Bob Simmons, a father figure to Alfred Williams and a Black pioneer as OSU’s football coach from 1995-2000, hadn’t heard about the Mike Gundy controversies until Thursday, when I called to chat.
I gave Simmons the CliffsNotes version, including Williams reviving the claim he made in 1989, immediately after the OSU-Colorado game, that Gundy, then the Cowboy quarterback, had hurled racial slurs at several Buffaloes.
And in these troubled days of racial strife and social unrest, Simmons showed what we all could use a little more of.
Grace.
“Mike was learning when he was coming up in Oklahoma,” Simmons said.