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Two days ago, ESPN’s College GameDay program aired a story by Tom Rinaldi on the 10-year anniversary of Dabo Swinney taking over as Clemson’s head coach.

The genesis of the piece? The lengthy series by Tigerillustrated.com on the same topic, which ran the week of Oct. 13 (the exact anniversary of Swinney taking over as interim coach when Tommy Bowden departed).

Rinaldi, regarded as the most distinguished storyteller in sports television, participated in a lengthy interview with Tigerillustrated.com last week in Dallas before the Cotton Bowl. He was exceedingly gracious with his time and ceaseless in his praise for the series of articles that hatched his idea to pursue the story.

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In his own words, here are Rinaldi’s thoughts on his story, our stories, the extraordinary run under Swinney at Clemson, and much more:

To be honest, the story we did on Dabo’s 10-year anniversary doesn’t even begin to approach what you and Tigerillustrated.com have done, which is to tell that story as fully as it deserves to be told. Our story is much shorter due to the time constraints of College GameDay, where we were just picking a handful of moments between that day in October when Dabo was named the interim coach, to the day less than two months later when he was given the job full-time. We obviously know what’s happened in the aftermath of that decision, but our story just looks at a couple of moments in those seven weeks along that timeline.

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I go to school on these coaches I cover and tell stories about, and one of the reasons we are able to is because of teachers like you who write these stories first. When you’re able to provide that kind of content and that kind of insight, it naturally leads to such a strong foundation for us to work off of in terms of what to ask, where to guide the interview, and what we can try to do to shape the story in our time constraints of four, five, six minutes long.

The series of articles on Tigerillustrated.com was so revealing, and so insightful if you’re a storyteller like me. Storytelling is built around anecdote. There’s always going to be people who can break down strategy and scheme. There’s always going to be people who can give you the X’s and O’s. But to me, people remember and relate more to a story.

The series you did, whether you’re a Clemson fan or not, is so fascinating as a portrait of success. Or the capriciousness, if you will, of what leads to somebody being placed in that position, and the other decisions that surround what has turned out to be one of the great decisions -- which was to have Dabo Swinney be the head coach of the Clemson Tigers. The series is fabulous. And whether you love Clemson or you don’t, it’s a great case study of how a success happened.

I don’t go as far back with Dabo as some other people do. I think I first met him back around 2012. So this would have been when Clemson was well, well underway in terms of becoming one of the standard-bearers of the sport. So I don’t have the depth and length of connection with Dabo that many other people do. But since we’ve met, I certainly spent some time with him each of these seasons because of ESPN’s deep connection to this sport.

I’ve covered a lot of unique coaches, but Dabo’s program reflects his personality more than any coach I’ve seen in this sport. Bar none. More than any other coach. The only other team I can think of that reflects the personality of the head coach as much is the Golden State Warriors and Steve Kerr. I cover the NBA at times, nowhere near as much as I cover college football or golf or tennis. But he has built a program in his design, in his image, with his values. And he’s been remarkably consistent in doing that.

I think a lot of people wonder about Dabo, whether they say it out loud or not: “Is this guy really this way? Is he too good to be true? Is this an act, or is it authentic?” Certainly, six-plus or seven years into knowing Dabo, my assessment is it’s completely and totally authentic. And there’s reason behind all that he does. A big part of that reason comes from his past experiences, and that notebook that he’s kept for such a long time, that he filled with ideas should he get the opportunity. And he has continued to fill that notebook out and build an incredible program – in his image. I’m eager to see that notebook, but catching him during bowl season when time was at a premium it wasn’t possible during this visit with him.

It’s hard to know where to begin when trying to relay the most profound thing I learned about Dabo during this past visit to Clemson and our reporting for this story. One of the most telling moments that Dabo shared with you, and with us, was his first action after he got out of Terry Don Phillips’ office that day on Oct. 13. He walked into a storage closet in the facility, called his wife Kathleen, and then tried to gather himself as best he could and regain his composure. And what did he bring in there with him? That binder. And he began to flood it with more and more ideas – coaching staff, players, fans, training, everything. Because Terry Don told him: “You’re empowered. Act like you’re the head coach. Do whatever it takes to fix this.” He spent half an hour in a storage closet, and then the next half hour he walked to the end of the hall and he fired the offensive coordinator. That tells you something about his confidence and his conviction an hour into receiving the interim tag.

When Dabo went back to that day, he told us he had an overwhelming sick feeling when Terry Don walked into the room with all the coaches and then Bowden was gone and Dabo was the interim guy. He didn’t use this term, but he felt like sort of a dead man walking. When you go back to 1980 and go all the way to Dabo being the interim, the likelihood based on empirical evidence suggested that it wouldn’t happen because it never happened. Dabo understood that. But it was after that second meeting with Terry Don when Dabo realized he might have a chance. So that one meeting with Terry Don, where the AD told him he believed in him and he wanted him to succeed, how important was that in making Clemson football what it has become? It was seven weeks before the ultimate decision to make him head coach for good.

The vision that he had back then, the vision that he has executed – I don’t know that there would be a way to find out whether there has been any coach who has hired more former players on staff, people he has coached or have been a GA for him, than Dabo. Nineteen – nineteen -- are on his staff right now. He told me that last week. Think about that! That’s astounding when you think about the people that he brings into his life and keeps in his life. The quality of that connection, the depth of it.

I think that says a lot that he had that name Brandon Streeter in that binder years and years ago. Tony Elliott’s name, too. The incredible story of how Dabo told Tony that he was going to hire him, where he did – the Sycamore Street part of that. Dabo living on Sycamore Street at the time, and Tony having been involved in a traumatic accident where he lost one of his parents on Sycamore in a different part of the country, and him wanting to change the association of that word in Tony Elliott’s life. He told Tony about the hiring on Sycamore Street. That is an amazing, amazing anecdote, a window into Dabo.

The television piece that we did on Dabo, while I’m pleased we had the opportunity to do it, it’s a little less than five minutes long. And one of the big differences in television is, so much that’s so wonderful in Dabo’s origin story is apocryphal and anecdotal. It’s not necessarily visual. So that’s a challenge in TV in trying to render that. Dabo is such great TV. He’s such a great interview that you keep him on camera a lot. The hardest part of my process by far is pouring my heart and soul into something and then fighting for air time.

The two things you want the most is to be accurate and fair. If that’s priority one, then priority 1A is to honor the trust a subject has given. That’s what you want. And that’s why the battle for time can really be so tough. I’ll always believe there’s nothing that exists in the realm of objectivity. Because as soon as you select something and omit something else, that’s a subjective act. There is no objectivity that’s pure and total. But what does exist is sin of omission. And a lot of times I think that’s the sin that TV can bring and that I, frankly, commit over and over – the sin of omission, where we’re not able to share the story as fully as we’d like to and as fully as you did.

A big part of my job of storytelling is earning trust of the subjects. Two years ago, we came to do the story about Christian Wilkins and the tragic death of his grandfather. For folks who don’t know, his grandfather was shot and killed in a mistaken drug raid in Massachusetts. Very difficult story to tell. And we did not have a lot of time to tell it with Christian, who is a magnetic, brilliant personality and mind and soul. And really in that case, you have to hope that the connection follows in a way through the interview. But the interview itself ultimately comes down to the quality of the question. Are you prepared, and are you asking the right questions? Are you listening to the answers and following up in the right way? That’s the ultimate bedrock of a story of that nature.

I’m still in touch with Christian and I see him all the time. I’m still in touch with his mother, who is such a remarkable figure. His whole family story, as I’m sure you know, is an incredible portrait of success when you consider secondary collegiate master’s degrees all over the family, and he has many siblings who are successful. Obviously the Campbell Trophy is an incredible feat. But Christian Wilkins and why he wears No. 42, I think that story will forever stand apart for me. It shows his soul and what’s important to him.

I think Dabo Swinney and Nick Saban are a lot more similar than people think. There’s no question in my mind. Part of that is their shared authenticity. As different as they are as souls, they are very similar when it comes to being the genuine article. They are who you largely believe they are. That comes from the people who know them, and not necessarily the public perception and how that can simplify things. And they get along well, the two of them do.

I think there is a great respect between the two of them. I know that Nick Saban has tremendous respect for what Dabo Swinney has built. And we all know what Swinney has said and how he feels about Saban and the program being the standard and the Rest of Y’all Bus and all of that. So I think there’s a lot that is shared between them. And one thing: Even though Saban is a decade-and-a-half older than Dabo, he hasn’t shown any sign of his passion waning. Certainly not that I see. And one of the first places you see it and you know it is in recruiting. And boy, Nick Saban still really gets out there and actually enjoys recruiting.

The difference between the two is the environments inside their football buildings. Saban’s rooms and hallways are a pressurized environment, and you can feel the tension. You walk in there, and everything is pressurized. And typically that’s not a good thing. The thought in any management book you’d ever read is that people do not operate best under tension. They don’t. I would ask anyone who has written that line or subscribes to that philosophy – which seems to make a lot of sense – to understand what a contradiction to that Alabama is with its success. A lot is demanded.

You can say that tension comes from the unexpected. If that is the case, it’s not a tense place. You know what to expect when you walk into that building at Alabama. And you’re expected to deliver. And if you don’t, you’ll be held accountable until you do. And that goes for every single person’s task in that building. They celebrate. They have fun. But no one has as much fun that I’ve seen, in the way that he does, as Dabo Swinney. Now Nick does bring the freshmen out to the lake house during the summer. He drags them on the innertube, as we showed on the Training Days series, and they have a lot of fun. And that’s a part of him that people don’t get to see as often. They see it all the time with Dabo.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that Saban’s effort to bring to light these more fun elements of himself is a reaction to the perception of Dabo and Clemson being a more fun place to be. Saban is aware of the greater landscape. And again, I think that’s humility. That is awareness. It’s not: “We do it the way we do it, and everyone else and everything else be damned.” That is not Nick’s way. He appreciates, studies, understands context. And adapts to it.

The most remarkable thing about the dominance under of Dabo Swinney and Nick Saban is how they have successfully combatted the natural reactions to high achievement – there’s disharmony, there’s turbulence, there’s injury, there’s self-interest. There’s all these things that are enemies to unity and sustained excellence. That’s what’s so astounding about Dabo and Saban, that they have found a way to defeat that. That’s incredible.

One of the things that Saban said, and Dabo echoed: There’s a lot of books that tell you how to be successful. There are hardly any that tell you how to stay that way.

Tigerillustrated.com thanks Rinaldi for sharing his time and insight.

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