THE MISSING LINK
Can Mike Gundy learn new tricks? Mike Holder is counting on it
Mike Holder says he was unaware the disconnect between OSU's football coach and OSU's football players had grown so wide. And I believe the Cowboy athletic director.
Holder is hands off. He coached an elite team, OSU golf, for more than three decades and didn't like meddling athletic directors. So Holder wasn't going to be one.
“I trust all of our coaches to do their job,” Holder said Friday. “I've got a job to do of my own, and really micromanaging any of our coaches doesn't fit into my job description. So I trust them to do their job. And their No.1 responsibility is to nurture their players, develop a relationship with them, make a difference in their life, and as I said earlier, send them out into the world and make a difference for society.”
Holder admits that philosophy failed OSU, when Gundy's lack of relationships with his players turned into a forest fire that has scarred the Cowboy football brand.
But that hands-off philosophy isn't likely to change.
“I'm probably not going to change going forward,” Holder said, “because at my age, it's pretty hard to teach this old dog new tricks. I'm pretty set in my ways.”
Oh, the irony. Because with OSU keeping Gundy, via a reduced contract and humbled persona, Holder is counting on an old dog to
learn new tricks.
“The missing link has been a more personal relationship with their head coach,” Holder said after he and deputy athletic director Chad Weiberg interviewed more than 20 Cowboy players, trying to find the root of their discontent, which started June 15 with superstar tailback Chuba Hubbard's tweet that things must “CHANGE.”
“They respect him as an excellent gameday coach, but they want more coaching on a personal level,” Holder said of Gundy. “This crosses all racial lines to a man. Our players want a better connection … they view him as a difference maker, and they want him to help them grow as leaders.
“We conveyed this message to Coach Gundy, and his reaction has been everything that you would want. He has been humble, remorseful and committed to change. As uncomfortable as the last two weeks have been, I believe this experience has shaped Mike Gundy, and our players will be the beneficiaries at the end of the journey.”
Gundy is 52. He's been a college football coach for 30 years and a head coach for 15 seasons. Is he really going to change? Does he want to change? Is he capable of change?
Holder has to hope. Gundy likely would have been fired had his contract buyout not totaled $17 million. OSU can't afford that in good times, much less during a pandemic. So unless OSU wanted to claim Gundy was fired with cause and settle in for a lengthy lawsuit, keeping Gundy was the prudent financial path.
And OSU can keep winning, at least in the short term, even if Gundy doesn't connect with his players. The detachment hasn't slowed the Cowboys much – OSU is the secondmost successful program in the Big 12 over a 12-year span.
The Hubbard flap, and Gundy's Donald Trump endorsements, and Gundy's April rambling when he indicated the players needed to get back on campus to get the economic engine running, and Alfred Williams reviving the 31-year-old claim that Gundy used a racial slur against Colorado players during a 1989 games, makes OSU recruiting dicey going forward.
“Yeah, I'm concerned about it,” Holder said. “But I think our No. 1 ally in this process is going to be our current players. As we go through the course of this season, and what kind of feedback the potential recruits get from players about what it's like (to play at OSU), that's what's important.”
Left unexplained is why Gundy ever let it get to this point. Isn't developing solid relationships with your players a bedrock of coaching, whether you're a volunteer on the sandlot or a CEO making $5 million?
“You're 100 percent right,” Holder said. “And I don't think it started out that way with Mike or any coach. But over time, things can change, the job gets bigger, responsibilities get bigger, you have more people to manage, more players on your team, and that can blur your priorities.
“So I think it's awakened him and alerted him to the fact that he wasn't as close to his players as he needed to be. He's going to change that.”
Oklahoma State football, already a good enterprise, will be the better for it if that happens. But that's not happening, unless an old dog learns a new trick.
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.