The novel coronavirus is for wimps, baby! Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy told Sports Illustrated that he intends to do his part in the battle against COVID-19 by bringing football back to Oklahoma, starting May 1. Gundy says he hopes to get his staff back on campus, gearing up for football, to help bring back normalcy and money to Oklahoma! During a teleconference, Gundy explained his plans for getting to normalcy, getting his staff training kids, and figuring out a way to practice while still social distancing, and then somehow playing football. Even if no one is on campus!
"In my opinion, we need to bring our players back. They are 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22-years-old and they are healthy and they have the ability to fight this virus off. If that is true, then we sequester them, and continue because we need to run money through the state of Oklahoma."
In Gundy’s defense, he said his plans were optimistic, and he spent a considerable amount of time praising medical workers and those battling COVID-19 in the trenches, so to speak. He seems like a very enthusiastic conservative thinker, saying he believed no official could have foreseen this pandemic event—read Daily Kos’ Mark Sumner for more on that opinion.
Oklahoma State University officials released a statement on Coach Gundy’s comments, which reads:
Everyone wants to return to some degree of normalcy as soon as possible. As for Oklahoma State University, we will adhere to the advice of public health experts who are making informed decisions in the best interest of the citizens of our nation and state based on sound scientific data. We will also abide by the federal and state mandates as well as Big 12 guidelines. We will not compromise the health and well-being of our campus community. This virus is deadly and we will do our part at Oklahoma State to help blunt the spread.
Our country is in a tough place. We need to shut things down and continue our vigilance in slowing down the spread of this disease. We need to do this because our federal response and our underdeveloped infrastructure are unable to handle the virus’ spread. Our ability to mitigate this spread via social distancing is, right now, the most we can do as we wait for testing and containment to catch up.