When i played high school football, our coach had a simple philosphy, you had to have character to play, if you even had a history of causing disruption or getting in trouble frequently, you didn't play on the team. I'm not talking about criminals, i'm talking about kids who simply acted up, got in trouble in class a lot, and got a lot of detention, he wouldn't let them on the team. Our record over my 4 years there = 22-23. Then after i graduated, our school got a new coach who didn't really have that philosphy, he's coached there for 6 years and over the last 4 years 3 of his players have been arrested. His record over those 4 years = 44-10.
This isn't high school football we're talking about, but i think it relates. It's important to have high character guys on your team. But, it's also very important to have talent on your team, and if some of that talent happens to not be of the highest character, than so be it.