The questions, three of them, are short but open-ended:

1) What are you up to nowadays?

2) What are your thoughts on the state of Clemson Football?

3) What do you make of the current landscape of college athletics amid the transfer portal and Name, Image and Likeness?

Tigerillustrated.com has spent the past two months tracking down 30 former Clemson football figures whose names still resonate with fans.

We will spend the better part of the next two months sharing their responses.

Today we open THE CLEMSON 30 series with Charlie Whitehurst.

I live in Atlanta. I've been retired since 2016. I try to have fun every day. I've got a lot of time on my hands. So today my dad came over to my house and we've got four cars in the garage. Two of them are on lifts. My dad just bought an old 1974 Porsche 911, and we took the window regulator out of it and took the door apart because it was broken and we're working on it. So we've been at it for about four hours. We're about to put a fuel pump in my 930.

So that's just kind of the stuff I do on a Tuesday. Yesterday I played golf at a charity event, and the grand marshal was David Saville from Clemson. That was the first time I'd met him, and I've got a picture of us. I walked up to him and asked him if we could take a picture, and he was so nice to me and gave me a hug and everything. It was really cool and made me feel really good.

So yesterday I did that, today I'm working on cars. I'll go and work out a little later. And when the fall comes I try to go hunting about every other day. I don't have a job or a career, and I probably need to do that at some point. I keep putting it off. Every year I say I'm going to do it, but it doesn't happen. But maybe one of these days I'll be doing something a little more productive.

But I really enjoy what I'm doing. I love working on cars. I get to wake up when I want and set my own schedule. I'm very thankful that I am in a position to be able to live this kind of life, this time in my life. At some point I'm sure I'll have a family and not have this kind of time, but I'm very grateful for how football went for me. There was some luck involved, and it's not always within your control. The vast majority of how well you do and how long you stick around in the NFL is within your control, but there's some luck involved too. I don't know how much luck I had, but I know I had a little bit. So I'm grateful for the life I get to live right now, for sure.

It ascended gradually, but then it was like a rocket ship five or six years ago. And it was such a thrill for everybody involved with it.

You knew you weren't going to win 14 or 15 games every season, but to have a year that wasn't that great and to still win 10 games is pretty amazing. I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of Dabo and how he feels about things, and I'm sure he's so freaking excited at the challenge. You lose both your coordinators, and it's 2.0 now. Now it's, "Where does it go from here?"

As a fan, it's awesome to know that that head coach is still there. And I know we still have a lot of talented players, but honestly it's gotten a little more interesting to me. It's like, "OK, whoa. Now what's going to happen?"

You kind of take for granted getting to go to the semifinal game, and the four times playing for the national championship. It is so much fun going to Dallas and Miami and New Orleans and all these places. I'm not saying it's more difficult now, but we didn't get to do that this past year. I want to see how hungry they are now and where it goes. I have the utmost faith that they can get back to doing it, but it just kind of shows you never to take for granted how good you have it. Being a Clemson fan the last six or seven years, who's had more fun than that? Alabama maybe, but who else? It's just so awesome.

I don't know the current X's and O's and personnel and stuff. I don't know who's going to be on the field; I'm not close enough to it to even know. I'm just excited to see what happens as they reset a little bit, see what kind of coordinators they have on both sides of the ball. I guess expectations aren't as huge as they've always been, but as a fan I'm excited to see what happens.

I like the fact that you're not locked in as an amateur and you can earn, particularly when you're making a shit-ton of money for other people.

But I don't know where it's going to go. I assume that it's obviously pay-for-play at this point. So you're wondering whether Clemson is going to have the finances to compete with schools like Texas, or even UCLA or USC. The money those schools have to pay, if they want to, is incredible.

It's kind of the rich get richer now with the same teams in the playoff. So has the playoff itself made the playing field less even? It seems like the NIL stuff could do that even more, and maybe not as fairly because some teams have more money than others.

I know there are side effects to the whole thing opening up, but I think players should be able to earn. I really do. I don't know if paying them is good or feasible or whatever, but I can at least argue against some of the arguments I see from people who say they shouldn't do this.

I don't know where Dabo stands on it, or where the current coaches stand on it. But the argument: "How is an 18-year-old kid going to deal with a million dollars in his pocket?" Well just fast-forward two or three years, and 21-year-old kids manage to do it. Rookies get drafted and they get $25 million bucks.

I do like the fact that Clemson is one of those five or eight teams that has a chance. There are 100-plus teams out there that do not have a chance to win it all. That is the truth of the matter. I don't know if that's good, and I don't know what you do about it. Selfishly, I'm just glad Clemson is one of those teams.

People ask me if I wish I was around as a college player now and I'm like, "Yeah!" Because I think I could've earned a lot of money in college. I did fine afterwards, but there are some guys that didn't who could've earned a lot of money in college.

I always say you're either a capitalist or you're not. I do get that there's some gray area. But hey, if you're good at something you ought to be compensated for it. Is that opening up some things that aren't as good for the sport? Possibly.

As far as the transfer portal goes, I don't know the rules 100-percent other than you can jump around and you don't have to sit out. I think that's a more interesting one than NIL. If you're not getting paid, then are you really under contract? That would be my initial thought, just from a player's perspective. I know I signed my name here and I'll try to stick it out, it's a good lesson in life to stick things out, all that. And I think people probably should stick it out more than maybe they're doing now. But if so-and-so signs a quarterback and then Trevor Lawrence signs the next year, you're leaving. You're going to just sit there and watch?

There are so many arguments I hear against the portal. And I certainly understand them. But I'm not sure I've heard one that I say: "That's a really, really damn good point." I hear people saying guys should stick it out, but if I was one of those kids behind Trevor Lawrence and Duke wanted me to come play quarterback, I'd go to Duke. And I don't think I should have to sit out a year to do so.

But just like with NIL, does the portal open up some things that aren't great for the sport? Yeah, maybe. Maybe the kid keeps jumping around and can't ever finish anything in his life, doesn't play here and doesn't play there. Would he have been better off sticking it out with his buddies he's been with for a long time? Yeah, maybe so. But if you are not going to pay me to be under contract with you, I think the opportunity should be there to transfer.

I'm not championing the portal, saying "Rah-rah it's great!" But it's probably better for the individual. And I typically stand with an individual's rights other than what's good for the group. That's just typically kind of how I feel when it comes to just about everything. I'm sure that opens me up to take a lot of shit, but it's the way I feel.

Tomorrow Tigerillustrated.com will release the second installment of THE CLEMSON 30.

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