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Where are they now?
The question never gets old as it relates to former Clemson football players.
It's a gift that keeps on giving, if you just take the time to track them down and ask.
Charlie Whitehurst is in the Atlanta area, still rightly taking advantage of the nest egg built up over all his years in the NFL.
His days consist of tinkering with classic Porsche sports cars with his father, playing golf and hunting.
"I get to wake up when I want and set my own schedule," Whitehurst told Tigerillustrated.com. "I am very thankful that I am in a position to be able to live this kind of life, this time in my life."
One of Whitehurst's former teammates, Tye Hill, is also in the Atlanta area and trying to figure out what the next phase of his life holds. He ran Golden Corral franchises for a while, is now doing some contract work and consulting, but primarily he's devoted to being a dad and coaching his children's sports teams.
"I'll turn 40 this year, so it's kind of like: 'What am I going to do now?'" Hill said. "It's been interesting, to say the least, trying to navigate what you want to do."
Also interesting, to say the least, is the current landscape of college athletics. The velocity of change, brought about mostly by the transfer portal and Name, Image and Likeness, has created strong opinions about where things are headed.
And just as with any other cross-section of people, opinions are diverse from these former players.
Whitehurst, who beat South Carolina all four times he suited up against the Gamecocks, has no problem with football players making money given that seemingly everyone else is capitalizing on the staggering revenue streams brought by broadcast rights.
"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," he said.
Dustin Fry, who used to snap the ball to Whitehurst, is much more alarmed about the ramifications of all this.
"College football is no longer college football," he said. "It's an exciting time for the game, but it's lost its purity. It's no longer what it once was."
How many fans over the last decade-plus have asked what happened to Tymere Zimmerman, a decorated recruit who signed with Tommy Bowden but never played for him?
We tracked him down and found that, one year ago, the importance of being a father happened to him.
He was an assistant coach at Presbyterian, busting his tail trying to move up the ladder, when his son made a comment about all the other fathers being at all of their sons' soccer games.
"That's when I decided I had to get out of football," Zimmerman said. "I'm now working in Charlotte and going to all of my sons' games. It's the best thing in the world."
Over the past two months, Tigerillustrated.com has spent time tracking down 30 prominent names of the past from Clemson football.
We asked all of them three short but open-ended questions:
1) What are you up to now?
2) What are your thoughts about Clemson football under Dabo Swinney?
3) What's your opinion of the current landscape of college athletics?
One unanimous opinion we've received from our interviews thus far is overwhelming approval of the job done by Swinney.
"I remember when we would dream about winning 10 games," Hill said. "Now they win 10 games and it's a disappointment to some people."
On Tuesday and progressing well into May, Tigerillustrated.com will start to roll out these conversations.
We'll call it The Clemson30.
And we bet you'll be entertained.
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Tigerillustrated.com has a super, limited-time subscription offer.
Get unlimited FREE ACCESS to Tigerillustrated.com until August! It's our longest FREE TRIAL ever!
PROMO CODE: CLEMSON30
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