How I Broke the Oklahoma State Uniform News

Well it’s been quite the 36 hours for this little blog.

On Wednesday night at about 10:30 I obtained a set of photos I believed to be the official Oklahoma State uniform collection. I thought OSU was going to release the uniforms on Thursday or maybe Friday (I never received confirmation one way or the other) so I didn’t know what I should do with the photos.

I knew if I posted them I would get some major heat from the athletic department as well as the university but I also knew it would blow up this site. If I sat on them and just emailed them to a few friends then obviously nobody from the school would know but I would also probably regret not taking a chance and putting them out there.

So I posted them.

My first thought was, “if these are photoshopped, I’m screwed.” It was one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had. Now I know how reporters who said they wanted to throw up after going on TV to guarantee where LeBron was going last summer feel. It’s not as fun as it seems. But then again I was about as certain of them being real as I was that Weeden will complete 1 TD pass this year, so I went with it.

And I did receive heat from the school. And this site did blow up, to the point that there wasn’t even a single time it crashed, it was just crashing over and over all day. That was equally fun and frustrating. At one point I was chatting with a tech representative from my host site and he was like, “it looks like you are getting an inordinate amount of traffic today.” Thanks buddy, appreciate the in-depth analysis there.

Let me try and explain this in a way that makes sense: I don’t really care about the uniforms. I mean I like them and they’re fine and cool and hip and whatever, but I don’t care. It seemed like everyone was taking this project a little too seriously from the beginning – the fans, the administration, everyone.

At the end of the day the photos were sent to me and I turned around and put them up on the site and that was pretty much as simple as it was. I didn’t do anything illegal to obtain them. I don’t have illicit photos of Boone and a co-ed that I held over anyone’s head. I don’t vacation with Gundy in the offseason.

I’m just trying to develop a writing career and a following and I knew this would help.

I don’t know what the plan was from OSU and I feel bad for scooping a litany of people who worked really hard on putting some really great work together.

But I couldn’t sit on something that generated this much publicity for our little blog. Nobody would have. That’s not a good defense for what some people think was an unethical move in leaking the photos, but know that I’ve wrestled with the pros and cons of this entire situation to the point that I’ve barely slept in the last two days.

Some people have asked if I think what I did was wrong. I honestly don’t know. I’ll probably be mentally sorting that out over the next few weeks (maybe months).

At the end of the day we’re talking about some pictures of models in a helmet, shirt, and pair of pants. The fervor (both positive and negative) about this stuff is probably a little bit over-the-top. From all of us, myself included.

So I apologize to the good people of OSU who worked as hard as they could to produce a quality product and some great content for all OSU fans to enjoy. It wasn’t fair that I got the news and you didn’t get the credit.

But I don’t apologize for actually breaking the story. As I said before, I did nothing illegal or wrong to obtain the photos. I love OSU more than anyone (except FreeMason10) and I’ve always been compliant with the university as well as the athletic department when they’ve asked me to remove various content from my site. Always, in every instance.

And if OSU wants the $9.32 I’ve made off of this blog I will write them a check and send it today.