy to the journalists attacking him to the people defending him and perhaps even to Desmond Howard.
Bobby Knight would've been proud. The rant was an instant classic. Mike Gundy's explosion is something I plan to watch at least 20 more times.

There's two sides to the issue: the side supporting Gundy and the side not supporting Gundy. That part of it is pretty simple. But the actual discussion at hand, is not so simple.

There's multiple questions lying under Gundy's red-faced, vein-popping diatribe. Was Daily Oklahoman columnist Jenni Carlson out if line? Was Gundy out of line? Can college athletes be criticized? Was that the right place for such a rant? When Jenni Carlson has a child, will Gundy call he or she "fat?"

Here's my quick take on the whole matter - Carlson can and should write whatever she wants. She's a columnist. That's what they do. Was her column over the top and pushing the envelope? Yes. She shouldn't have used the whole "chicken" thing. She also shouldn't have went on a story she was told by a fellow reporter because she wasn't in Alabama to see Bobby Reid get fed chicken by his mother first hand. So it was a poor choice by her. But she probably tripled her readership.

I definitely see Gundy's side of it. Heck, I think he had a right to be peeved. But a post game press conference wasn't the place for it. Oklahoma State just had one of the most emotional, important wins in Gundy's tenure and he didn't say a word about it. That's the worst part.

How do you think Zac Robinson feels? He just played his heart out and his coach goes in and talks about his backup. That's pretty silly. It should have been taken care of behind closed doors. Or at the very least, Gundy should have thought about what he was going to say and presented it in a classy, respectful manner. He even admitted that much. Because Gundy is a class-act through and through. He's been a stand up guy for three years as head coach and has represented OSU proud. For sure a lot better than the yahoo before him. It was honestly quite shocking to see him blow his stack like that. I think we saw more emotion from Gundy in those three minutes than in three years on the sidelines.

He defended his player against a character attack. That's what coaches are supposed to do. Whether Carlson was right or wrong, doesn't really matter. The reason this is news is because of the way Gundy handled it.

But as for college athletes being criticized. I'm on the fence a little about it. I don't think personal attacks are appropriate, but criticisms are definitely not off limits. If I, a 22-year-old sports writer can take abuse from peers and older people for something I write, then a college quarterback should be able to take some razzing. College athletes get to be coddled and pampered. They get school paid for. They get free medical treatment, free meals, free stardom, but you're not allowed to say something negative about them? That's quite a double-standard.

Yelling at a reporter in a post game press conference was not the place for that. It's not like someone tossed an absurd question up that set him off. He came in, newspaper in hand ready to blow. Wishing for her future children to be ridiculed? Yeah, I bet he wishes he could take that back.

To sum up, I see Gundy's point. He had a right to it, just like Carlson had a right to hers. Was she out of line? Probably. Was he out of line? Absolutely.
Ten years ago, Jenni Carlson was among an elite group of 11 Kansas University graduates who earned a chancellor's award.

Who knew that a decade later the same Jenni Carlson would be treated with unconscionable rudeness and brazen disrespect by the football coach of a Big 12 Conference school?

After hearing about Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy's attack on Carlson, I went to the Web and watched his 31?2-minute tirade. It's a jaw-dropper.

In nearly four decades of covering Big Eight and later Big 12 football, I never saw anything like it. Sure, coaches being unhappy with sports writers isn't anything new ― heck, I've had my ears reddened a time or two ― but the scolding was always in private, never in public.

What made Gundy's unprecedented flogging of Carlson even worse was the smattering of clapping in the background as Gundy left the room without saying a word about the Cowboys' thrilling 49-45 victory over Texas Tech.

I'm assuming that applause came from "big cigars" who were given the privilege of attending Gundy's postgame media session because I can't imagine any of the writers or broadcasters joining the sycophantic chorus.

What could Carlson possibly have written that would prompt Gundy to go ballistic?

Basically, she was looking for answers. She was speculating ― as columnists are supposed to do ― why sophomore Zac Robinson had beaten out two-year starter Bobby Reid at quarterback. With Gundy supplying no definitive answers, Carlson was left to guess based on what she knew and what she had heard, so she wrote, in effect, that Reid lost the job because he wasn't tough enough.

Carlson did not call Reid a "mama's boy," but the insinuation was there, and apparently that's where Gundy thought the column went over the edge.

Although well within the bounds of fair comment and criticism, Carlson questioning Reid's manhood certainly took courage and proved she has come a long way from her days at KU when, while columnizing for The University Daily Kansan, she primarily penned prose that overpraised the men's basketball team.

In retrospect of Saturday's mean-spirited mangling of Carlson, we are left to wonder if Gundy would have ridiculed a male writer for a similar column. Perhaps, but in bashing a woman, Gundy emerged as more cowardly than he would have if he had attacked a male scribe.

Earlier this year, we all watched KU football coach Mark Mangino on YouTube as he dropped the F-bomb eight times while chastising a KU player. Mangino later groused that the media shouldn't have been there. Essentially, Gundy was saying the same thing, that the media should either jump on the bandwagon or lie down under its wheels.

His gaffe eventually will be listed as one of the reasons he lost his job.

At the same time, Gundy has turned Jenni Carlson into a national figure. Her fame may last only 15 minutes, but today she is the most famous female graduate of the KU School of Journalism.