Mike Gundy, an extra from Eastbound and Down Oklahoma State's head football coach, appeared for his weekly press conference on Monday and spent about 20 minutes chatting with reporters about the usual fare. He then was prompted to discuss a new tradition that he's taken to this year, as a response to "a lot of people making other decisions on how they feel about patriotism." Obviously he was referring to Colin Kaepernick et al., here, but when directly asked if that's what he was referring to, Gundy—who is now 49 years old—was not man enough to answer in kind.Gundy's new tradition sounds very nice, by the way: he will go out during the third quarter, when OSU honors an individual from Folds of Honor—an organization that provides scholarships and assistance to family members of fallen or disabled veterans—and shake that person's hand. "Truthfully, I am a full-blood American, I mean, those guys, for what they do for our country? You kidding me?…I can jog my skinny butt out there 30 yards and shake their hand…I just think it's the right thing to do."This would be a great story, but then Gundy went off the rails, after being prompted by a question from a reporter that was more of an invitation to further explain just how poorly he understands the nature of the protests being made in stadiums around the country.Q: And your feeling on that really has a lot to do with the way you were raised and your respect for the military and the sacrifices those people make?Completely Nonsensical A: Well, to a certain extent, it's almost like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, right? I mean, grab a gun and go stand guard if you want to say something about it. I mean, that's just the way I feel. I mean i don't want to get into the politics part of it and tell you who I'm voting for and all that. But I'm just gonna say I have all the respect in the world for people who are gonna fight for our country because I'm not tough enough to do it, so.I'm just going to take this opportunity to once again point out that not once ever—ever!—has anyone involved in these recent protests from Colin Kaepernick more than a month ago, to Ryan Clark this morning, said a single thing about the military. And not only are people willfully ignoring that in order to score bullshit points for performative patriotism, we now have a goddamned 49-year-old man charged with turning boys into men quoting Colonel Nathan R. Fucking Jessup, a fictitious man who was convicted of ordering a code red on P.F.C. William T. "Willie" Santiago and dramatically arrested in court after telling a United States Naval Officer—played by Tom Cruise—that he was going to rip the eyes out of his head and piss in his dead skull.So, that's what's going on at Boone Pickens Stadium.h/t The Score
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