Gundy wants to embrace the moments
With birthday No. 50 on the horizon, Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said it’s time to enjoy life and the success the Cowboys have experienced.
Mike Gundy rolled with the laughs last week. At Big 12 Media Days. Cruising through the “Car Wash” at ESPN.
Embracing the spotlight, the Cowboys coach revealed a comfort and cool that is rare in a profession attached to so much high-profile pressure; rare even for Gundy, despite his penchant for locker room dances and odd hair styles and romps with rattlesnakes.
So, what gives?
Time is one major factor. Gundy — facing birthday No. 50 on Aug. 12 — said his take on life is changing. Life is good, too, with high expectations attached to his football team and a new signed rollover contract that brought him and school back in line at long last.
As one program insider put it, “Everyone is happy in the corral.”
Maybe no one more than Gundy, who has learned to stop and appreciate the moments.
“You get to a point where you have to learn to say, ‘OK, when am I going to start enjoying everyday life?’” Gundy said in an intimate interview returning home from ESPN. “As you get older, you start to realize, if you work all your life to a certain age and never enjoyed it, next thing they’re pushing you around in a wheelchair and you missed out on all those years.
“We’ve had a lot of success. We should be enjoying it.”
Washington’s best yet to come?
James Washington keeps climbing the OSU receiving ranks, to the point Gundy places him among the elite.
“James Washington is up there with the Dez Bryants and the (Justin) Blackmons and the Rashaun Woodses, the guys that have been terrific football players,” Gundy said.
That’s serious company. Still, Washington is one of just three Cowboys all-time with multiple 10-touchdown and 1,000-yard seasons. He currently ranks fourth on OSU’s career receiving yards list with 2,923, trailing Woods, Blackmon and Hart Lee Dykes.
With a big final season, Washington could challenge Woods’ school records of 4,414 yards and 42 touchdowns.
And yet, Gundy believes that Washington, a product of tiny Stamford, Texas, has much more to reveal.
“I think James is just scratching the surface,” Gundy said. “James came from a terrific community out in west Texas, a small community. When he got to our place, it was dramatically different than what he’d ever been exposed to. So he’s had three years.
“I think the next 10 years for him, really, the sky’s the limit for two reasons. One, because he’s just starting to develop. Two, he’s got a terrific attitude, and he’s unselfish, and he loves to play the game of football, and he’s tough.”
Quotable
OSU linebacker Chad Whitener, when asked if the Cowboys were “lying in the weeds” as a Big 12 sleeper:
“I don’t think we’re lying in any weeds. I think we’re out front. I’m expecting to do really good things this year with my teammates. That’s the mindset we have. That’s the way we work out. That’s the way our mentality has been all summer.”