Mike Gundy On Why He Honors Veterans At Games

During the Pitt game on Saturday Mike Gundy ran out to the end zone as a military veteran was being honored to shake his hand and tell him thank you. Gundy was asked on Monday why he does this, and his answer was pretty great.

“In a tight game … that can’t be any comparison to what they went through,” said Gundy. “I am a full-blood American. For what they do for our country … are you kidding me? I can jog my skinny butt out there 30 yards and shake their hand. I just think that’s the right thing to do. I’ve got a real soft spot for people like that.

“I didn’t have any idea they were doing it. The first thing that came to my mind was, ‘there’s a lot of people making other decisions about how they feel about patriotism so I have a right to show how I feel.’ I think it’s important. Just my opinion.

Great stuff from Mike Gundy when asked about coming over to shake the hand of Military Veterans honored at BPS on game days. #OKState pic.twitter.com/uPgrR4H09Q

— Cayden McFarland (@caydenmc) September 20, 2016

Gundy and other members of the OSU football program were asked about the Colin Kaepernick situation as well (something I wrote about here).

“I won’t comment on anything like that,” Gundy said about Kap. “I think I made it pretty clear. (Even if) we’re in a close game, I’m going to go out and thank that guy for his service. I have all the respect in the world for people that are gonna go fight for our country.

“To a certain extent it’s almost like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, right? I mean, grab a gun and go stand guard if you want to say something about it. I mean, that’s just the way I feel. I don’t want to get into the politics part of it, and tell you who I’m going to vote for and all that. But I’m just going to say, that I have all the respect in the world for people who are going to go and fight for our country, because I’m not tough enough to do it.”

Pretty cool stuff from the HBC.