I know what Pinkett is trying to say, he just worded it in the worst possible way imaginable.
Here are the quotes courtesy of Deadspin.
“I’ve always felt like, to have a successful team, you gotta have a few bad citizens on the team,” Pinkett told The McNeil and Spiegel Show on 670 The Score. (You can listen to his whole interview here.) When given a chance to clarify, Pinkett insisted: “You look at the teams that have won in the past. They always have a couple of criminals.”
Despite Notre Dame’s rash of off-field incidents as of late, Pinkett maintained he didn’t care what kind of citizens players were off the field, as long as they played well upon it.
“I mean, that’s how Ohio State used to win all the time. They would have two or three guys that were criminals. That just adds to the chemistry of the team,” Pinkett claims. The running back held Notre Dame’s career record for rushing yardage from 1985 to 1998 and was a two-time All-American.
I am sure that is going to go over well with the alums. The ironic thing is ND has a few criminals and they still haven’t been that great since Tony Rice left the building.