It Has Been a Week: Why We Took Down the Corndog Shirts

I read them all. I responded to maybe two of them, but I read every single comment on what we’ve posted since Saturday night. The Gundy Twitter stuff. The Corndog shirts. Instagram. Facebook. Comments section. All of it.

A lot of what was said about us was deserved. Some of it was wasn’t. That’s fine, it’s all part of the deal. I have thought a lot about the stuff we’ve put out there, too. It hasn’t been our best week. That’s on me. It’s my responsibility that our organization functions with integrity and performs well. I’ve failed a little bit in those areas over the past few days.

Oklahoma State (as in, the university) asked us to take down our Corndog shirts on Wednesday night. That was probably for the best anyway. We’d made those several weeks ago, but things were, uh, not trending all that well, and we’d waffled about putting them out there at all. I think it’s … difficult to hold the analytical part of our company in one hand and the merchandise part of our company in the other and not feel some friction. I understand why people were upset about the shirts. I can’t say I really blame you. Our goal is to create both interesting content and fun products, and we don’t always get that formula right.

As for the Gundy post, I still think it was not the best way he could have gone about it, but I understand the frustration there, too. The reality on my end is that we try to hit the right notes every day and do it in a fast and interesting way. Then we get up and do it all over again the next day. Sometimes we whiff. I stand by what I wrote, but I don’t think I was as thorough or careful with my words as I should have been.

Two good takeaways for me regarding the massive blowback we’ve gotten over the past few days are, somewhat interestingly, related to the way we function as a company.

Because we necessarily critique and analyze what happens in Stillwater, USA and because we do so on the internet, it can become easy to become detached from the reality of words and how they affect people. We’ve labored to put ourselves in a position where we are interacting more and more and more with the people we cover so that we erase that detachment, but sometimes we fail there, too.

Anyway, the two biggest takeaways for me based on the way people have taken on our work and us as people are as follows.

1. Be fair: The criticism levied at us that was fair was great. I appreciated it. The criticism that was out of bounds was crippling. It was a good reminder to me that when I’m evaluating a player or a coach and what they’re saying and doing that it’s important to be fair and even-handed with what I say and how I say it.

2. Be kind: One of the five core values I created for our company is kindness. It is something I think about a lot but find myself struggling with often. It’s sometimes hard to have #takez and still maintain a modicum of kindness. It’s difficult, but it can be done and it’s worth it. Words matter. I forget that daily (I know this seems ludicrous, but it’s true). When things flip around on us, it’s a good reminder.

So yeah, we made some missteps. We always will. For as long as we’re here, we will continue to make mistakes and continue to fail. All of it will happen publicly, and all of it will be fodder for the internet. Again, that’s all part of the deal. We will be more sober-minded because of this week and better for it in the long run.

I started writing this post, I guess, just to let you know why we took down the shirts, but this is what came out.

One of our other core values is consistency. It’s fun to pile on us right now. It’s easy. I understand that. I can’t say that if I was in your shoes I wouldn’t be doing the same. Some of it even made me laugh.

But in a few days the memes will go away. Folks will move on to other stuff. Some of you will hate us in a way you didn’t before. That’s ok, too. The only thing I can say confidently that we’ll do is keep showing up every morning to build something. Just like the last 2,903 mornings. It won’t always be perfect. It won’t always meet the standards you have for us or we have for ourselves. But we won’t ever stop trying to make it better than it was the day before.