Published: October 06, 2007 11:31 pm            

Opinions can leave a bloody mess ... figuratively speaking

Diaa Al-Hajar is an editorial cartoonist in Iraq. In May of last year he was quoted as saying: “These days there are two kinds of people: those who accept your drawings and criticism, and those who take the drawings as insults ... and threaten to kill you.”

Over here we’re usually a little more tolerant of opinions. It’s been said if you lose your temper with a newspaper columnist the writer will become famous, rich, or both and we’ve all heard the advice never to argue with people who buy ink by the barrel.

All of this wisdom comes to mind in the wake of Oklahoma State University Coach Mike Gundy’s public chastising of Jenni Carlson, sports columnist for The Oklahoman.

There have been some absolutely moronic reactions to this whole thing.

Some say Gundy should have responded to Carlson privately, not publicly. Well, her column he disagreed with was certainly public so I don’t know why he wouldn’t want to respond publicly.

Since his screaming fit, seen around the world on YouTube, he has said he wishes he had written everything down ‘cause he forgot some stuff he wanted to say.

I think he did fine. If he had taken the time to write it out and edit it and have his wife and a couple of friends and colleagues read it all the passion would have been taken right out of it, I’m sure. We probably would have even lost the part about Jenni’s column being “Garbage!” and how the editors that let it run were “Garbage!”

But, he has no regrets, except that he said at a recent press conference that he wished he hadn’t said “ain’t” because he really is an educated person and I guess he’s worried that might have set a bad example for all the millions of impressionable minds that saw his press conference on their computer screens and television sets.

I personally don’t think we have enough spontaneity anymore in our day-to-day lives. I’m glad Gundy shot from the hip. Where else are you going to get to see a guy screaming: “I’m a man! I’m 40!” and “It makes me want to puke!” all in three minutes.

Still, I wonder if some of this wasn’t misdirected anger on Gundy’s part. When he started out on what many columnists have now called a tirade, the coach said the column was brought to his attention by the mother of Bobby Reid, the subject of the column. Maybe she went off on him, or maybe he was upset because she was so upset, the word now is that she wants to sue somebody — oh, but I’m speculating. Mike wouldn’t like that. Back to the facts.

Gundy, who loves children so much that he would go to bat for one of his players (he calls them kids even though they are adults) in such a public way, told Jenni he hopes she has a child some day and that someone downgrades him. Again proving what a real man he is.

No, he should never write down what he wants to say.

In a following press conference when he was asked to explain what the inaccuracies in Carlson’s column were, since he said it was “three-fourths inaccurate” he gave us the best comeback of the year. “I don’t have to,” he said. Brilliant! It was asked another way and guess what he said. The same thing. “I don’t have to.” He even shrugged his shoulders when he did it. I only wish he’d topped it off by saying: “and you can’t make me.” Then if he’d only stuck out his tongue it would have been icing on the cake.

Having read Carlson’s column, many times over (you can see it online at newsok.com “Reid is still the most talented signal-caller, but attitude is reason for change,” from Sept. 23) I just don’t see it as the great big ugly unfair attack Mike Gundy makes it out to be.

There have been some absurd claims in letters and chat rooms that have been posted over the past two weeks about this.

Some suggest Gundy wouldn’t have gone off like that if Jenni weren’t a woman. Come on, of course he would. He’s a man! He’s 40!

Others have written that this “chick” had no business covering sports in the first place.

All she did was point out that Reid appeared to be another one of those coddled, self-absorbed, spoiled, children in a man’s body we hear about emerging from the world of sports from time-to-time, who may be subject to whining and temper tantrums ... but of course Gundy proves there are no such animals. It’s those awful newspaper columnists that are perpetuating that myth.

Sports writers should just come to the press conferences these “amateurs” hold when they pick what school they’re going to and praise and support them from then on out.

I guess it would be like that in a perfect world. But this world isn’t perfect. We have something called the First Amendment in our little corner of it and unfortunately it gives the sports column chicks the same right to an opinion as Mike Gundy.

I know he appreciates the right of free speech because in his recent press conference on YouTube he said: “The only thing that matters to me is what I thought was right and whatever I thought was right is what I said and other than that I just have to let it go. I don’t say things for people to disagree or agree with me. I say them if I think they are right.”

Guess what. The sports chick did the same thing.

I think what has been overlooked through this whole event is how wonderful it is that we all have the right to free expression whether it’s through speech, or the written word, or the arts. There are people in our corner of the world who want to take that away from us.

The four main players in all this, Gundy, Carlson, Reid and Reid’s mother, are all adults but they don’t have to act like it. They can even act like jerks if they want. When they do, it provides good material for Mr. Smartypants columnists to write about.

Another good quote I remember reading about columnists, although I believe it was anonymously attributed, said: ‘All newspaper columnists do is come down from the hills after the battle and shoot the wounded.’

Well — somebody has to do it.



Steve Gillespie is managing editor of The Meridian Star. E-mail him at sgillespie@themeridianstar.com.

        

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