After last week’s teleconference between media members and SEC coaches, first-year Missouri head coach Barry Odom made headlines after answering a question on the team’s gun policies.
“We’ve got policies within our program and obviously within the university on a number of things, and handguns would be one of those policies,” Odom said on the teleconference. “If there’s a handgun issue, then we deal with it and not allow it in the program.”
That last portion caused some media outlets to incorrectly report that football players at the University of Missouri cannot own handguns while members of the team.
Fox Sports issued a correction in its report: “The original version of this story incorrectly prohibited members of the Tigers football team from legally owning handguns. The Tigers’ policy relates only to the illegal possession of guns.”
That policy, according to Montgomery Advertiser reporter Matthew Stevens, who spoke to a Missouri spokesperson in an effort to clarify the record, is: “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.”
"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."
— Matthew Stevens (@matthewcstevens) September 1, 2016
Players at Mizzou are allowed to own handguns as long as they are legally acquired.
The spokesperson also stated university policy does not allow guns on campus. Currently, state legislation and court rulings allow for concealed carry on college campuses in just eight states: Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.
