FINDING GRACE
Gundy's `heart wasn't right' in 1989, but Simmons respects former assistant
Bob Simmons takes up for Mike Gundy
Bob Simmons, a father figure to Alfred Williams and a Black pioneer as OSU's football coach from 1995-2000, hadn't heard about the Mike Gundy controversies until Thursday, when I called to chat.
I gave Simmons the CliffsNotes version, including Williams reviving the claim he made in 1989, immediately after the OSUColorado game, that Gundy, then the Cowboy quarterback, had hurled racial slurs at several Buffaloes.
And in these troubled days of racial strife and social unrest, Simmons showed what we all could use a little more of.
Grace.
“Mike was learning when he was coming up in Oklahoma,” Simmons said. “At the time when that event happened, his heart wasn't right. Probably how he was raised. But from then til now, you've seen Mike grow.”
Funny how life goes. College football can consume a guy, but some can walk away. Simmons, now 72 and living peacefully in the Denver suburbs, was oblivious to the inferno raging in Stillwater, including superstar tailback Chuba Hubbard's outrage that Gundy was promoting the pro-Trump One America News.
Hubbard apologized for taking to Twitter, and Gundy twice has apologized for alienating his players, calling himself a “dumbass.”
Simmons asked why Gundy apologized.
“Stop apologizing. What's he apologizing for?” Simmons said. “I'm glad I'm retired. Hey, it has got to the point where maybe the people take over what
we believe, what we think, changing what this country's all about. I hope people stand up. This is one of the greatest countries.”
Sometimes it's hard to decipher tone when you read. Simmons did not say those words angrily. He said them matter-of-factly.
“I recognize we live in different times now, but I still believe in freedom in this country,” Simmons said. “Freedom of speech, freedom to wear what you want. The challenge is, people all of a sudden are going to target you for wearing the wrong color. I am totally, totally against that. He's out fishing, he's got a shirt on. Because he supports a president, he's vilified.”
Maybe Simmons has forgotten what it's like to recruit. Some of us question Gundy not for his politics, but for taking those politics public, especially in this sensitive time. Gundy will have a devil of a time winning back his Black players and recruiting Black players.
But don't dismiss Simmons. Understand, this is a man who knows racism. Back in the 1980s, living in Morgantown, West Virginia, 30something years ago, Simmons' wife screamed. A burning cross had been planted in their yard.
“I understand there is racism within the United States, but I've never made it a big part of my life,” Simmons said. “I have dealt with it in my family, in my life, in my profession. I've never set it up as a barrier, recognized it, but I've had some great influences in my life.
“Had a family that's always taught me, things like that are going to happen, but I've never been one to put it on my shoulder and carry it with me.”
That's not the message of most Black Americans today. But Simmons deserves to be heard.
He and Williams go back a long way. Simmons' favorite moment in coaching came not in a game, but at the 1990 Colorado football banquet, after the Buffs won the 1990 national championship.
Defensive ends Williams and Kanavis McGhee, both from Houston, presented Simmons with a plaque that read: “From the H boys to the most treasured coach.”
Williams saluted Simmons, saying, “We never had a man like him in our lives. He's been a father to me. I want to be like him. I want a wife like his.”
Simmons and Gundy go back a long way, too. Gundy quarterbacked against those Colorado teams that had Simmons on their staff. In 1995, when OSU hired Simmons as head coach, giving him one of the best college football jobs a Black man had ever received, Simmons retained the 27-yearold Gundy on his staff.
And Gundy was his usual brash self. “Mike has always been that way,” Simmons said. “He was that way, when I first met him. He had the opportunity to join the staff. He said, `I want this, I want this, I want this.' I said, `Mike, I'm the head coach, not you.'”
A year later, Gundy jumped to Baylor, and a year after that, Simmons recommended Gundy for a job on new Maryland coach Ron Vanderlinden's staff.
“I said, he is a real good coach, but he wants to move in his career,” Simmons said. “If you hire him, try to tie him down somehow. If you trace Mike's career, Mike was on the fast track.”
When Simmons was fired after his third straight losing his season, his former OSU offensive coordinator, Les Miles, returned as head coach and hired Gundy. When Miles went to LSU after the 2004 season, Gundy ascended to the head coaching job, and the Cowboys have flourished.
“Mike Gundy has done a fantastic job at Oklahoma State,” Simmons said.
And now Williams and Gundy are joined in more than just Simmons' memory.
“We're talking about racial tensions,” Simmons said. “We're talking about the fact that he said that to those players, who I think the world of, doesn't mean at this point in Mike's life, he doesn't have respect for those players.”
Gundy has the respect of Simmons. That counts for something.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. You can also view his personality page at oklahoman.com/berrytramel.