There a ton of players who have character flaws, and just as many coaches who believe with the right work, they can resolve those and turn a kid around. The number of successful transitions likely out number the failures, but even some of the failures end up in a kid making the needed change. Mills learned and developed with every staff he worked with. A couple of the kids who kids who went to Oregon State appear to have learned you can’t half ass your way to success, so even though the light didn’t go on here, hearing the same kind of message apparently finally sunk in.
Every staff we’ve had has taken at risk kids, because it’s a pretty simple study of socioeconomics that the athletes that fit many of the skill positions come from those situations more often. And when you think of the environment many of those kids are coming from, Lincoln has to be a pretty extreme culture shock, which adds to the challenge. Maybe if we were winning more, or could offer the academic prestige of a ND or Stanford, we could try and get predominately high character, elite athletes, but that’s not our reality. Given our decade of challenges, we are stuck with the choice of trying to succeed with the at risk/highly talented, or the high character/lesser athletically. Looking at our most recent class, perhaps the staff is looking to reduce the number of at risk players.
