It seems that even in retirement, former Oklahoma State University president David Schmidly just can't escape controversy.

The former Texas Tech and New Mexico president, who currently teaches biology at New Mexico after his retirement in 2012, has spoken out against a series of Sports Illustrated articles detailing irregularities in the Oklahoma State Cowboys football program during the Les Miles era. Schmidly was OK State president from 2002 to 2007, running smack into Miles' tenure on the gridiron.

Schmidly told the Albuquerque Journal that he thought that Sports Illustrated "grossly sensationalized" the reports.

"I'm not saying none of it was true, but those things were never reported to me. I left the field with the football team. I went into the locker room, and I stayed until the players left. I never saw any donors hand out money. I never saw any coaches handing out money." Schmidly stated.

Responding to reports of academic fraud, Schmidly said that he made the athletic director at the time directly responsible for athletes' academics. In a groundbreaking move, Schmidly reorganized the athletics program so that the athletic director was a vice-president and thus reported directly to the president's office.

"The athletic director, none of the vice presidents, ever reported allegations of student misconduct," Schmidly emphasized.

Despite the negative publicity that OK State and its football program are experiencing, Schmidly remains committed to setting the record straight. He has reached out to to current president Burns Hargis, who is conducting a separate investigation.

Schmidly's tenure at Oklahoma State was not without controversy. He was criticized for demolishing a low-income neighborhood in Stillwater to make way for an athletics complex, and was accused of focusing on athletics at the expense of academics. The faculty senate at the university had also called for Schmidly's resignation over the severance package size offered to several staffers that he had hired away from Texas Tech.

Controversy also followed him all the way to New Mexico, where he was accused of cronyism after hiring an old friend, John Stropp, attracting him with a compensation package of $325,000 yearly.