Welcome to FTW Explains, a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world. If you’ve been reading the latest college football headlines this week, you’ve no doubt come across the news that longtime Oklahoma assistant coach Cale Gundy resigned from his post suddenly, and you’re wondering what the deal is. We’ve got you covered.
Cale Gundy is no longer an assistant coach with the Oklahoma football team. He resigned Sunday, and in a statement he tweeted late Sunday night, he admitted to using an unspecified but “shameful and hurtful” word during a film session last week.
Gundy’s statement led first-year Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables to release his own statement Sunday night about accepting his assistant’s resignation.
However, Venables then offered another statement Monday afternoon, which most notably says that Gundy “chose to read aloud to his players, not once but multiple times, a racially charged word that is objectionable to everyone”. Venables’ second statement implies Gundy’s use of the offensive word in question was less of an error than Gundy and co. initially suggested.
Let’s take a look at what we know and how these statements seem to tell varying versions of the situation.