Mike Gundy is 45, but he's not a man

Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy has become the latest petty dictator coach to excercise complete and total power and restrict where a player can transfer.

This time it's quarterback Wes Lunt, a former four star recruit who started several games as a freshman at Oklahoma State, before deciding he wanted to transfer this spring. So what was Gundy's response when Lunt told him he wanted to transfer? Gundy told Lunt that would be fine, but that he wasn't allowed to transfer to any Big 12 school or any school that was presently on future schedules. That's a pretty standard restriction. If that's where Gundy's transfer restrictions ended, this wouldn't be a story. 

But those restrictions weren't enough for Gundy, no, he had to exercise complete and total dictatorial powers. 

He had to punish a player with the temerity to leave his program. 

Gundy also restricted Lunt from transferring to any SEC or Pac 12 school. Southern Miss too, where offfensive coordinator Todd Monken has recently taken over the head coaching job.

Talk about petty.

Yep, Gundy won't let Lunt transfer to any SEC school despite the fact that in Gundy's own words, he almost accepted the Tennessee job this past winter.  

"One of Gundy's three sons was Googling Knoxville schools. Another asked him what a Volunteer was. He didn't know, but for a moment, he thought he wanted to find out full-time.

“At some point, that's where we thought we were going to go,” Gundy said.

So the coach can leave at a moment's notice and take over another job in the SEC, but a player can't play in that conference. Gotcha. (Stop with your stupid scholarship contract argument. Gundy has a contract too. His just doesn't actually mean anything. You'd think the adult's coaching contract would be more enforceable than the kid's one-year renewable scholarship contract. You'd be wrong).

Well, at least the university itself is commited to the Big 12, right?

Except, you know, Oklahoma State tried to join the Pac 12 last season.

So the 19 year old scholarship athlete can't go to the SEC or the Pac 12, but the coach and the school can?

Makes complete and total sense.

Or none.

At all.

One of the reasons why player abuse happens is because players have no power. Coaches are dictators, ruling their gridiron universes with absolute power. And what does absolute power do when someone upsets the ruler?

It corrupts.

Absolutely.  

Gundy owes much of his fame to a 2007 YouTube rant where he proclaimed, "I'm a man, I'm forty!"

That line become a catchphrase, but Gundy's comments were more substantial than that. On that day Gundy attempted to defend a quarterback from improper media criticism. Even if the player, Bobby Reid, would later tell ESPN that the rant "basically ended my life."

That's because Reid and his mother, Rajika, believed the rant was fake.

Yep, that even in the rant that made Gundy famous, the coach was full of crap.  

"Honestly, the way I took it, I felt like it was all a front," Reid told ESPN. "That it was all a big show. It didn't feel genuine."

Rajika: "It wasn't the truth. If it was the truth and this kid does everything right, why wasn't he back on the field?" 

Later in the ESPN article, Rajika took dead aim at Gundy, "Being 40 doesn't make you a man," Rajika says, "It's your character that makes you a man. Your integrity. That's what makes you a man. Not how old you are. I read a Chinese proverb one time in a restaurant, and it said, 'A fool at 40 is a fool always.' That tells you everything."

With all this in mind, the way he's treated two quarterbacks now, watch the Gundy video again.

This isn't a man defending a player, it's an adult throwing a tempter tantrum because his power is being questioned.

Put simply, Gundy's a bully.  

Then put on your seatbelt, because I'm about to destroy Mike Gundy using his own ranting words 

1. "This was brought to me by a mother...of children."

An important distinction here. 

Because otherwise we might think that Gundy was talking about the mother...of dragons. 

Gundy is clearly a huge "Game of Thrones," fan. 

2. "This article embarrasses me to be involved in athletics. Tremendously."

Just like you embarrass every other coach with your petty antics, Mike. 

3. "That article had to be written by a person that doesn't have a child."

Direct personal attacks at whether or not a reporter has a child?

Strong!

I mean, no father would ever treat someone else's child unfairly, right?

Right? 

4. "And had to deal with a child when he is upset. And kick a person when he's down."

You mean, like when a freshman quarterback decides to transfer after his first college choice doesn't work out and you won't let him go to his second choice?

That kind of kicking while someone is down? 

5. "Here's all that kid did, he goes to class, he's respectful to the media, he's respectful to the public, and he's a good kid."

So did Wes Lunt not do these things?

Is Wes Lunt a bad kid?

Otherwise, why treat him like this? 

6. "He's not a professional athlete and he doesn't deserve to be kicked when he's down."

Thank God forcing a player to go to a school he doesn't want to attend isn't kicking a kid while he's down.

Wait... 

7. "If you have a child one day, you'll understand how it feels. But you obviously don't have a child. I do." 

You left this part out, Mike: "Which is why I can be a complete and total ass to someone else's child."

8. "If you want to go after an athlete, one of my athletes, you go after one that doesn't do the right things. You don't downgrade him because he does everything right and may not play as well on Saturday." 

Continuing: "You make sure that he never, ever goes to Central Michigan and Southern Miss and tries to play football on Saturday. You don't downgrade him, you hold him hostage!"

9. "Attacking an amateur athlete for doing everything right." 

My pistols are firing, Mike, and your own words are the bullets.

10. "Come after me, I'm a man! I'm forty! I'm not a kid. Write something about me."

I barely have to write, I just have to use your own words, Mike.

11. "They're supposed to be mature adults, but they're really not."

"Mature adults" making nearly four million a year to be dictators over college kids. 

12. "Who's the kid here? Who's the kid here? Are you kidding me?"

You're making one hell of a strong case, Mike.

Keep going!

13. "That's all I got to say. Makes me want to puke."

I couldn't have said it better myself, Mike. 

You're 45 now, but you're still not a man. 

Instead, you're a petty bitch of a dictator.