Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy recalls youth wrestling trips with John Smith

STILLWATER — Growing up as a competitive youth wrestler in Midwest City, Mike Gundy occasionally would travel the country to camps and tournaments with John Smith, who was a couple years older and lived in nearby Del City.

“I would’ve been 10 or 12 years old, and John about 14, somewhere in that area,” Gundy recalled on Tuesday afternoon before his Oklahoma State football team began its 10th practice of the spring inside the Sherman Smith Training Center. “Everywhere we went, they knew who John was. He had a reputation that preceded him when we showed up at tournaments.

“John was always a fierce competitor and about as loyal a Cowboy as you could get.”

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Smith retired last week as Oklahoma State’s wrestling coach, stepping away after a 33-year career that included five national championships and 490 dual victories with the Cowboys. He is also regarded as one of America’s greatest wrestlers, having won six consecutive world titles, which included two Olympic gold medals.

Decades after their days sharing a ride to Kansas or Colorado for a wrestling tournament, Smith and Gundy now share farm equipment on their respective ranches.

Still, Gundy’s respect for Smith is through the roof.

“I don’t know when they started on his statue, but it should’ve been awhile back,” Gundy said. “There’s nobody on this campus that deserves a statue more than him. The only debate is, do you make it of him as a wrestler or as a coach? I say you make it a collage and do both.

“We’ve had a lot of people do amazing things here, but he was the best in the world at what he did, period.”

Veterans pushing physicality in practice

Gundy described the first nine practices of spring as “physical and competitive,” pointing to the leadership of his older players for helping make it that way.

“Last Saturday, I stopped practice the last 20 minutes,” Gundy said. “They had worked so hard, I just called it off. They (the veterans) are the ones that are taking the reins on this.

“A couple weeks ago, I spoke very directly to those guys and said you have to be willing to train and practice harder than you did last year, even though you’re Ollie Gordon or Joe Michalski or Brennan Presley or Collin Oliver or Korie Black or Cole Birmingham. You have to put forth that effort and they have done that up to this point.”

The physicality, in particular, has been key for a group with so many returning starters — roughly 18. It shows an edge when some players might otherwise be sliding toward contentment.

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Benefit of no Oklahoma State football spring game?

Because of the ongoing construction inside Boone Pickens Stadium, the Cowboys won’t have a spring game again this year.

Asked if there were any benefits, Gundy said the only one would be an actual practice, as opposed to putting on a show with a scrimmage-type workout in front of fans, likening the spring game to flag football.

“It’s like the (NFL Pro Bowl) or an NBA All-Star game, almost,” he said. “Unless you’re gonna play a real game and say, 'Hey, we’re gonna go tackle and not worry about injuries,' it’s not really a football game.

“We could do that. I can’t get over that hump. I can’t make myself do it.”

In a closed-door practice, the team can get more effective work done without endangering players in game-like situations. And the recruiting benefits of a spring game have diminished as well, Gundy says.

“We’ve had two big recruiting weekends, then this’ll be another one, and we have another one after that,” Gundy said. “They come to practice on Saturday and they actually enjoy it more, because they feel the same way I do. They come watch practice and they see our coaches working, and our players. If they go to a spring game, they see a flag football game.

“So it actually works better for us, the way we’ve set it up. It gives us time so they can come to my house, they can use the pool, all that stuff. And it works better now than it did with a spring game.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OSU football coach Mike Gundy recalls wrestling trips with John Smith