4/13/2020 football Edit

LETTERS FROM DABO - Part 5

Larry Williams

Tigerillustrated.com

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Dabo Swinney's extraordinary ability to lift a football program is known to everyone who even casually follows the sport.

But what about his gift, equally extraordinary, of lifting the spirits of those who are going through periods of struggle?

These to-date unpublicized gestures -- random acts of Dabo, if you will -- are very much worthy of being documented in a more official, complete form.

So Tigerillustrated.com reached out to a number of people who have shared their own behind-the-scenes stories with us.

ALSO SEE: LETTERS FROM DABO - Part 1 | LETTERS FROM DABO - Part 2 | LETTERS FROM DABO - Part 3 | LETTERS FROM DABO - Part 4

Here is Part 5.

When Dabo Swinney flew to Kiawah Island in June of 2014 to visit with Bill Hendrix and his entire family, everyone present knew why.

Accompanying Swinney was Bobby Couch, IPTAY's senior associate director of major gifts, and university development officer JoVanna King.

They weren't coming down just to check out the views or the guest rooms in the six-bedroom house on Surfsong Road.

Swinney needed money, and lots of it.

Hendrix and his wife Pam had money, and lots of it.

Of course Swinney blew everyone away that evening as they ate pizza that Pam made from scratch, as he toured the home and marveled at all the foreign touches Pam placed inside the rooms and bathrooms in a manifestation of her love of world travel.

Of course Swinney completely wiped away the indecision Bill and Pam had been experiencing about putting a bunch of money toward another football facility.

Of course Swinney, when it was time to talk about the expensive elephant in the room, closed the deal on a $2.5 million check to Clemson's ultimate forever home by saying exactly the right thing that evening on the back porch.

Swinney: Were you at the national championship in 1981?

Hendrix: Hell yes I was!

Swinney: Well do you ever want to win another one?

Hendrix: Hell yes I do!

Swinney: Well I'm your best hope. And you're my best hope.

Swinney, Couch and King walked away smiling, knowing what had been set in motion. The plan was for major donors to contribute $2.5 million each to support the lavish new operations facility that had been conceived by Swinney and his inner circle.

No one had ever donated close to that much to the football program. Hendrix made the first splash, and the ripple effect would bring in others.

Before Swinney walked through the door that night, Pam was skeptical about giving money for another building. The football program had just moved into the sparkling WestZone facility five years before, and Hendrix had donated several hundred thousand dollars to what was then sold as the program's forever home.

After the group from Clemson left, she turned to her husband and said:

"Do you think we gave enough?"

Normally this would be the extent of the story: Expert salesman coach sells major donor on helping major facility get off the ground. Facility is built as football program blossoms from really good to historically great. The end.

Except that this is not the normal story, largely because Swinney is not the normal coach who goes about this type of business in a transactional, make-sale-and-move-on way.

Swinney and Hendrix already knew each other well because Hendrix was the chairman of the Board of Trustees when Swinney was made interim head coach in October of 2008, and then permanent head coach less than two months later.

Swinney and his wife developed a closer relationship with Bill and Pam after the big donation, and that is not atypical. Of course most coaches are going to give some love and favor to the well-heeled donors who have stroked big checks.

The difference is presented in how this coach responded to the lowest moment of Bill Hendrix's life in February of 2018 after Pam, thought to be in perfect health, died unexpectedly at age 74 after having emergency surgery.

"I got a call one evening and it was Dabo," Bill says now. "He told me he was calling from Mexico. He and Kathleen were somewhere on the Pacific coast of Mexico on a Nike coaches' tour. We talked for about 10 or 15 minutes, and he's trying to comfort me and so forth. He was apologetic that he wasn't going to be able to attend the funeral because they weren't scheduled to leave until the day after the funeral. He had looked for a flight but hadn't found one. I told him not to worry about it. The call was enough."

The call was enough. It is what most coaches would do in that situation upon hearing of a death in the family of a prominent donor.

Bill was comforted by the conversation, impressed that Swinney took time to visit with him over the phone from several time zones away.

And then, the day he was to bury his wife of 50 years, Hendrix walked into the service at John's Island Presbyterian Church and saw Dabo and Kathleen sitting in the front row. They had found a red-eye flight and traveled through the night, over all those time zones, to make it.

"I don't want to make it sound like his attendance meant more to me than a lot of other people who came from long distances and made their own sacrifices to be there," Hendrix said. "But it was amazing that he made that kind of effort to do it. It was just so unexpected."

A few weeks later, Hendrix was in his empty home on Kiawah and still in profound grief. He thought it might help to get away, to go up to Clemson and have a change of scenery.

The Tigers were going through spring practice, and Bill went to watch. Swinney asked him if he'd like to come and sit in on a team meeting at the $55 million operations facility that the program had moved into a year earlier.

Hendrix sat in the back of the sparkling team meeting room, watching Swinney go about the normal routine.

Then the head coach looked in his direction and asked Bill to stand up.

He told the players he was sure they'd seen this man's name around campus, that he was a major donor who helped build the room they were sitting in. In addition to that, Bill was Clemson's student-body president before graduating in 1963 and earning his master's in 1968.

Swinney told the room about Pam's passing. He imparted a lesson: Sometimes you're on top of the world, with all the money in the world, and you can offer lavish support to something you love with your time, money and passion. Other times, the bottom falls out and you need the help of others.

"This man needs our support now," Swinney told his team. "He's going to be here today. When you see him, stop and introduce yourself to him. Give him a big ol' hug."

As the day went on, a procession of players introduced themselves to Bill. They looked him in the eye. And yes, they gave him big ol' hugs. The football forever home Swinney had sold him on five years earlier felt like a home he needed.

"It made him feel great," says Holly Cirrito, one of four Hendrix children. "It was all day."

Last year, Bill and his family decided they wanted to memorialize Pam and her love of travel by establishing the Pam Hendrix Center for Education Abroad. The family became the sixth Academic Cornerstone partner with another gift of $2.5 million.

The official announcement was going to be at a luncheon the Friday before the Florida State game, Bill having picked that date so all of his children would be there.

Bill asked that an invite be sent to Dabo and Kathleen, knowing their attendance wasn't likely. In addition to his typical day-before-game team functions, Swinney's schedule was abnormally crammed on this week: Stephen A. Smith was in town broadcasting from Bowman Field, and Swinney also had to visit with the ESPN crew calling the game. Swinney had to squeeze in those duties in addition to the typical team walk-through before the Tigers bussed to Anderson for the rest of the day and night.

Sure enough, Dabo and Kathleen showed. And sure enough, Dabo got up to speak.

He said he only had a few minutes because of his media obligations.

And, of course, he talked for more than just a few minutes.

Bill's late wife was a force of nature who would light up a room with her spirit, her ideas and her caring nature.

Now, there was another force of nature in front of the microphone who was doing the exact same thing.

"He brought up that visit to our house," Bill said. "He has an amazing memory. He recalled almost everything about that visit, specifically recalling the way Pam decorated each room. He recalled everyone who was there at our house that day, the kids and grandkids. It was really personal."

Swinney no longer had anything to sell. Only something to give.

"There was nothing I could do for Dabo anymore," Hendrix says. "We had already made our gift to football. I was an emeritus trustee. He wasn't doing these things to try to get any favor or benefit from me; I'd passed the point of being able to do that for him.

"It was just out of the goodness of his heart."

Tigerillustrated.com will release part 6 in this special series tomorrow.