Note: This article was originally posted on NRA Blog: https://www.nrablog.com/articles/2016/9/toothless-tigers-mizzou-head-football-coach-forbids-players-from-owning-handguns/
USA – -(Ammoland.com)- Editor’s Note: Since the original publication of this article, a University of Missouri spokesman clarified Barry Odom’s remarks, stating: “Our program’s policy does not prohibit players from legally owning guns,” and rather, “If a player has a legal issue, and an illegal gun is involved as part of that legal issue, then the player is removed from the program.” Additionally, the school said, “They [Students] also have to understand that the University has a policy that guns aren’t permitted on campus.”
Missouri Tigers head football coach Barry Odom recently implemented an unorthodox new rule for his players, forbidding them from owning a handgun, even it was purchased “legally.”
You read that right. A well-paid new head coach of an NCAA Division I football program is commanding his unpaid talent, err, “student-athletes,” to forgo owning a handgun, denying their right to self-defense, hunting and recreational pistol or revolver shooting pursuits – Constitutional rights, mind you – for, well, “reasons.”
More puzzling even, Odom said that guns used “for hunting” were different from handguns, and didn’t mind if players owned them.
I guess Barry doesn’t know about the entire discipline of hunting using handguns, and probably hasn’t heard of any of these handguns for hunters.
Republican Sen. Brian Munzlinger, who himself uses a pistol to hunt, was quick to question Odom’s directive, blasting the coach and the Mizzou athletic department for unreasonably disarming law-abiding students.
“[In] Missouri and in the United States of America, these students are still citizens, and no publicly funded institution should have a policy that overrides our Missouri laws, our state constitution or the U.S. Constitution,” Munzlinger said in a statement.
Odom is telling his players outright that their right to self-defense doesn’t matter to him, the team or to the university, and that they need to choose between responsible, lawful gun ownership and lining up for Tigers this fall. If this is how Odom, in his first year as head coach after longtime coach Gary Pinkel left, plans to kick off the new era of Mizzou football, he’s making headlines for all the wrong reasons. His disregard for the legal rights of his players is most assuredly a penalty flag thrown against individual liberties.
See Related : “Gun Right Groups Launch Investigation into Public University and Sports Team Firearms”
Isn’t this the same university that has declining enrollment due to the absurdity of its social justice policies? Fewer and fewer people are going to pony up for a degree from this place. It will cease functioning as an institution of learning all by itself.
The ‘Show Me’ state should show Coach Odom the door. Shut up and coach!
What this clown is no coach, he’s signed up to be their mommie…… coach your guys in the game of football, leave the game of life to them.
How dare he deny athletes the right to have a shootout during the middle of training or a game.
Maybe the Twitter-verse needs to light up about this man. I suggest a campaign that sends him Depends. He surely needs them because he is full of it.
I live in Missouri.Once was a tiger fan then they moved to the SEC.I would not wipe my ass with MO Tigers.Close school.
I know literally less then zero about sports so this is a dumb question. But is this team so good that this guy can make a decision so controversial that the university administration would support him? Hell even Paterno was in the crapper for stupid decisions. Is this school so top end that their football team is the main source of alumni revenue and donations? Why would the school allow such a Constitutionally controversial thing to happen? Like I said I am not into sports and don’t quite get the process of how schools and sports jive together but… Sorry… Read more »
WHY is everyone advocating for firearms to be EVERYWHERE? Has the USA truly become such a lawless country, that NO ONE supports the police to do their job? That we must walk around w/weapons at the ready? I truly believe it comes from all of those TV Westerns that many of us watched as children. It seems as though many boys/men didn’t realize that those shows were MAKE-BELIEVE. In the civilized towns of the Old West, firearms were NOT ALLOWED w/in city limits. Anyone “heeled” would have his gun taken and/or put in jail. What everyone, making comments here, seem… Read more »
What an idiot. He should be reprimanded and told if he insists on violating players rights he will be terminated.
Hey coach. Come drinking with us tonight.