THE WHOLE TRUTH

Disgraced Oklahoma Coach Read Racist Word Aloud ‘Multiple Times,’ Boss Says

Cale Gundy’s statement, issued before his resignation from the Sooners, did not tell the whole story, the head coach said.

Less than 24 hours after resigning from the Oklahoma Sooners, Cale Gundy’s public statement on why he did so has been contradicted by the college football team’s head coach, Brent Venables. Gundy, the longest-serving coach in the Big 12 Conference, claimed on Sunday that “as a man of character,” he would “take responsibility” and resign after reading aloud “a word that I should never—under any circumstances—have uttered” from a player’s iPad. He said that at that moment he “did not even realize” what he was reading. But Venables said it was Gundy’s choice to read the word out more than once. “Coach Gundy resigned from the program because he knows what he did was wrong,” he said in a statement, according to ESPN. “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.” Venables also said Gundy’s decision to resign was “the right thing.”