Boone Pickens responds

Boone Pickens stared down Sports Illustrated on Tuesday afternoon and, well, he didn’t really defend the university very much for anything that happened. You can read his full statement here, but I’ll give you the overview:

• This series is not reflective of Oklahoma State University today. Many of their sensational allegations go back a decade ago.

• There have been wholesale changes at the school in recent years in leadership and facilities. 

• I do welcome this scrutiny. If people take the time, it’s an opportunity to better understand where Oklahoma State is today, not a decade ago. It’s a different university today. It’s a better university. If there are areas where we need to improve, we’ll do it.

He didn’t so much as defend a single one of the allegations. In fact, he basically said “they might all be true but look at what I did with my cash!”

Now this is probably because he’s not in a position to say anything (from a legal standpoint) but he could have at least thrown a lifeline to Holder by saying “we’ll get to the bottom of this and figure out what actually happened.

No dice though — Boone’s gonna Boone and everybody else will have to roll with it. Holder probably feels like he’s on an island though.

Boone’s first gift to OSU came in 2005, for whatever that’s worth.