Jeff Capel Apologized to Pitt Players for Past Comments

PITTSBURGH -- The pressure was mounting and Jeff Capel felt backed into a corner. On the heels of a 20-point loss to Boston College last March, a defeat that capped a five-game losing streak to end Capel's fourth losing season in as many as the head coach of the Pitt Panthers, he told the attending media that there was an easy solution to his program's struggles.

“We have to get better players,” the Pitt head coach said. “I mean, that's the reality of it. It's not anything personal. We have to continue to add better players. We have to recruit better. All those things, we have to do better. We have to continue to develop guys. We have to continue to help them reach their potential as players. Those are things that we have to continue to do.”

That comment was followed by a mass exodus of players from the program. Six players transferred - a group that made up 43% of the team's scoring, 33% of its rebounds and 48% of its assists.

In an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at ACC Media Days this week, Capel told PG reporter Noah Hiles that he has since apologized to the players who did return for that comment. Capel believes his comments were taken out of context but nonetheless regrets them.

“I hate to say this, but it’s true: I was incredibly selfish,” Capel said. “I was worried about me. I knew I was going to a podium. I knew I was going to be asked questions. My [sports information director] told me that there were ‘a group of local reporters that wanted to ask about you.’ I became very defensive, and I said some things that I regret saying. I think things that I said were taken out of context, but the fact of the matter was, in that moment, I was selfish."

At the moment when he made that comment, Capel said he was thinking solely about how the long, difficult season had affected him and added that ever since, he's been more conscious about what is best for his team and the players.

“I was worried about me," Capel said. "I wasn’t thinking about what those guys had just dealt with, what they had to deal with all year. I was thinking, ‘Man, how am I going to answer this? These guys are going to come after me. I gotta answer these questions,’ and things like that. So, through a lot of self-reflection, a lot of work that I tried to do on me, I feel like I’m just in a space where I’m concentrating on every day and what can we do to be the best that we can that day.”

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