Mike Gundy’s tone-deaf coronavirus comments expose his hypocrisy

Mike Gundy is willing to sacrifice his unpaid labor force to the coronavirus so Oklahoma State football can get back to work. This is so wrong.

Don’t get medical advice from Mike Gundy.

The Oklahoma State football coach put his foot in his mouth a few times during a 20-minute teleconference on Tuesday when he spoke about wanting to get to work on May 1.

Gundy admits the timeline may be pushed back two weeks because he doesn’t know and he doesn’t make the call, but he’s hoping to get everyone tested so they can get back to work.

It would appear Gundy is in the camp thinking this is just 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.”

I understand Gundy wanting to get back to work and get back to a routine and some sort of normalcy. Everyone feels that way. But not everyone is willing to risk the health of 18-22-year-olds like Gundy is.

"“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 maybe 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.”"

Gundy also weighed in on the mainstream media, because apparently, that’s the thing to do. Gundy is tired of all the negative reports he’s seeing the news. In case he missed, this is a very negative story with people dying all over the planet. This is serious. There is reason to be fearful.

But Gundy would rather focus on the positive, similar to Clemson coach Dabo Swinney who thinks we will punch the virus in the teeth and we’ll overcome because this is the same country that walked on the moon and stormed the beaches in Normandy.

"“It’s really interesting to me to see with the mainstream media, sadly enough, just how negative everybody can be. Let’s just report the news. Let’s start putting some things in there that are positive, because I know there’s positive out there.”"

Gundy may want to keep watching American News One if that’s the type of news he wants to hear that’s all positive and nothing is wrong and we’ll open up the economy and get back to work soon.

Hope is a good thing, but it’s important not to be delusional. Too much hope is a bad thing because it leads to disappointment. Having hope can help deal with these circumstances but having a positive attitude isn’t going to fight off a virus or prevent you or a loved one from getting the virus.

Science doesn’t work like that.

Oklahoma State quickly refuted Gundy’s comments and said they will adhere to the public health officials and they are taking this deadly virus seriously to help stop the spread.

"“We will adhere to the advice of public health experts who are making informed decisions in the best interest of the citizens of our nation and state based on sound scientific data. We will also abide by the federal and state mandates as well as Big 12 guidelines. We will not compromise the health and well-being of our campus community. This virus is deadly and we will do our part at Oklahoma State to help blunt the spread.”"

It’s fine for Gundy to want to get back to work and work toward the 2020 college football season. But these reckless and dangerous comments are not the way to properly and effectively communicate that.

Gundy said the thing he’s not supposed to say. He isn’t alone in thinking this way — right or wrong — but saying this out loud is opening himself to all sorts of deserved criticism.

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