CLEMSON -- Thursday was a day for celebration of a job splendidly done by five Clemson coaches who received their just rewards upon approval from the school's trustees.
To put a banner year into proper perspective, let's put it this way: Erik Bakich was the only coach out of the five who didn't advance to the final eight of their respective postseasons.
Tough crowd, huh?
And yeah, go ahead and insert the joke about the Hall of Fame football coach needing to start keeping up with the standard set by Bakich, Brad Brownell, Mike Noonan, Eddie Radwanski and Kelley Hester.
BECOME A SUBSCRIBER AT TIGERILLUSTRATED.com!
Because we feel sure Dabo Swinney has already received plenty of good-natured grief from at least a couple of these coaches in their text chains.
But beyond a startling level of concurrent achievement over the 2023-24 school year, there's something deeper at work here that adds real gravity to the age-old "something in these hills" ethos.
ALSO SEE: Friday update on Clemson and Bryce Davis | Recruiting Big Board: Tight End | Thursday Clemson Football Staff Update | Clemson's verbal commitments
All these coaches want to be here.
Like, they really want to be here.
Even at surface level that's something to treasure given the transactional nature of things at so many other places.
The leading, most recent and most treacherous example is, of course, the case of the baseball coach at Texas A&M defecting to bitter rival Texas in a fashion that looked slimy, felt slimy and probably was slimy.
That feels like another galaxy from what Clemson has going on with its coaches.
Join Tigerillustrated.com subscribers on The West Zone message board!
If you've read our dispatches over the last month, you probably know that Bakich was very much under consideration at Texas before the Longhorns landed Jim Schlossnagle, and at Texas A&M in the immediate aftermath of the Aggies being abandoned.
It was written by some supposed authorities that Bakich would listen and could be had in both cases.
Except that Bakich's boss, Graham Neff, had already been proactive in making sure Bakich felt the love here after the Tigers took another step toward Omaha in his second season.
It's not exactly a news flash that Clemson probably wouldn't be able to keep up with Texas or Texas A&M in a bidding war for a coach.
That was true last fall after the Aggies decided to pay Jimbo Fisher more than $70 million to do nothing and inquired about Swinney's interest in doing something better in College Station.
The conversation was short.
Similar deal with Bakich. We're told his negotiations with Neff only loosely fit the definition of negotiation. This was easy. As smitten as Clemson fans are with Bakich and how he speaks their language, we are told the feeling is mutual from him toward not just the place and the fan base, but also toward the administration above him.
Last year, Neff publicly had Brownell's back after the Tigers were controversially left out of the NCAA Tournament field. Brownell's team promptly laid an egg at home against Morehead State in the first round of the NIT.
This year, Brownell and his staff entered the NCAA Tournament knowing their jobs could be on the line.
That's not easy. And that's something that a lot of coaches out there would turn into motivation to parlay an Elite Eight run into a job elsewhere, all the while flashing their middle finger on the way out.
Brownell, though, is home at Clemson. He's been here since 2010 and has seen both of his daughters graduate from the school. He's as excited as anyone about the possibilities moving forward with improved facilities combining with deft use of NIL and the portal combining with the upward trajectory of the product on the floor.
Mike Noonan has also been here since 2010. If he desired to take his talents to the professional level he could no doubt do it after winning two national titles in the last three years.
A Connecticut native, Noonan had been at Brown for 15 seasons when both Syracuse and Clemson offered him their head-coaching jobs. The odds strongly favored the other Orange, as that was much closer to his comfort zone.
Then he and his wife came here for a visit. And the feeling he described about that time 14 years ago still applies now:
"The way the Clemson community embraced us, it just felt comfortable and warm."
Yes, the story of Thursday was largely about spectacular results over the course of five sports seasons, and coaches cashing in on the success.
But it goes so much deeper than that.
BECOME A SUBSCRIBER AT TIGERILLUSTRATED.com!
High-level achievement often translates, quite naturally, into the itch to leave or at least to leverage interest from elsewhere into a better deal.
Seems there's precious little of that here.
And that seems preciously different.
BIG JULY DEALS on officially-licensed Clemson apparel and gear at The Tiger Fan Shop HERE!
