If he actually said what was quoted, and I’m not sure of this because I personally haven’t heard it so I can’t verify it, it was poorly worded on his part.
This type of comment is beneath what I would expect of a head coach, and if he worked for me, I would call him out on it, in private.
I wouldn’t make too much of it though, there is a long undisputed history of head coaches saying incredibly stupid things, much more stupid than this, and I’m talking about some of the most successful head coaches of all time. Real whoppers. Great coaches, good coaches, and mediocre coaches.
I think his mouth raced ahead of his brain for a moment, when he said “there was this one guy” and my guess is he regrets it.
It would have been better to say something general along the lines of “there are some players just don’t want to work hard enough to meet a high standard and those are the players that we are NOT going to recruit.“ Saying something like he supposedly said serves no purpose.
