Dabo's Master Plan - Part 4

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Almost two years ago Tigerillustrated.com sat down with several key members of Clemson's football program to get a behind-the-scenes look at head football coach Dabo Swinney.

By request, Tigerillustrated.com is re-releasing these LENGTHY, one-on-one interviews as part of our College Football Playoff week content lineup.

We would also like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! -- Owner-Publisher, Cris Ard

PART 4: Senior writer Larry Williams sits down with Clemson Director Of Football Player Development and former assistant football coach Brad Scott. Scott has been at Clemson since December of 1998.

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It’s really no surprise that Dabo’s more sensational actions, like his dancing or his quotes or his happy-go-lucky demeanor, have dictated common perceptions about him. That’s what sells the audience, whether it’s TV or print media. But there are a lot of people who don’t know him like the Clemson family does, and there is a lot more to the story.

One of the unique things about him is that he’s really been the same guy all along, from serving as an assistant to transitioning into the head-coaching role. Obviously that’s what Terry Don Phillips saw when he decided to make that move on an interim basis, and then later full-time.

He’s always been high-energy, and extremely organized. Nobody takes better notes. Nobody was better prepared than he was when he was a position coach. His preparation for his segment meetings and his drill work on the field was extraordinary. His prep work before the games, giving his receivers tip sheets and tests, you just noticed and saw a young coach that was extremely committed to his cause to be the best. And he did that to allow his players to be the best.

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He would give his players an assortment of reminders and tips on special things or emphases for that week, special coaching points. You’ve practiced it all week, but then when kids get on the bus to go to the hotel or the airport that Friday, they need reminders of what they’ve been working on. He was tremendous with his tip sheets. He was also one who expected his receivers to know the quarterback’s reads and progressions on routes. And he would test them. He would grade those tests.

He’d come into that Saturday-morning meeting and pull those guys aside to tell them what they missed on the tests. He’s left-handed and he’s got that little check that he uses. He likes those red pens a lot. Boy, he’d have that thing all marked up so much that it looked like a warrior who’d been to battle, there was so much red on that page. He was going to go back over that again and again to make sure they had it. He prided himself in giving those players the best chance to be successful on Saturday. That’s a reflection of a good coach. Kids know that, and they care about that. It may be a little more demanding, but at the same time the confidence they would carry over to the field was awfully high.

I was a meeter when I was a coach, meaning there was never enough meeting time for me. And it was always Coach Swinney and myself who were the last ones out of the office and rushing to the practice fields so we wouldn’t be late. He’d usually come by and tap my door before practice, or I’d usually come by and tap his door. He took advantage of every moment he had to teach. There was a pride you saw in him back then. And then his personal relationships with his receivers were second to none on the team, and also the kids he recruited. So if he recruited a linebacker, he was as close to that linebacker as he was to the receivers who were in his room.

As a matter of fact, he sets that same standard for all of our assistant coaches now. We just had our recruiting meeting the other day before they went out on the road, and he reminded them: “Hey, we’re not only looking for good players with good character. If you bring them in here, you’ve got to treat them as if they were your segment player. You’ve got to treat them just like your son. You’re putting your name on them.” He’s just reminding them of their obligation and responsibility to the individual recruits that they bring in. That’s who he is, and that’s who he was as an assistant.

ALSO READ: Dabo's Master Plan - Part 1 | Dabo's Master Plan - Part 2 | Dabo's Master Plan - Part 3

As a head coach, he doesn’t ever come into a staff meeting without being extremely organized. I sit right beside him, so I know how long his staff meetings are when I peek over at his sheets of paper: “Is this a two-pager or a one-pager?” If he’s been off on vacation for a week, or on the Nike trip talking to a lot of other coaches, it might be a three-pager. I say that jokingly, but my point is it’s extremely impressive that he’s so prepared and thorough. There’s a little bullet point he’s written on the page, and then a thought. Another bullet, and a thought. Another bullet, and a thought. He’ll check them off as he goes.

We don’t meet just to meet. I think that’s another trait of a good leader. He appreciates the preparation time that assistant coaches need for their practice, game-planning, segment meetings. I’ve been on staffs where we met every day at this particular time regardless. But here it’ll be: “We’re going to meet these two days this week, and this is what we’re going to cover. This meeting will be a little longer.” He lays it all out there. What he’s doing is giving the coaches more time to plan and prepare. I think that comes from him having been a regular assistant coach. He took the things he liked as an assistant, and some of the things he didn’t like, and tried to hone them and fine-tune them. So that’s a big part of the structure he’s built.

He can also be extremely tough, and that’s another part that people on the outside really don’t see. Everybody sees him as being just that outgoing personality, which is who he is. But at the same time, he can challenge a coach with the best of them. He doesn’t embarrass coaches or call them names, but he gets his points across. Sometimes that makes more than one guy uncomfortable, but that’s OK and necessary at times: If the shoe fits, wear it.

So he gets what he wants out of coaches and he’s pretty dog-gone demanding, and yet the other side of that coin is he’s tremendously loyal to his coaches. I’ve never been around a head coach who fights for his coaches more than Coach Swinney does. And that, in turn, creates loyalty from them back to him. That’s very, very impressive, and it’s something he’s appreciated for.

I also think the fact that he promotes from within in its own way encourages all of our young coaches: “If I do my job and I do it well, then I’m going to have an opportunity.” His coaching tree is already getting bigger and bigger, whether it’s guys who were on his staff or guys who have trained under us as graduate assistants or player-development coaches who have gone on and now are full-time coaches at a lot of programs. So the same pride he takes in former players, he also takes in his staff of young coaches who go on to succeed.

Multi-tasking is big for a head coach, hiring good people and letting them coach but at the same time having some input. He does all of that. A head coach has to manage his day. If he’s not careful it really gets away from him. And I have seen him grow in that area over the last eight years. I’ve seen some little changes in him for the better, with him improving at structuring his time and his commitment. He’s learned how to say no.

I think that first couple of years he just said yes to everything, and he was burning both ends of the candle. Coach Woody McCorvey and myself, two guys that talk with him about those kinds of things, just said, “Hey Coach, be careful. You can’t do it all. That’s what I’m here for. I can do some of this or that for you.” He’s always been a good delegator; that’s a good quality to have. I’m just talking about when he first got the job. He thought it was so important that he attend to every request that he had. He’s not able to do that now, of course. Back then he was over-scheduling himself in a good way, not a negative way. But I think he’s since found that happy medium. He’s got some other quality assistants around him, whether administrative assistants or support-role folks that help him delegate some of that out.

I’m also proud of the way he’s handled his own family in making time to be there for his kids’ games, going out of his way to be that dad we want all of our players to be. He lives it every day, right in front of them. I know maybe some people have been disappointed that he couldn’t attend an event because he wanted to be where his son was playing a game, but deep down I think everyone respects that. And that’s the kind of leader the Clemson family loves. I’ve been very amazed and impressed with that part of his leadership and all that he does to balance the family demands.

Dabo is the best game-day motivator that I’ve been around. I’ve been around a couple of good ones, and this guy takes a back seat to nobody. He is wise beyond his years. Nothing gets by him in his motivational talks that he gives to our players as he begins to set the thoughts in their minds, from the Monday meeting right up to his Friday-night meeting before the game on Saturday.

It’s amazing. He researches it. He works hard at it. He’s tops in that category. You see the results on Saturday. You see how the kids play hard. You see how they love him. And then in that locker room after the game, the part where the world sees all the excitement and dancing and all, that’s just it all coming together. But he’s worked on getting those kids ready all week. Of course he has a great staff to go with it, and he’s the first to give them the credit. But he’s the leader. He sets the tone and the tempo for the week. He’s really amazing at that, extremely talented.

When you’re the head coach and there are so many possible things to focus on and preoccupy yourself with, it’s hard to strike the balance between appropriate attention to detail and being spread too thin. That’s a problem for any rookie head coach. There’s no way to really prepare for that other than experiencing it and going through it. As you do that one or two years, you learn that you cannot continue to do all of these things. I think he had a great mentor in Coach Gene Stallings.

Dabo is also the kind of person who’s not afraid to seek the opinions of people who have done some of the same things. A good example was when we all went to Texas early in his tenure to see Mack Brown. We went there to learn about their organization, offense, all of that. But the most important thing Coach Swinney got out of that meeting with Mack wasn’t X’s and O’s. Mack is a people person, a lot like Coach Swinney, and he’s wise. He shared with him a lot of things over the course of his career that he had learned that had nothing to do with scheme or on-the-field stuff. I’m sure Dabo had his list of questions, and I’m sure he visited with other coaches as well. So he’s taken a little bit from this coach, a little bit from that coach, and molded all that into who he is.

If new ideas make sense, Dabo implements them. He’s not afraid of change. The coaching book says in spring ball you practice every Monday, Wednesday and Friday before scrimmaging on Saturdays. Well, we practice one Saturday for Youth Day at the very beginning, and we have our spring game on Saturday. Other than that, we don’t practice on Saturdays in the spring. He doesn’t care what the traditional coaching book says. We take an extra week of practice, and we’re going to let the kids and coaches off Saturdays. You don’t get many Saturdays anymore because of the way recruiting and the season is. Allow these players who live close by to have a little time, go home on the weekend, come back for study hall on Sunday night. So he heard that idea somewhere and figured it wasn’t a bad thought even though it wasn’t conventional. That’s just one of several examples of things he’s done that aren’t like most people do them but they make sense because they’re a better fit for our kids.

We have Clemson’s university spring break, so we have to shut down practice and the kids are gone. And a few weeks later, Pickens County schools have their spring break so you have all these coaches whose children are off and their dads are working. So after a year or two of that, Coach Swinney says that week we’re going to practice Monday and Wednesday but thereafter the coaches are going to have the rest of the week to be with their families on their spring break.

Of course the coaches appreciate that, but you know who really appreciates it? The coaches’ wives. Man, they love it. The coaches’ kids do too. You’re able to take a quick trip to the beach or wherever. So he’s continuing to build contentment and loyalty among his staff and his coaches’ wives, families. But the real reason he did it? It’s because it’s the right thing to do. Coaches ought to have a little time to spend with their families on spring break. I’ve never seen that done before. Those are just a couple of examples of how he thinks through things and says, “Hey, this is the way we’re going to do it.” You sit back now and you say, “Wow, that’s a great thought.”

One of the beautiful things he’s done is create the atmosphere around this football office where he encourages and allows the wives and all the kids to be a part of this program. That’s a big difference between this program and others who do have a lot of success, but maybe the working environment is not the quality environment that we have here.

Coaches don’t leave Clemson. They just don’t leave. The feelings are so good from our coaches’ wives, and not just the coaches at the top; it’s from the lowest guy on the pole to the coordinators. And I always tell the young guys, “Hey, we’ve all been there. You might be the low man on the totem pole. But buddy, you’re on the pole. And it’s a good pole to be on.” But those wives and those children are treated just like my wife and my kids are. He has a unique ability to understand people and their feelings. Man, he appreciates everybody that’s on his staff and the input they have. And he communicates that so effectively to the wives and to the kids. Not just verbally, but also in things he does for them but in things he includes them for. That’s another tremendous quality he possesses and sees the benefit of.

Hey, these two ladies that clean this football building for us? They’d fight you over Coach Swinney. They might be the biggest Coach Swinney fans in this building, just because he makes them feel so special and appreciates so much the work they do for us here. That’s tremendous. I hear about coaches elsewhere who walk through the building and don’t look or speak to even their staff, much less the extended staff. And that’s just not our leader. That’s not who he is.

I was around at Florida State when they were growing into a monster under Bobby Bowden, and a similar thing is taking place here under Dabo. The ingredients that made it possible are familiar to me: A very organized head coach who had good relationships with his players; who trusted his coaching staff and allowed them to do their job; and who recruited quality players and people.

Coach Swinney is huge on the character issue; that’s well documented. Those ingredients that I felt Florida State had are where this thing has come from with Coach Swinney. Very, very similar. The family atmosphere now at Clemson and under Bowden at Florida State was also very common. Coaches were happy at FSU. If you keep your staff together, your program has a chance to get better every year because of all that continuity.

I also think that Gene Stallings and Bobby Bowden have a lot of similarities, the old-school coaches and the things they value and believe in. They were about that loyalty to their players and doing the right thing, the discipline they had but also the love that led to the opportunities they gave kids and maybe second chances they gave them.

This is why I say Coach Swinney is so unique right now. I just think he is ahead of the game. His X-and-O knowledge is outstanding. And his ability to handle and relate to kids these days, they’re a little different. He can kind of think like them a little bit. But he does not waver from his standard. His “Best is the Standard” is well documented, but the foundation of that standard is what he expects in the classroom at Clemson, the respect that he wants our players to have for their teachers, for the people that assist them at Vickery Hall from the tutors to the staff, their behavior in the community, what he expects out of them effort-wise at practice and then how they represent the Tigers when they play. He can relate to all of these kids, but he’s also firm and he’s fair. I think that’s all a player can ask for.

Every day when we walk into that team meeting, whether it’s at 3:15 or 3:05 or whatever, we have our little video of the day that lasts three to five minutes. He walks up there and he’s got a message for our team every single time we meet. And the message is always on point. It’s always well prepared. It’s not very long. Yes, there’s something about the upcoming game in that message. But there’s a whole lot of something about life in there for them, too.

He’s done just an amazing job of shaping and molding his players, improving them as gentlemen and as football players. He’s got some great gifts about him. And he is a relentless, tireless worker to go with it.

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