Why is this so upsetting? Lucia shouldn't care about his recruits possibly getting hurt? Why shouldn't he be advising the recruits to not risk getting seriously hurt in football?
The Gopher Hockey team goes through a lot of players. Good players rarely stay for four years and we need as many good players coming in each year to replace the ones that leave. If Lucia let it all slide, and one of his classes of recruits loses 2-3 players to knee injuries, setting them back a year, wouldn't that be kind of hard on the team? Wouldn't people start asking, "What's wrong with the team, they're so shorthanded all the time?", "Where are the freshman that are supposed to be here?", "Who told the recruits to play football and risk getting hurt", "What's wrong with you, Lucia?"
It's Lucia job to look out for what's best for the team, and he needs good, healthy players to make a good, healthy team.
Let's also remember that there kids are getting a full ride at "the" University of Minnesota, maybe that should be valuable enough to focus on hockey only. If a kid really loves football, I say let him play, but Lucia can still reccomend against it, and he can even recruit kids who will focus just on hockey. Maybe if a kid is dead set to get a full ride in hockey and play football in HS he should find a different university to go to.