Great read if you love Clemson football

Dec 14, 2008, 10:12 AM

Life hasn't always been fair to Dabo Swinney, but he's not prone to brooding or self-pity. Animated, earnest, generous and sincere, Swinney's road - pocked with deep pain and disappointment - is paved with perseverance, diligence, faith and humor.

"He's the light in a dark world," said Rich Wingo, a friend of nearly 20 years.

"He's fun," said Robert Hayes, a surrogate father and emotional compass for Swinney during his formative years, "and he's fun to be around."

Hayes was on the sideline for the Clemson-Carolina game Nov. 29, and was struck by how the crowd in Death Valley responded to Swinney's joy in a victory that ended his seven weeks as interim coach, the prelude to being named Clemson University's 25th head football coach.

"He always found the bright spot," said Hayes. "These last seven weeks to most people would have been a kick in the face. They wouldn't have been ready to accept that responsibility. To Dabo, it was just another step - step on up and do the job."

Even if it means staying up to 3 a.m. some night to string the outdoor Christmas lights and erect the plastic Frosty the Snowman his father gave him when he was 3 years old, Swinney won't be denied another of life's little pleasures. This year, though, he's been too busy to clean the front yard and blow the leaves out of the gutter.

"He's blessed with a boundless energy," said his wife, Kathleen, his friend since first grade. "I just think God gave him this because he knew he could handle it and knew he could make a difference in people's lives."

Would it have been any different if he had become Chris Swinney, as his parents intended, rather than being christened "Dat Boy" by 16-month-old brother Tripp? Because he's never been Chris, or William or Bill. And for a long time, he said, people weren't sure what to expect. Sometimes, he said, they were surprised he's Caucasian.

"I'll tell them I'm Cajun, or I'll say, 'Hey, I'm from Alabama, what do you expect?'

"One thing's for certain," he said. "People don't forget you."

When people meet Swinney, they're marked for life, Hayes said.

Bobby Hayes was a friend of Ervil Swinney's. Their kids played baseball together in Birmingham when Dabo wasn't much bigger than a Louisville Slugger. Head of the Birmingham police SWAT team, Hayes moved to Pelham, an urban-sprawl burg off I-65 south, and a short time later the Swinneys followed.

"Dabo was special early on," Hayes said. "He had a lot of drive and a lot of heart."

Hayes and his wife, Judy, had three children. Swinney and one of the Hayes boys were fast friends. In time, Dabo became another member of the family. Swinney's mother and father divorced when he was 16, the youngest of the three boys. Periodically during high school, they would stay at the Hayes' home. Kathleen, a year younger, would pick him up for school many mornings.

"He spent some time here when there were some problems he couldn't control," Hayes said. "His mother and the boys were in and out on occasion there. They came when they needed to."

An A-B student and captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams at Pelham High School, Swinney had dreamed of playing all three at the University of Alabama. Student loans and a Pell Grant afforded him the opportunity to enroll at Alabama, the first from his family to enter college.

Occasionally he worked menial jobs, often driving the 60 miles from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham to clean gutters in upscale neighborhoods or umpire baseball games in Pelham.

Hayes had given him a quarter when he left for school with orders to call. Swinney said he quickly ran out of quarters that first year and began calling collect. Money was tight, and he worried about his mother. Kathleen, who wouldn't join him for a year, believed he would be fine if he made the football team. Several times, Hayes talked him into staying in school.

"He didn't need to be here. He needed to stay in Tuscaloosa," Hayes said. "It was a good place for him and good for him."

During his sophomore year, Swinney and a friend took a two-bedroom apartment in Tuscaloosa. His mother moved in later and commuted to a job in Birmingham. They shared a room and frequently slept in the same bed.

"I can't tell you how many times we lay in that bed at night and dreamed," he said. "I'd tell her all the things I would do."

A slight, ordinary athlete, Swinney mustered the gumption to audition for the Alabama football team after watching a game with Kathleen during his freshman year.

"You have walk-ons. I was a 'crawl-on,' " he said. "I was too stupid to know anything different."

Swinney was one of 48 to start offseason workouts in Lower Gym at 5:30 a.m., and one of two to survive.

"He was one of those that no matter what you put them through, Dabo was going to be the one who was going to come out on top," said Wingo, a former Crimson Tide player with five seasons as a linebacker in the NFL. "He was not going to be beat."

Swinney said Wingo "tried to run me off that football team, tried to kill me."

Wingo still marvels at Swinney's resiliency. "No matter how bad of a day he's had," he said, "he's not going to let it impact him."

Swinney was invited to spring practice and became a permanent member of the team. Tommy Bowden, the receivers coach under Bill Curry that season, sent Swinney into a game one afternoon.

"I thought it was the greatest thing," he said. "My mom was crying. I was on the field. A lot of people, that was all they expected.

"I had much higher goals. I wasn't done."

When Gene Stallings replaced Curry the next season, Swinney was given a chance by Woody McCorvey to play. Swinney remembers the day they posted the travel roster. Waiting until everybody left, he tore the list of names off the wall and drove to Pelham to show Hayes and his mother that he had made it.

"People started believing," he said.

He lettered three seasons, earned a scholarship as a senior and played on the 1992 national championship team. Swinney accepted a job as a graduate assistant on Stallings' staff, earned an master's degree in business administration and married Kathleen in 1994. He said it was like marrying his sister.

Kathleen's sister and Dabo's brother dated first. Occasionally, the younger kids would tag along. Kathleen knew his parents and understood there were problems at home, though Dabo tried to shield it from others.

The lowest point was when the family lost its home and the Swinneys divorced. Kathleen and the Hayes were among those who were there for him.

"I think that may have brought Dabo and I even closer," she said. "It didn't matter to me. We just had this bond."

They had discussed marriage during college, so it wasn't a matter of yes or no but when. Working on an MBA while coaching, making $500 a month, he promised her a ring if the team went to a bowl game. She was amused but skeptical until he surprised her by proposing at the foot of Denny Chimes on the Alabama Quad on August 19, 1993, as the bells struck 10 p.m. Five years later to the day of their engagement, the first of their three sons was born.

A full-time member of Stallings' staff until he retired in 1997, Swinney was retained by Mike DuBose. When DuBose was fired in 2000, Swinney went, too.

Wingo offered him a job at AIG Baker, a commercial and real estate development firm in Birmingham, and for nearly two years he made more money than he imagined building shopping centers.

Kathleen said he wasn't fulfilled.

"He'd come home and say, 'What am I doing. I should be coaching,' " she said. "There was such a void there."

Swinney felt he was wasting a talent. It touched him when he heard from former players.

"I prayed for God to open the right door," he said. "I didn't think I was getting back into coaching."

In 2003, Bowden offered Swinney an opportunity to return to football - for substantially less money. The Swinneys, now with two boys, were putting the final touches on a home they had built. He chucked it all and moved to Clemson. "When I came up here I just knew this was where I was supposed to be," he said.

Wingo believes it was a calling.

"He was excelling, he was growing, he was making great money and he had his new home," he said. "I believe he was heeding that call."

The Swinneys built another home off Issaqueena Trail in Clemson identical to the one in Birmingham. It's filled with pictures of Kathleen and the boys and several of her and Dabo. Her favorite is of them when he was 12 and she was 11, dressed for a formal holiday dance. It's among the first she would grab in a fire, she said.

"It hasn't been necessarily easy," Kathleen said, "but you wouldn't change anything."

The Swinney boys are frequent visitors to the Clemson practice field. Will (10) and Drew (8) played football for the first time this season. Clay (5) is in training. Kathleen tries to record the games because it's difficult for Dabo to be there, and he can't help watching with a coach's discriminating eye.

"There were times here when he'd miss some of the boys stuff, and he'd say, 'Maybe I need to get out of coaching,' and I'd tell him, 'No, this is what you're supposed to do,' " she said. Both of them speak of the quality time together, sitting on the floor of his office for a meal or riding together for a game. It tears at him to miss any part of their lives, so he works hard to include them in his life as well as participating in theirs.

"There's always something, so you have to turn it off some of the time, disconnect," he said. "Whether it's laying down with them at night, spending 15 minutes throwing ball with them. I want them to know their daddy, and I want them to know I work hard for them and I love what I do.

"I want them to understand that passion is a good thing."

One of the seminal moments in his life came Feb. 3, 1986, when Swinney immersed himself in the Christian faith. Stewart Wiley, a friend and coach who had become affiliated with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, "saw a lost kid."

"Things started changing for me on the inside," Swinney said while around him things were spiraling out of control. "When I got saved, thinking life was going to be good, that's when life became the worst.

"Within a year, it became as bad as it had ever been. We lost our home. My parents got divorced. We moved into a place; we get evicted. I'd go live with friends. I had a car, lost a car."

Swinney said his faith and the guidance of friends like Hayes and Kathleen helped him stay the course.

"I've always found a way to have a good attitude about it. Embrace life," he said. "Never been jealous, envious or bitter.

"That's the greatest lesson I've had in life - trust the Lord and do the very best you can in making decisions," he said. "Just because you're a Christian doesn't mean life's going to be gravy or rosy.

"If you do the right things, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be the head coach at Clemson. It's all about having peace and happiness on the inside."

Wingo believes that was the tether keeping Swinney from being pulled into a black hole.

"Dabo is a believer in Jesus Christ," Wingo said. "Dabo Swinney is letting almighty God work through him. He works every day not to please man but to please God. He lives it, man, I'm telling you he lives it.

"He's had every reason not to."

Despite the problems the family endured, Dabo steered clear of trouble.

"All he needed was somebody to reaffirm the right thing to do," Hayes said. "Dabo was never bad, so you never had to say to him you have to change.

"He'd get a little low but he'd never get bad down, where he'd get down on himself or on his family or coaches or teammates."

His generosity seems boundless. He has reached out to his family, helping one brother finish college and the other to turn his life around. He bought a home for his father and stepmother, who had lived in a trailer for 18 years.

"One of the reasons I've been so driven is because I at least wanted to make a difference in my family," he said. "All these things I have are the gifts of life.

"To actually being able to make a difference in your family's lives, there's no greater joy."

Swinney believes he inherited a toughness of character and the willingness to work from both parents. His mother, Carol McIntosh, overcame polio and curvature of the spine as a child to become majorette for the high school band.

"I've had great people in my life," he said. "All along the way, people who maybe saw something in me whether it was a word or encouragement, a pat on the back or discipline, tough love, whatever it was to keep me going."

Swinney doesn't claim to be a saint. He said he has never smoked or taken recreational drugs, though he likes an occasional glass of red wine. Kathleen took up coffee, much to her husband's dismay. He prefers cocoa. She said the Alabama staff would mock him when taking coffee orders before meetings, asking him, "one marshmallow or two."

"My dad was one of these guys who would drink coffee from the time he got up until the time he went to bed - black coffee - cup after cup after cup," Swinney said. "And smoking cigarettes."

Nothing seems to faze him. Nothing - save spiders and snakes - scares him.

"I'm not afraid to fail, I'm not afraid to try, not afraid to stand up for what I believe in."

Swinney said he never lacked confidence, even when things were the worst.

"I always believed I could be the best," he said. "I don't know where that comes from. I've had a lot of success along the way, but I've had a lot of tough lessons."

Hayes was there to help.

"I always stood up for him when he needed me to, and I'd do it again," Hayes said. "Judy and I always felt that Dabo would do very well for himself.

"He overcame just through perseverance," he said. "I know there's a good man there."

Swinney said Hayes asked only one thing in return.

"That I give back," he said. "You promise me that you're going to make a difference in someone's life. I had no idea that I'd have an opportunity to do what I'm doing now.

"That's why it's more than football, more than X's and O's. I want to win more than anybody. I loved football as much as anybody, but this is 'big picture.' This is making sure that these young men leave here better than they came.

"It's a great responsibility, something I don't take lightly. I'm not afraid to make a mistake, not afraid to admit I made a mistake. I'm not perfect. I'll make mistakes full speed, then I'll correct it and move on."

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20081214/SPORTS0101/812140309/1002/SPORTS

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Great read if you love Clemson football

wow... good stuff***

There is soooooo much about this guy that I can relate to...

Guys, I'm telling ya, we got a great one.***

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