Over the weekend we saw Oklahoma State University head coach Mike Gundy lay into local sports columnist Jenni Carlson about the lack of production and subsequent benching of a top-rated recruit turned backup quarterback. 

I have no problem with Gundy coming to the defense of a student athlete. If the columnist was out of line and writing false accusations and other libelous statements, he did the right thing. Great job coach! Way to black you players and I guarantee Gundy’s stock in the locker room with his players shot through the roof – not to mention the adulation bestowed by the Oklahoma sports-radio honks. 

Instead, Gundy uncorked on columnist Carlson like she had attacked one of his kids (not players) after a poor performance on the Pop Warner football field. He defended his tirade by saying that these were just “kids” and that they are amateur athletes. It was that statement where he lost me. College athletes on scholarship are far from amateur.

Granted they don’t receive the kind of multi-million dollar cheese their NFL counterparts get year in and year out, but they are on scholarship which means a free education. They probably shouldn’t be held to the same standards and under such microscopic scrutiny as NFL players, but do they not have some sort of accountability if your university is “investing” thousands and thousands of dollars? So to call them amateur is laughable. 

I started college at a NAIA Division III school where the tuition was $15k a year. Over the course of four years a “full ride” athletic scholarship is worth $60,000! A quick glance at the OSU website says a four-year degree will cost around $12,000 per year for about $48k total. Again I say that a $48,000 investment in a student athlete removes amateur status. Does being a student athlete in a major college football program mean that they are immune from scrutiny? Certainly not.   Free tuition aside, major CFB athletes work out in state-of-the-art practice facilities with the best physical fitness equipment available. Then there are the boxes and boxes of “team” shoes and cleats, gloves, wristbands and whatever else is afforded these athletes – for free. Again far from the amateur status we all enjoyed as little leaguers.  

To me, an amateur athlete receives no additional support or funding. Amateurs are athletes that play the game for the love of it – and that’s it. Athletes that devote as much time to compete as they do their full-time jobs are amateur, not athletes that get free education, free room and board and free name-brand shoes and accessories. Pay-to-play athletes are the real amateurs. 

So coach, don’t be so quick to attack a columnist for doing her job, for holding an athlete accountable for his performance both on and off the field. This is big-time college football and if you or your player’s skin isn’t thick enough to be held accountable for poor performance, temper tantrums, or off-field troubles, then you have lost touch, and if that is true, come down off your high horse and go win some football games.