Good for the goose

Media | Sports columnists love to dish it out but feign moral outrage when a coach fires back | Mark Bergin

Jenni Carlson, a columnist for The Oklahoman

A thick gaggle of sports media crowded into a post-game press conference at Boone Pickens Stadium Sept. 22 ready to record verbal euphoria on the heels of Oklahoma State's 49-45 victory over Texas Tech in its Big 12 conference opener. But Cowboys coach Mike Gundy wasn't interested in talking football—nor could his mood be labeled euphoric.

The second-year head man held up a copy of the Daily Oklahoman and pronounced with seething rage that columnist Jenni Carlson had overstepped the bounds of decency: "It's garbage, and the editor who let it come out is garbage," Gundy fumed, directing his tirade at Carlson as she stood silently amid the crowd.

At issue was an article in which Carlson impugned the toughness, composure, and attitude of OSU quarterback Bobby Reid. She recounted witnessing Reid's mother feed the 21-year-old athlete chicken outside team buses after a recent game, and used the incident to support unsubstantiated conjecture about why OSU coaches might have benched Reid a week earlier.