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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 belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! -- Owner-Publisher, Cris Ard
PART 5: Senior writer Larry Williams sits down with Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables, whose first season with the Tigers was in 2012.
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There is more to the story than a lot of people on the outside, most of America, perceives when they compare Coach Swinney to Nick Saban and others. As a leader, he’s a visionary. He does a terrific job of painting a new, fresh picture of the vision whether it’s for an individual or for us as a staff or for us as a team. He keeps a freshness to it, and he has different ways to appeal to the voice of the players’ reasoning. He understands how they think. And that’s an important part of the organizational skills, because there’s so much detail to running a program at a very high, elite level.
But part of that organization is bridging it all together. And I think he does a great job of the management. He has a great management style that’s positive, yet there’s the tremendous accountability that we all need. There’s a tremendous consistency of discipline on both sides of it, an obedience in the chain of command. And as a result we don’t have a lot of riff raff. We don’t have these huge dips.
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If you looked at a graph of the program and where it’s been, you’ve got the crescendo of the line going up and you don’t have huge dips. And internally we don’t have huge dips. We’ve got a calendar that’s 365 days-plus that’s very detailed, whether it’s practice schedules for fall camp or how we’re going to run a recruiting weekend in December. He’s got a great staff that’s had great consistency.
A lot of the support staff roles that are part of the operationals on a day-to-day basis, whether it’s Mike Dooley or Woody McCorvey or Thad Turnipseed, those people are more “behind the scenes” but who year to year, from segment to segment, whether it’s a banquet or a coaches’ clinic or football camps or season travel – whatever it is, you have a group of people who he is in charge of who not only stay on point, but they also take a great deal of pride in their jobs. Some of it is because of who they are. But also a big part of it is not wanting to let Dabo down. Because he inspires them to bring out their best qualities, they are always working to get better.
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That is so hard to quantify. But an example would be at the Ladies Clinic, whether it’s Danny Pearman or his wife or Mike Dooley – people that are intimately running the whole thing – they want to make it better every single year. So they’re taking very detailed notes during the course of the event, certainly leading up to it, and they’re always finding ways to make it better. And I’ve been amazed just watching it and listening to it. Mike Dooley is the master. You can’t pay that guy enough money. He’s like Rain Man. He’s a big part of it.
Thad Turnipseed, he’s got his own vision too. It’s Dabo’s vision, but Thad is a freight train with no brakes just breaking down barriers for the program and saying, “Why not?” and having a can-do attitude. And we have a lot of people that are under Coach Swinney’s leadership that have a can-do attitude, instead of “We can’t do that.” That’s not part of the vocabulary here.
The filter for all that is Coach Swinney. Everybody has incredible respect for him, admiration for him, and they want to please him. And that’s what a great leader does. I think my linebackers are that way. You hope your own players are that way. Well he’s got a whole village of people who want him to succeed, want the program to succeed, and are aspiring to do the very best they can do. And that doesn’t happen if you just say, “Hey, here’s your job title. Now go do it.” There’s a nourishing and an inspiring factor and a motivational factor, and to a certain degree even a little bit of a fear factor because of the accountability. “You got a job to do and you say you’re going to do this, then you better do this.” Because if you don’t, he’s going to remind you exactly what you said.
He writes everything down. He’s got notepad after notepad after notepad of just notes. For me, sitting in all the staff meetings and not sleeping through them is very Bill Snyder-like. Coach Snyder, he wrote everything down -- everything he said, everything you said. And he constantly reminded you as you sat at his staff table: “If it’s important enough for me to say it, then it’s important enough for you to write it down.” And Dabo manages his own program that way. Like, “No, I’ve got that note from a year ago. We said this about this player. And lo and behold, this happened. This was our goal, this was our plan.” So forth and so on. There’s a lot to his organizational skills. Just very, very detailed.
The byproduct of all this is everybody is on the same page. Everybody is pulling the rope in the same direction. Everybody understands the philosophy, the vision, et cetera. And so when everybody knows it and then everybody is supporting it and working towards it, you have a better opportunity to ultimately understand what kind of result you’re going to get and have some consistency in what you’re doing.
He does it with a lot of love and a lot of passion. That part is inspiring. Every day, you’re coming to work – whether you’re on the road recruiting, or coming to the office, or going to the practice field -- and you individually, as a byproduct, are passionate about what you’re doing. You have a very clear vision for what you’re doing.
He surrounds himself with talented people who are good at what they do. And with the right kind of guidance and direction, it brings out the best qualities in people. That’s what we’ve always said the special ones do: They can bring out the best in people. Not out of fear, even though I think you always have to have just a little bit of that somewhere. But I think that’s one of the last things people think about, though I think that accountability that we have is strong in our program. And I love it.
We need structure. We need accountability. Naturally as humans, we fight it sometimes. But we need it. When you lack that structure and that accountability, that’s when all the little things become big things. I think any great organization or program, when you’ve seen them falter and crumble it’s always inside-out. So I see Dabo Swinney, while people on the outside are thinking he’s smiling and everything is great, he is relentless at protecting the core values of this program. And the people who touch this program are a big part of it. And he values that and recognizes that. So as a result, he is very particular about the people he brings into this program. He understands how quickly one little cancer, whether it’s a player or a support staffer or a full-time coach – one bad seed can be like cancer and get out of control in a hurry.
Throughout the year, he’s constantly reminding everyone in the program what their responsibilities are and having that kind of accountability. Just reminding everyone, so it’s not just a once-a-year-let’s-check-the-box deal. There’s a constant reminder, and a constant show of appreciation, and constant accountability. When there is a little issue in this program, it is dealt with. Immediately. Never allowed to fester.
He’s very good about taking suggestions and thinking them through as opposed to just brushing them off. And that is a healthy way to promote contribution. He may not always implement your suggestion, but you’re going to feel like he values the input as opposed to a dictatorship or my-way-is-the-highway. Again, there are some principles he believes in. He’s not going to support a coach coming in here and dog-cussing the players and tearing them down every day and having a negative attitude about everything, or having a can’t-do attitude. That’s going to be dealt with. And you have to have that. You have to have it.
The organization he has through the year allows for more efficiency and gives us the chance to have a family life. It’s important to all of us to have an opportunity to have some time off. You can’t be in a mode where you’re going to live to work. You work hard to live right. And through that organization, you’re able to plan your family time. And again, he’s not a militaristic leader where he wants you in the office always guarding your desk saying, “We’re going to work harder than everybody.” We’re going to work very efficiently and be very detailed.
If there are issues, what is the plan to fix them? And we’re going to go out and execute it. When you work smart, I think you can have that balance. He’s a great example for us in what we see every day, with how he lives his life. And I think he has a staff of people who aren’t all just alike, but I think we’re all family men, men of character and integrity. But he promotes that family atmosphere and he values that time with them.
He’s very conscious of giving us some autonomy to do our jobs. And our schedules, although we are very detailed and thorough in planning them out, there’s also some parameters that allow us some flexibility. “Hey, do you want to have a staff meeting on a Sunday or do you want to come in early on Monday? It’s up to y’all.” Things of that nature. We’re not going to work on Memorial Day. I’ve done that before. Things like that. He’s very reasonable. “Hey man, I got to take the kids to school and I’ll be in a little bit later.” Or, “I’ve got to take the kid to a doctor’s appointment.” Or, “My kid has a school function and I’ve got to be there tonight.” Or, “I’ve got a ballgame to go to on a Wednesday.” So maybe we’ll have segment meetings early in the morning so we can get off the practice field earlier and shave 45 minutes off the afternoon because we got that done in the morning. He’s super conscious of that and very reasonable. It’s not a big deal here for that to happen.
It didn’t take me long to see that Dabo’s organizational abilities are not like most coaches. It was when I came here on my first visit, when I was interviewing for the job. Seeing how they had organized the recruiting weekend, the detail, the thoroughness, the different exposure to different elements of the program, philosophy, people that touched the players’ lives, things of that nature. That was the first time behind the scenes when you peeled the onion back and started to see what it was about.
I haven’t seen many people who can remember names like he can. When you think about how many people he encounters each day, and then consider not just the names of fans and such but also their personal details, it’s remarkable. I’m certainly not that way. I can remember a lot of the details, but I definitely can’t remember those names like him.
Tigerillustrated thanks Venables for sharing his time and insight.
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