Oklahoma coach Brent Venables praises the Sooners’ resolve in the aftermath of Cale Gundy’s resignation: They’ve ‘not allowed it to become a distraction’.
NORMAN, Oklahoma Brent Venables, Oklahoma’s first-year coach, said Monday that he’s been proud of his team’s resolve and focus since longtime assistant coach
Oklahoma coach
abrupt resignation last week, as well as how quickly the players have bought into the new staff’s vision.
“All things considered, they’ve handled everything great and not allowed it to become a distraction,” Venables was quoted as saying by ESPN. “You have to go through some mud sometimes. You have to get scarred up. You have to go through some challenges in order to improve. You do not get better and improve through ease and comfort in anything.”
Gundy, an assistant coach at OU for 23 years, announced his resignation on August 7 after reading aloud “multiple times” what Venables described as a “racially charged word” to his players during a position meeting. In a statement announcing his resignation, Gundy apologized and explained that when he noticed a player who was supposed to be taking notes during a film session was distracted, he took the player’s iPad and read aloud the words on the screen, including the unspecified term.
Venables described the situation as “very complex and very difficult,” adding that “some of it you have great clarity and peace about,” while “other parts of it and what it means for people” were the most difficult.
Gundy, who had been an assistant coach at OU for 23 years, announced his resignation on August 7 after reading aloud “multiple times” what Venables described as a “racially charged word” to his players during a position meeting. In an announcement of his resignation, Gundy apologized and explained that when he noticed a player who was supposed to be taking notes during a film session was distracted, he took the player’s iPad and read aloud the words on the screen, including the unspecified term.
Venables described the situation as “very complex and very difficult,” noting that “some of it you have great clarity and peace about,” but that “other parts of it and what it means for people” were the most difficult.
fragmented, perhaps because of the offensive success but not as much defensively, and fragmented because the program’s leader simply left them out of nowhere,” Venables said, referring to Riley. “Yes, it was an emotional locker room, but what’s most exciting to me is the hunger and edge they’ve demonstrated since we’ve been here. It has been incredible since January.
“The harder we’ve made it, the better they’ve responded.”
Venables, who was an assistant coach at OU for 13 years, said he discussed the Gundy incident with members of the team’s leadership council but emphasized that Gundy’s decision to resign was his own.
“They don’t bear that responsibility, and I didn’t want them to feel like they needed to bear it,” Venables went on to say. “That’s not fair to a bunch of 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds.”
Former Oklahoma players, including
Oklahoma coach
Running back Joe Mixon has expressed his support for Gundy on social media.
“There’s a whole collection of us involved when these kinds of things happen—a whole team of us—and at the end of the day, it was Cale who resigned, and that was his decision, the right decision,” he said. “He didn’t want to be a distraction, and he knew what had happened was wrong.
“The timing was terrible. But, as a group, we addressed it the next day and got back to business.”
