I am soooo with you. I take deep offense to those ignorant narrow-minded ignoramusses who confuse toughness and leadership with being a socio-path. It is like saying that the armed forces should recruit more murderers because they are really good at killing. It totally takes the character issues out of the game. Coach Embree understands the difference folks. We need young men of character to get us out of this rut. Men of character are not sociopathic criminals. We will get our recruits out of big cities, suburbs, small towns and anywhere we can find tough young men with work ethics and moral standards. Coach Mac used to say that "football does not build character, it EXPOSES it."
Coach Mac has enough valuable quotes to fill a book but this is one of his best ones.
There are a lot of kids coming from the suburbs with parents who drive nice cars and wear the right brand of shoes that I wouldn't trust as far as I can throw them. At the same time there are a lot of kids from "the wrong side of town" who become the people you want moving into the house next door.
Falling into the habit of basing decisions on stereotypes and generalizations is the sign of a lazy thinker. Dan Hawkins was not a bad man (lousy coach but not a bad man) but it became clear that he let himself fall into some traps. He recruited based on a profile that he set in place including the famous two-parent family deal and emphasizing certain schools. Embree has thrown all that out and instead is looking at kids as individuals. We don't have a long history to go on but I am comfortable in saying that I will take the character of Embrees first class and what he has this year over what we saw from Hawkins any day.
People often forget these are still kids. They may look like young adults and most are bigger than most adults but when they get here they are straight out of high school. Take any group of =/-100 young people leaving home for the first time and you will have some bad decisions. My belief is that the steps Embree is taking which are not that different than Mac did will provide these students the best opportunity to demonstrate the best sides of their character.
I don't know details about the kids who got suspended from the team this week and frankly I shouldn't know. What I do know is that they are not Embree recruits but that Embree is defining a culture that will allow the program and the players in it to succeed. Any player is welcome to become a part of that culture or choose to make decisions that will result in leaving that culture. The team and the individuals in it will be stronger in the long run as a result of standing by the culture.