Charlie Strong killed Art Briles with a trident

Near the end of his press conference, Strong was given an opportunity to speak about his philosophies with respect to discipline, rules setting, core values and basic character.

Strong was asked about coaches who emphasize winning at all costs and taking players with troubled histories.

I can't speak for other coaches. The only thing I look at, you think about many situations and I always say this, you have to value a young lady. She needs to be respected. It comes down to just respecting women. For some reason I don't -- I just don't get it and I don't understand why we as men feel like that we can mistreat women, talk to women any kind of way we want to because they have value just like everyone else. It can't continue to happen. At some point something's got to be said.

How much due diligence does Strong do before accepting troubled transfers?

I'll tell you what, when I was at Louisville, I took one. I took Michael Dyer.  I said, "You have him to come and see me. I don't want anyone to come with him, I don't need his mentor or anyone to speak for him. I don't need his parents. I just want him to come up here by himself." So he came to Louisville and we sat down and we talked. I made him sign a contract. I said, "These are things you're going to do, and if it doesn't happen, you will not be here. I'm sorry. I know I'm taking a chance on you, but if I get rid of you, I'll just take the hit, I don't mind doing that."

But the whole time we had him there with the classes, he did everything I asked him to do. But you have to research it and you have to know you say, "Hey, what really happened?  You had a gun charge. Really, what happened with the gun charge?"  "This is what happened, Coach." Then so when I called Gus, I said, "Now tell me really what happened and he told me." But I wanted to -- I wanted the young man to speak and I wanted him to tell me exactly what happened to see if he was going to tell me the truth.

What Strong just described there is actual due diligence, setting ironclad expectations and letting the transfer know they're on probation from Day 1.  That's what a coach does if they care about more than talent accumulation.

The next question was fantasic...props to the reporter who threw Charlie a fat softball down the middle.  Strong knocked it 550 feet through the window of an Escalade parked in Lot 20.

"Are their coaches who have used Strong's core values against him on the recruiting trail?" (this reporter asked knowingly....Strong laughed before answering as Baylor is arguably the worst offender in the conference)

You know - you know what happens sometimes is when you talk about discipline - and I think that a lot of coaches try to use it against you - but once you get with the families, that's what they want. Even the players, the players deep down really want you to be an example for them because -- and what happens is that we have allowed so many of our high-profile players or whatever we want to call them to do whatever they want to do.  Everything you're going to be taught is how to go be successful in life.

I always say to them, I say, "Let me tell you something. If you weren't a football player, if you were just a young man just standing out there on the corner, could you do the things you're doing? No, you couldn't do them. So why do you feel like when you're a football player that you're allowed to do those things? No, that's not how society is, son. Once you leave here and you enter into society, you're not going to be able to do those things, so I'm going to tell you right now this is the way you're going to be taught."

Charlie just killed Art Briles with a trident.  Those aren't chickens coming home to roost.  They're harpies.

The coup de grace...

You're not going to let your child just go do anything he want to go do. So why all of a sudden that you have someone else's child, you feel like hey, this is what they can go do. I don't - I don't understand it, but Ryan, that's the way a lot of people are, so that's how they run their shop. It's their store. They're the manager of their store.

Clean up on aisle 3, Art.

courtesy of BDone

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