USA TODAY International Edition
Okla. State mane man, Gundy locks in success
STILLWATER, OKLA. A few days back, the most famous hair in college football got a trim. Mike Gundy’s hairstyle had grown so gloriously long — and for so gloriously long, more than a year — that a frontman in a 1980s metal band would have been proud.
But several significant snips later, Gundy’s mane now falls just above the shoulders. Still a mullet, maybe, but not The Mullet.
If you’re disappointed, understand this: Like most other things with the Oklahoma State coach, this wasn’t a spontaneous decision. He carefully considered the implications. Even last spring, he was thinking ahead to the day when it would be time to end the show. “My concern for it now,” he said then, “is that it becomes a bigger deal than our team. That’s what I don’t want. There’s some dilemma of actually what to do. But once we get closer to August, I don’t want to take away from our team.”
Halfway through July, as Big 12 coaches and players gather this week for their annual preseason media days, most eyes will be focused on the new head coaches at Texas and Oklahoma and whether the Red River rivals can lift the league’s fortunes. But the guy whose hairstyle became a brand might be at least as important.
With the sudden retirement of rival Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops last month, Gundy, in his 13th season and armed with a new five- year contract that pays him $ 4.2 million this year, is the third- longesttenured coach in the Big 12 and is Oklahoma State’s longest- tenured and winningest coach.
We’re coming up on the 10th anniversary of what, for many, remains Gundy’s defining moment. Yeah, the man is about to turn 50.
His postgame rant in September 2007 — “I’m a man! I’m 40!” — is forever only a click away on YouTube. Gundy remains somewhat of a caricature, accentuated now by the mullet and a rattlesnake hunt.
But that only obscures what he’s built at Oklahoma State and the purpose behind most of his antics. They’re occasionally cartoonish? They’re also calculated to help in the building process.
“I don’t want Mike Gundy to be bigger than our team,” he said. “But I also have to do what I do in order to win at Oklahoma State.”
Quick, the topic is Oklahoma State football — what comes to mind first? Maybe it’s multiple uniform combinations, fantastic facilities, a routinely super- explosive passing game or a sustained period of success unmatched in the school’s history.
Oklahoma State has played in 11 consecutive bowls, the longest streak in school history. In 2011, the Cowboys just missed the Bowl Championship Series title game after being upset by Iowa State. ( Alabama and LSU played in that all- Southeastern Conference rematch. But in Stillwater, they’re sure Oklahoma State should have played for it all and that the Cowboys would’ve won it all if they had — and they just might be right.)
Behind quarterback Mason Rudolph, receiver James Washington and a bevy of other offensive playmakers, Oklahoma State projects as a Big 12 title contender this season — and if the defense is solid, perhaps more.
But winning big at Oklahoma State remains an uphill battle. The program is overshadowed in its own state by a rival that is one of college football’s all- time pow- ers, and a lot of teams now wear wacky uniforms and play fast and throw the ball around a bunch.
Which is why, for many, the attention- getter is Gundy. As long as we’re listing antics, here’s the recent rundown:
uGrowing the mullet began as a joke with his sons — and became a way for Gundy to annoy and embarrass them. We first noticed it a year ago at Big 12 media days; Gundy called it the “Arkansas Waterfall,” but it was only just getting started. Eventually, notable mullet wearers including Barry Melrose and Billy Ray Cyrus weighed in, and Oklahoma State sold merchandise with a mullet silhouette.
uIn February, Gundy wore a wrestling singlet in a promotional video to hype a wrestling dual between No. 1 Oklahoma State and No. 2 Penn State. Sitting at his desk — with a coffee mug labeled “BIG DADDY” in the foreground — he encouraged people to buy tickets.
After seeing his dad in a singlet, one of Gundy’s sons texted his mother: “Does nothing embarrass my dad?” Her response: “No, he doesn’t care.”
uGundy insists the rattlesnake thing was not preplanned — his sons had asked him, more than a year earlier, to take them on a snake hunt — but when he saw the photo, well, he knew it had to be published.
The tweet last March was simple: “Rattlesnake hunt in Okeene, OK with Todd and Wild Bill.” But the accompanying photo of Gundy holding an angry rattler with snake tongs was Internet gold.
Gundy’s focus is on marketing the program. Not so much to the fans, although they seem to enjoy the coach’s antics, but to impressionable teenage boys who are good at football.
“The people I’m targeting, 17-, 18- year- olds, that gets their attention,” Gundy said. “They put me on as a ( Twitter) follower. … And if I can get him in here on a visit, you never know. That’s the reason I do that stuff. Notre Dame can walk into a school and they have the ‘ ND’ on their shirt and they get instant marketing. Well, I haven’t gotten to that point. So we have to really think about and work on what we do.”
Gundy has called Oklahoma State his “New York Yankees job,” but he also has flirted with other opportunities. His relationship with athletics director Mike Holder — and, more important, with Boone Pickens, the Cowboys’ billionaire uber- booster — has been at best uneven and occasionally frosty. During a visit in his office at Boone Pickens Stadium last spring, the coach pointed out the window at Gallagher- Iba Arena, which houses the department’s administrative offices.
“People get mad at me about something all the time,” he said. “The people in this building right over there? Hell, they stay mad at me 24/ 7. They’ll eventually get tired of me and run me off. But it is what it is.”
That prospect seems much less likely after that contract extension and raise last month and what appears to be a thawing in those key relationships.
“I don’t think about being outlandish,” he said. “I just kind of do what comes natural to me. And if it’s something people think is outlandish? I don’t care.”
As the man nears 50, a glorious new normal has grown at Oklahoma State. There’s no sign it will be cut short.