Bingo, movie nights and Mike Gundy! How Oklahoma State’s radio show ended up at a retirement community
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Eli Lederman, ESPN Staff Writer
STILLWATER, Okla. — In the 60 years since Lou Watkins graduated from Oklahoma State, she has held various roles around the university, seen nearly all 250 games Mike Gundy has coached and, at one time or another, held the fate of his professional future in her hands.
Only recently, however, has Watkins been able to ask Gundy what was really on her mind:
“What was he thinking benching the quarterback on Saturday?”
The 82-year old Watkins, a resident of Legacy Village of Stillwater, was in the stands to see Cowboys quarterback Alan Bowman throw two interceptions and complete just 48.1% of his passes in Oklahoma State’s 22-19 loss to Utah on Sept. 21. Two days later, it was all everyone was talking about inside the halls of Legacy Village, the swanky senior living community located 4 miles from Boone Pickens Stadium.
That’s because Gundy’s weekly visit was approaching.
“I’ve seen him on television. I’ve been to all the games,” said Sharon Brown, an 84-year-old resident who earned her degree from Oklahoma State in 1962 and has concerns about the Cowboys’ dormant running game. “But for him to come to our house? It’s surreal.”
Sparked by a one-off holiday radio special in December, Legacy Village is the new home of Gundy’s coach’s show this fall, drawing nearly 100 residents to the facility’s fourth-floor ballroom every Monday, each one hanging on every word from the coach. In the community of retirees — some with connections to Oklahoma State dating back 70 years — they feel as close as ever to their school.
“It’s one of the best things we’ve ever done,” Gundy told ESPN.
THE HOTTEST COMMODITY on fall Monday nights at Legacy Village is a seat with a good view of the ballroom stage. This week, Joyce Wuetig, 86, is the first resident in the room just after 5 p.m., nearly a full hour before the broadcast begins. By 5:30, the room is brimming.
“I’m hard of hearing so I always try to sit up close,” says Wuetig, who invites her son-in-law to attend the radio show each week. “I like to hear Coach Gundy speak — I like his voice.”
Legacy Village sits on 55 acres of land with a view of a golf course and offers independent living, assisted living and memory care services. The community opened in March 2020. Gary and Nancy Franklin, a pair of retired accountants from Stillwater, moved in that month, three days after their 50th wedding anniversary.
“There’s always been an OSU spirit here,” says Nancy. “But the show being here has upped it a few notches.”
Gundy arrives at 6 p.m. on the dot, 90 minutes after the community’s dinner buffet. The residents cheer and pump black and orange pom-poms into the air as he walks in. About 50 showed up for the first live broadcast in Week 1; another 70 or so came in Week 2, prompting the Legacy Village staff to change the ballroom layout and begin limiting attendees from the outside public solely to guests with invites from residents.
On this Monday, about 100 chairs face the stage and few are empty. Each of Gundy’s first four visits to Legacy Village came after an Oklahoma State win. But now, on the heels of the Cowboys’ first loss of 2024, the 57-year-old coach prepares to get grilled as a producer passes around a microphone for residents to ask questions during the first commercial break.
“Surely after that game you’ve got some thoughts,” Gundy says. “Y’all can’t be that nice now.”
The questions are pointed but friendly. The residents here spend their Saturdays watching the Cowboys in the theater room. It’s a plugged-in crowd. During the week, they keep up through the pages of the Stillwater News Press and other local newspapers.
Minutes in, one man gets up to ask a question on many residents’ minds.
“What’s up with this situation where Ollie Gordon can’t get out of the pocket and run?” he asks.
“Well, it’s going to be tough on him,” Gundy replies before repeating an unsatisfying answer about defenses loading the box against the Cowboys. “It’s very disappointing that there’s really not a lot we can do about it.”
Later, a resident asks about the thought process when Gundy benched his starting quarterback at halftime against Utah, then threw Bowman back into the game in the fourth quarter. Another wants to know about Gundy screaming at a referee and is curious about what sparked the angry moment.
“I’m usually really good about that,” Gundy replies. “Officials are like teachers and police officers — they’re people you can’t control. So you want to be real nice to them…”
Gundy has joked that Legacy Village is one of the few places he can walk into confidently without any enemies. Facility officials estimate at least 75% of the residents hold some sort of connection to Oklahoma State.
On his first visit, Gundy was stunned by how many faces he recognized.
“I think it’s hard for me to realize it, but I’m kind of at that age where I know so many people that would be here,” he says.
WES AND LOU Watkins moved into Legacy Village the same week the facility opened in March 2020, 64 years after Wes first enrolled at Oklahoma State in 1956.
Wes served as student body president, then launched a lengthy political career that included 20 years in the United States Congress. The Wes Watkins Center for International Trade Development sits directly across from Boone Pickens Stadium, and Wes and Lou still remain heavily involved at the university, regularly attending football games and other events on campus.
“I’ve been in more homecoming parades than anyone else,” Wes, 85, says.
As Gundy speaks about a Cowboys offense that floundered against Utah, Wes is positioned in the front row wearing a visor similar to one Gundy might have worn in his first decade in charge at Oklahoma State. During a commercial break, he grabs the mic and makes a pitch, just in case Gundy is looking to replace his offensive coordinator.
“You see this hat I’ve got on?” he quips. “I’m for hire.”
A few rows behind him is Althea Wright. She arrived in Stillwater in 1953, back when the school was called Oklahoma A&M, and later married a basketball player named Mel Wright, who famously sank a last-second jumper over Wilt Chamberlain to beat Kansas in February 1957.
While Mel played basketball and baseball, Althea was a cheerleader.
“We wore a lot more clothes than [cheerleaders] wear now,” Althea, 89, says. “And we didn’t have to do any of those athletics tricks you see them do now. I can’t even imagine.”
Jack Nasworthy, 84, hangs on every one of Gundy’s words. His father, Elmer, wrestled in Stillwater from 1933 to 1936, and Nasworthy followed the same path as a member of Oklahoma State’s national champion wrestling teams in 1959 and 1961. He tried out for the United States Olympic team ahead of the 1960 Summer Games.
Dave Hunziker, the radio voice of the Cowboys, has in-laws in Legacy Village. Across the ballroom is the mother of Oklahoma State football strength coach Rob Glass and Lou Watkins, who learned how to manage the noise around Gundy in the turbulent moments of his tenure during part of her 23 years on the university’s board of regents.
“We kind of had to figure out what storms to weather [with Gundy],” she says.
Within a community so deeply connected to Oklahoma State, there are a handful of Oklahoma fans. Gradually, they’re starting to surface for Gundy’s weekly visits, too.
“We’re all friends, and a few of them played football for the Sooners,” Lou Watkins says. “When we’re watching Bedlam in the theater, we’re not always as kind as we should be.”
ONE OF COLLEGE football’s most singular and long-held traditions, the coach’s call-in radio show began as a weekly opportunity for a coach to connect directly to his fan base, and often vice versa. But while coaches are more insulated than ever, and programs have a multitude of ways to get their message out to the world, the call-in show has become outdated.
Michigan, for instance, is among the latest programs to move its weekly radio show from a public setting to a studio inside its team facility. And fewer coaches are fielding weekly questions from fans in 2024. This fall, Clemson notably joined the list of schools where the head coach is no longer taking calls from fans during his radio show (see: Tyler from Spartanburg).
Yet in Stillwater, in a room of 70- and 80-year-olds, Gundy’s weekly radio session has never felt more alive.
The idea to bring Gundy’s show to Legacy Village came late last year. Hunziker had always wanted to host an Oklahoma State Christmas special and thought the retirement community could be an ideal place for a festive event, bringing coaches and athletes to Legacy Village to mingle with the residents.
The holiday show drew rave reviews. The experience left Kristi Lester, Legacy Village’s sales and marketing director, wanting to do it more often.
Lester’s timing turned out to be good. Gundy’s radio show had called several places home in recent years — local Chick-fil-As and Slim Chickens restaurants among them — but most recently a Rib Crib near Boone Pickens Stadium.
The contract with Rib Crib expired at the end of the 2023 season, and Lester and the leadership at Legacy Village was excited about adding Gundy’s show to their resident programming. But they didn’t expect the impact it would make this fall.
“It used to just be game day Saturdays that would get people excited,” Lester says. “But now you see it throughout the week. There’s a true spirit. It’s given them something new and meaningful to look forward to. I’m beginning to wonder if they have anything else to talk about.”
The show is contracted to remain at Legacy Village for the next two seasons beyond 2024. There’s also a new wrinkle in the show. Each week this fall, an Oklahoma State football player joins for the final 20 minutes of the broadcast.
For the residents, the athlete appearances peel back another layer on the team they watch on Saturdays. The post-show photo ops are popular, as well. Althea Wright recently became a great-grandmother, and she scrolls past photos of her newborn great-grandchild in order to find the picture she took with Gordon, the Cowboys’ star running back, a few weeks ago.
For a former athlete such as Nasworthy, the visits are also a window into the next generation of Cowboys, who will represent his university long after he’s gone.
“As you get older you appreciate a lot of that stuff,” Nasworthy says. “Because they’re the people coming up. That’s people that are going to be here another 50 years. That means a lot to us. To see good people, people that want to do good for the university. Loyalty matters.”
STAR OKLAHOMA STATE linebacker Nick Martin was one of the first players to appear for the closing segments of the radio show. When Bowman, Oklahoma State’s 25-year-old, seventh-year quarterback visited, he told the crowd he was glad to finally be in a room where he felt young.
The athletes arrive at Legacy Village directly after the Cowboys’ Monday evening practice and receive name, image and likeness payments for their appearances. After the Utah game, the guest was veteran wide receiver Brennan Presley.
“You see that they’re more than a football player,” says 79-year-old Nancy Franklin. “You see that they have goals and a life. They’re no longer one-dimensional.”
As with Gundy, the residents ask questions during the commercial breaks while Presley’s onstage. They want to know about his string of athletic siblings who all went through local high school power Bixby. They ask about the crunching shot he took to his ribs in the loss to Utah.
Later, Presley got a question about his dating life and a past relationship with the daughter of offensive coordinator Kasey Dunn.
“What’s your relationship like with the offensive coordinator?” the resident wonders. “How about his daughter?”
“We’re off-air, right?” Presley replies, a nervous smile spreading across his face.
“Today’s program is brought to you by Frigidaire,” Hunziker cuts in.
The crowd laughs and Presley’s first visit to Legacy Village continues smoothly. Afterward, he takes pictures with every resident who wants one — and there are many.
“Sometimes you can undervalue what it means to other people,” he says. “I know what it felt like when I was a kid seeing my favorite college football player in person. It was really cool to get out here. I got to meet people that I would have never otherwise met.”
As Presley leaves Legacy Village, another coach’s show is in the books. It’s a vibrant community of retirees, and the community’s programming includes yoga, bingo and movie nights, but Gundy’s visits have been something more.
“This is by far the best setting we’ve done this from,” Gundy says. “I love it.”
For one hour each Monday, the OSU world comes to Legacy Village. And after the radio show wraps and Gundy departs, the energy inside the community remains, permeating the rest of the week, fueling the residents’ game-day “table-gates” and lingering all the way through to the next Monday evening, when Gundy returns and the fourth-floor ballroom is packed again.
“When Mike Gundy is here, we feel like we’re part of the conversation,” Brown says. “We just want to be close with the things we love the most. For many of us, that’s Oklahoma State.”
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David Schoenfield
PHILADELPHIA — Welcome to October chaos.
With a dominant effort from Blake Snell, one perfectly executed wheel play and one fortuitous scoop from Freddie Freeman for the game’s final out, the Los Angeles Dodgers escaped with a tense, thrilling 4-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Monday night to take a 2-0 lead in their National League Division Series.
“I’ll take off my Dodgers hat and just put on a fan hat,” shortstop Mookie Betts said. “I think that was a really, really dope baseball game. I think both of these games were really, really dope baseball games, fun to be a part of. Obviously, it’s a lot better when you’re on the winning side, but you can’t ask for better postseason baseball. It’s just fun. This is why we play.”
The first six innings were a classic pitcher’s duel between Snell and Phillies starter Jesus Luzardo as the game was scoreless through six innings. The final three innings were a wild affair of hits, walks, tag plays at home plate and on the bases, second-guessing of managers and a nearly costly throw in the dirt from Tommy Edman that Freeman scooped with the tying run on third base to close it out.
The key play of the game, however, occurred earlier in the bottom of the ninth. Nick Castellanos‘ bloop two-run double to shallow left field made it 4-3 with nobody out. With Alex Vesia entering to face Bryson Stott and Los Angeles expecting a bunt, the Dodgers huddled up and called for the wheel play, which entails having the third baseman charge toward the plate and the shortstop cover third base. It’s a play third baseman Max Muncy said the Dodgers don’t practice in spring training.
“Immediately, Mookie was like, ‘Hey, we need to be doing this,'” Muncy said. “It speaks to his baseball IQ and his intuition in that situation. We were all thinking it, but Mookie was definitely the one that brought it up and said we need to do this.”
Betts, who just finished his first full season at shortstop, explained his thinking.
“It’s just another learned behavior,” he said. “I’ve got to give that credit to [Miguel] Rojas. I think we did it earlier in the year in Anaheim, and I remember asking him, ‘When’s a good time to do it?’ He said, ‘In a do-or-die situation,’ and he and Woody [Dodgers coach Chris Woodward] have really helped me a lot just learning situations.”
Manager Dave Roberts gave the go-ahead. If the Dodgers failed, it would put runners on first and third with nobody out.
“I think it just speaks to the experience that a lot of us have been in a lot of these big games before, and we have a lot of experience doing these types of things,” Muncy said. “Doc trusts us as much as we trust Doc, and it’s not an easy thing to gain, and so that’s why in that moment, Doc heard us talking and right away he was on board with it.”
The first pitch to Stott was a slider out of the zone. With Muncy charging and Betts hustling to third, they were worried they might have given away their strategy.
“When it comes to the wheel play as a third baseman, your first job is obviously to field the ball, and then you’ve got to make a good throw,” Muncy said. “But the one thing no one talks about is you got to make sure the guy’s there to catch the throw.”
Betts got there.
“God blessed me with some athleticism, so I was able to just kind of put it on display there,” Betts said.
“It’s tag play, too,” Woodward said. “Running the wheel on a force out is a lot easier because the third baseman just has to catch it. But if you have to tag him, it presents a more difficult play. For Muncy to field it, know right away, make a good throw. Mookie hung in there. That was the play of the game.”
The Dodgers didn’t have a 5-6 putout in the regular season, the only team in the majors without one, according to ESPN Research.
In an era with few sacrifice bunts, the attempt was debatable. The Phillies had just 16 sacrifice bunts all season. Manager Rob Thomson explained the decision: “Just left-on-left,” he said, referring to Stott against Vesia. “Trying to tie the score. I liked where our bullpen was at, compared to theirs. We play for the tie at home.”
He praised the Dodgers’ execution.
“Mookie did a great job of disguising the wheel play,” Thomson said. “We teach our guys that if you see wheel, just pull it back and slash because you’ve got all kinds of room in the middle. But Mookie broke so late that it was tough for Stotty to pick it up.”
The Phillies eventually put runners on second and third with two outs in the ninth. Roberts went to Roki Sasaki, whom Roberts hoped to avoid using for the second time in three days after Sasaki missed most of the regular season because of a shoulder injury. Sasaki got Trea Turner to hit a routine grounder to second — which Edman fielded but nearly threw away.
For the first two-thirds of the game, Snell and Luzardo were dominant. Luzardo allowed just one hit through six innings and fired 20 fastballs at 97-plus mph. Snell didn’t allow a hit until the fifth inning. He got his biggest outs in the sixth. After walking Turner and Kyle Schwarber with one out, he struck out Bryce Harper on a 2-2 slider.
“I needed weak contact,” Snell said. “I knew I was going to have to attack him somewhere where he could hit, but I felt confident with the slider. Like today, I felt really confident with that pitch. Just kind of rode it out against him in that at-bat and ended up winning.”
Snell then got Alec Bohm to ground out to third base. Rojas fielded it and dove to tag the base just ahead of the speedy Turner.
Snell, a two-time Cy Young winner whom the Dodgers signed for $182 million in the offseason, had made 10 postseason starts before this season and never made it through six innings. He has now done it twice this year after pitching seven innings in the Dodgers’ wild-card opener against the Reds.
The Dodgers are one win from advancing to the NLCS as the series shifts to Dodger Stadium. The Phillies’ top three hitters — Turner, Schwarber and Harper — are a combined 2-for-21.
“Huge, huge momentum maintainers,” Roberts said. “Great ballgame, great plays, huge win.”
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