Former Euless Trinity star Ollie Gordon II wants to make most of his second chance after DUI arrest
Oklahoma State’s Ollie Gordon went from an unheralded running back to one of the best players in college football last year.
Gordon, a former standout at powerhouse Trinity High School in Euless, powered the Cowboys the Big 12 title game with 1,732 rushing yards and 21 touchdowns as he won the Doak Walker award as the best running back in the country. Gordon entered this season as one of the faces of college football and an early favorite to be a Heisman contender.
However, Gordon nearly knocked himself off his own path with one bad decision. Gordon was arrested on June 30, accused of driving under the influence, according to court documents. State troopers pulled Gordon over in the Oklahoma City area after he swerved his car into the adjacent lane twice and was going 17 mph over the speed limit of 65. He refused a sobriety test and blew a 0.11 and 0.10 in blood alcohol content at the Cleveland County jail, documents show.
Oklahoma’s legal BAC limit for driving is .08%. .
Typically in these instances, college coaches would insulate their players from outside scrutiny and keep things under wraps. Instead Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy gave Gordon the choice to come to Las Vegas for Big 12 media days, knowing full well what questions awaited him.
“We brought him here today so you guys could ask him that question (regarding his arrest),” Gundy said Tuesday at Allegiant Stadium. “That was one of the reasons that I wanted to bring him here. He’s a great young man that made a decision that he loved to have back.”
Gundy said it was important to hold Gordon accountable for his actions, but left the decision to attend to Gordon. If he wanted, he could’ve declined to deal with all the questions.
But Gordon didn’t want to leave his teammates in the wind and force them to answer questions about his legal troubles.
“I just wanted to show maturity and face everything that’s going on instead of ducking and running,” Gordon said. “I feel like it would’ve been disrespectful to leave my team and my coaches up here and have them answer all the questions when I could answer them. I just felt like I would’ve left them in the dust if I wouldn’t have came at all.”
Another reason Gundy wanted Gordon there is because he didn’t want his star running back to be defined by a mistake — and not just as a really talented running back.
“Ollie’s got a magnetic personality,” Gundy said. “The people around (Stillwater) really enjoy and love him. He’s done an unbelievable job of building his brand. At the end of the season he has spent more time at girls’ softball games, basketball games, working in elementary schools... he went above and beyond to give out to people.”
This is the Gordon who Gundy wants the country to get a chance to know, not the one that admitted to having an bottles of vodka and tequila in his car, according to his arrest warrant affidavit.
The arrest weighed on Gordon mentally; he was making headlines for all the wrong reasons. To get through it, Gordon had to lean heavily on his teammates and support system around Stillwater.
“Coach Gundy always tells me he’s there if we need to talk,” Gordon said. “Some of my teammates talked to me and they were looking at it from an older guys’ perspective. Alan (Bowman) he’s been on many teams and has dealt with so many people, so his message was great. (My teammates) have been through things I haven’t before, they’re a lot older.
“When they’re telling me I just had to sit back and listen. Listening to them was a good thing. I view everybody at Oklahoma State as apart of my family. It was huge for all of them to answer the phone for me.”
In terms of punishment Gundy said Gordon wouldn’t miss any games. In fact he said if there was a punishment it would be to run Gordon 50 times in their first game.
Gundy’s attempt at humor was followed by a few more eyebrow-raising comments, especially when he said, “I’ve probably done that a thousand time in my life. And, and, you know which is fine. I got lucky, people get lucky.”
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Gundy also said: “He made a terrible mistake and got off lightly because nobody got hurt... Everybody needs to look in the mirror and ask, have I ever done that and not got caught?
“Have I ever had two or three beers and drove a car, because two or three beers can put you over the legal limit. Put some thought into that and not necessarily start throwing stones through a glass window. It’s not that it’s right, I want him to understand the seriousness of this as a parent and I think he does. We hope this will help him moving forward, he got off light.”
Gordon won’t be the first or last college athlete to get a relative slap on the wrist for making a mistake, but now Gordon has a choice.
He can learn from the mistake and build on last year’s historic run or not. Gordon seemed much more likely to do the former.
“It’s been hard to find joy recently, just thinking about everything,” Gordon said. “I was getting into my own head too much, but I feel like as we’ve moved on, my teammates and coaches have been helping me with that. Just being able to talk to the leaders around me has helped me get through this.”
This story was originally published July 9, 2024 at 7:23 PM.
