Brent Venables issued a statement on Monday that disputed Cale Gundy’s account of an incident last week that led to the assistant coach’s resignation.
Gundy resigned on Sunday night from his position as wide receivers coach at Oklahoma. Gundy had coached at Oklahoma since 1999 and played quarterback there from 1990-1993, so his departure from the program was met with surprise.
Gundy said in his statement that during a team meeting last week, he read an inappropriate word out loud while reading off the iPad of a distracted player. Gundy’s account of the incident left many people wondering if there was more to the story, because the punishment of resignation did not seem to fit the crime of inadvertently reading an inappropriate word.
After there was negative backlash directed towards Oklahoma for their handling of Gundy, first-year head coach Venables issued a followup statement on Monday.
Monday statement from head football coach Brent Venables: pic.twitter.com/grSwj3YlPC
— Oklahoma Football (@OU_Football) August 8, 2022
Venables’ statement makes it seem like Gundy omitted information from his account of events.
“As painful as it has been dealing with Coach Gundy resigning from the program, it doesn’t touch the experience of pain felt by a room full of young men I am charged to protect, lead and love. There are a few things I would like to address,” the statement began.
“Coach Gundy resigned from the program because he knows what he did was wrong. He chose to read aloud to his players, not once but multiple times, a racially charged word that is objectionable to everyone, and does not reflect the attitude and values of our university or our football program. This is not acceptable. Period.
“Coach Gundy did the right thing in resigning. He knows our goals for excellence and that coaches have special responsibilities to set an example. He also knows that, while he will always be a part of the OU family, that his words affected many of us and did not represent the principles of our university. Again, his resignation was the right thing to do, and we will move forward positively.”
In Gundy’s account of the events, he said he accidentally said the inappropriate word once. Venables says Gundy repeated it. Venables also said players were hurt, though a countering report said players wanted Gundy to stay in his position.
Gundy was a coach at Oklahoma since 1999 and served under Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley. Maybe Venables didn’t really want Gundy on staff but felt pressure to keep him on, and this was a good opportunity to get rid of him.
