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Making The College Football Rounds
Published: 8/8/2008 6:32 PM
Last Modified: 8/8/2008 6:32 PM

Five things I learned in the past five days while attending football media days at Oklahoma State, Tulsa and Oklahoma:
1, My favorite question while doing "get to know you" interviews with players is this: If you had a daughter in college at your school right now, would you let her date any of your teammates? Athletics supposedly reveals character. But the answer to that question reveals which players have the most character.
2, TU players almost unanimously voted Courtney Tennial as the most old-school player on their team. Tennial has been at TU so long that he might have played alongside Wes Caswell. OU has offensive linemen who are so big that they can block out the sun, if only the sun could be convinced to get in a three-point stance. OSU may be in for a good chemistry season since there seems to be no possibility of a quarterback controversy to dirty the atmosphere.
3, While athletes at all three schools seemed to be well-spoken, it seems like the kids at TU handled themselves the best in front of microphones and tape recorders. Props to sports information director Don Tomkalski. Not only are freshmen and first-year players allowed to speak at TU, they acquit themselves very well. College football rookies should be better armed to speak to the media than ever before because many of them have been interviewed zillions of times by recruiting services while in high school.
4, OSU has led the Big 12 in rushing each of the last two seasons. That may surprise a lot of folks, me included. With Mike Gundy being the Big Eight's all-time leading passer, I figured he would be tempted to wing it every down as a head coach. But he also knows the value of a good run game, having shared a backfield with Thurman Thomas and Barry Sanders, and Gundy said the Cowboys could win a lot of games by running the ball and playing better defense.
5, Bob Stoops talked about how, with the Internet and new media being what it is, invasion of privacy has become commonplace.
I know exactly what he means. While waiting amid a group of reporters to fire a question at one of OU's assistant coaches Wednesday, a media type kept invading my private space by bumping closer and closer against me, as if he was blocking me out to get rebounding position. It takes great patience these days for a coach to deal with the media and vice versa. It also takes great patience for the media to deal with the media. Manners still go a long way.




Reader Comments 2 Total
Rhett (5 years ago)
Mike Gundy played in the Big 8.
Zach (5 years ago)
Tulsa athletes do well in front of the media because of one big difference: they are actually smart. You have to be to get into TU.
They do not stumble through interviews with "uh...you know...uh, know what I'm saying?...you know?"
It is amazing what a proper vocabulary can do for you.
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Tulsa World sports writer Jimmie Tramel is a former class president at Locust Grove High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University with a journalism degree and, while attending college, was sports editor of the Pryor Daily Times. He joined the Tulsa World on Oct. 17, 1989, the same day an earthquake struck the World Series. He is the OSU basketball beat writer and a columnist and feature writer during football season. In 2007, he wrote a book about Oklahoma State football with former Cowboy coach Pat Jones.

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