Jerry Maguire and OSU hoops
Published: 10/23/2010 9:09 PM
Last Modified: 10/23/2010 9:09 PM
During interviews at Thursday’s Big 12 basketball media day, OSU coach Travis Ford said more than once that his team can’t afford any distractions.
In hindsight, it seems Ford was laying the groundwork for what came Friday, when he announced that senior forward Matt Pilgrim was suspended indefinitely.
Ford did not give a reason for Pilgrim’s suspension, but it’s not because of anything that might cause a student-athlete to wind up on a police blotter. (Pilgrim was never suspended when a legal issue sent him to a Payne County courtroom during the offseason.)
By process of elimination, you can assume Pilgrim got crosswise with Ford purely because of issues to related to basketball, or what Ford perceives to be commitment to the program.
When you lose a first-round draft pick (James Anderson) and get picked eighth in the Big 12, you need all the solidarity you can get in order to keep the predictors from being correct. Maybe Ford is sending a message that everyone has to pull on the same rope, or else.
Is Pilgrim being his own worst enemy? Having talked with Pilgrim in the past, I know he wanted to put a nomadic past behind him and just have a good life, period. Maybe he and Ford can progress to the point where they have the conversation Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding, Jr., had in the “Jerry Maguire” movie: Help me help you.
--Jimmie Tramel.
Written by
Jimmie Tramel
Sports Writer
