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CENTRAL, S.C. -- Arguably the most recognizable figure in the history of Clemson Football guided the program to its first and only national championship in 1981.

It was here where 33-year old Danny Ford reached the pinnacle of college football. And it was here where Clemson emerged as the one, true oasis for serious football in the Atlantic Coast Conference. From 1981-83, Clemson posted a 30-2-2 mark, the best record in college football. Ford compiled a 96-29-4 mark, which included of course the national championship, five conference titles, and bowl victories over Ohio State, Nebraska, Penn State, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Stanford.

But it was also here where the NCAA uncovered a beehive of missteps, with many recruiting violations dating back to the Charley Pell Era in 1977-78, though the NCAA would again begin investigating the football program in 1989, later revealing its findings in 1990 that a coach and a booster gave cash to players from 1985-87. As a result, Clemson was again placed on probation in June of 1990, the second time in eight years.

Ford, still the youngest head coach in NCAA history to win a national title, would watch his tenure come to an abrupt end in January of 1990, after receiving a termination letter from then athletics director Bobby Robinson following an 'agreement' on the grounds of 'philosophical differences' with then university president Max Lennon.

In late May of 2011, I met with Ford for a three hour, exclusive interview where one more time the former National Coach of the Year placed himself back in the head coaching position at Clemson to relive his decade-long run as the program's front man.

PUBLISHER's NOTE: Five years ago when I met with Clemson's former head coaches, the last interview to take place was Ford. He had been really busy on his farm and was also in the middle of a couple of events that involved former players. One of the things I always admired about Coach Ford was his accessibility to his former players. It was after an event in Greenville where we decided to get together for nearly three hours.

I arrived at the hotel in the Upstate where the interview was to take place roughly 10 minutes prior to our scheduled meeting. The Tigers' legendary coach was already there. Ford, as usual, had already made himself at home and was just sitting on a couch reading a newspaper. Before I could put my notes and recorder down on a table, the coach had already reached out his hand. I shook his hand and it was obvious right away this was a coach who was used to hard, manual labor on his farm.

Growing up in the town of Cheraw, SC, I had always admired Ford. His 1981 Clemson team facing Nebraska in the National Championship Game was the first college football game I ever saw. I thought this was a coach who said a lot even when he said very little. Our family purchased our first VCR in 1986 and I remember recording his Sunday coaches shows. It gave me a window into how he viewed film, what he looked for in the game of football and how he critiqued performance. When he said something more than once in on-air evaluation, I could tell it was important to him. Even when he didn't really say much, you thought he did.

But that was many years ago. Now it was time to go to work. There were questions to be asked, some of which I knew Ford didn't want to answer.

For example, in this extensive four-part series, you will see certain questions appear in parts two and three, questions that were actually asked in the final minutes of the interview. One question in particular was my asking Ford this:

There were allegations of your coaches offering cash and benefits to prospects, then benefits provided for student-athletes. In the NCAA's findings, it was documented that they felt there was a pattern of improper recruiting activities, which in part led to the sanctions in 1982. How could the recruiting coordinator not know about these things? And how could the head coach not know about these things?

When I asked the question, Ford, still very much an imposing figure, just stared at me for a few seconds. I could tell right away he didn't like the question. Here I am thinking one of two things are about to happen. Either the most recognizable figure in Clemson history is about to deck me or he's going to get up and walk out of the interview. I deliberately waited until the final minutes of the interview to ask the question for this very reason. Ford, though, did indeed answer the question.

As he began talking about the NCAA probe from 1982, I could see he was getting a little frustrated, not only in discussing something that put a black mark on the program but also due to the manner in which it was handled by both the NCAA and the ACC, which levied its own sanctions against Clemson. Ford had gotten so frustrated back in 1982 when two NCAA investigators descended on Clemson one day, he told them he was about to go fishing when they wanted to question him. Ford cooperated with their questioning, of course. He simply put them in a boat with him and the three went fishing. That's essentially where he was personally interviewed by the NCAA's investigators.

There were other topics I felt needed to be discussed, such as his relationship with longtime UGA head coach and rival Vince Dooley, whether he felt Dooley had turned Clemson into the NCAA, Herschel Walker's recruitment, his relationship with South Carolina head coach Joe Morrison and a private meeting between the two days before Morrison died, his public chiding of Clemson's administration before his eventual dismissal in 1990, the termination letter he received from then athletics director Bobby Robinson, his relationship with then President Max Lennon, Ford's return to Clemson's campus where he spent time in his office at 1 a.m. the day before his departure was announced and so much more.

I wasn't sure how he would react to any of the aforementioned questions, but he was surprisingly candid. And for that reason, we have another window into Clemson's past, with additional clarity, finally.

This is Danny Ford, in his own words.

This is his story.

PART II

Ard. You begin preparing for the 1981 season. Your staff has changed somewhat at this juncture. Here's your '81 staff: Anderson, Hallman, Tom Harper, Les Herrin, Holland, King, Reedy, Nelson Stokley, Vanderheyden and George Dostal was your strength coach. First, talk to me about Dostal. I've heard a lot of good things about him.

Ford. "He was left over from coach Parker's staff. And coach Pell kept him and we kept him for awhile. I didn't do a lot in the weight room back then. I left it to him to do. And he did a good job. He was from Ohio. Of that staff, three of those guys have passed away - Dostal, Harper and Stokley."

Ard. Dostal supposedly made a prediction that spring that the team would be playing in the Orange Bowl for the national championship. He supposedly had a picture of oranges in the weight room that off-season.

Ford. (Smiling) "I heard that, too. I also know that he messed around with my kickers and screwed them up one year. He had Dale Hatcher from freshman of the year down to about 38 yards a punt the next year. I let him do the weight room and I didn't want him fooling with our kickers."

Ard. You sign an outstanding recruiting class in 1981. Let's look at a few of the notables: (TE) K.D. Dunn from Atlanta, Ga., Hatcher from my hometown in Cheraw, (DT) Steve Berlin of Bethal Park, Pa., (OL) Dale Swing of Lexington, NC and a defensive tackle out of Aiken named William Perry.

Ford. "Berlin wasn't highly recruited at that time but turned out to be a good player. Everybody wanted Perry. Swing was a good player for us. Hatcher was as well. Played in the NFL.

"I was with Michael Dean Perry awhile ago, actually. I think the first time I saw William play was at Airport High School when they were playing Aiken. He never came off the field that night. He played defense, offense and was on their kickoff team, too. He wasn't as impressive on the football field because he played every down. On the basketball court he was really impressive. In high school he was big and he was Chester McGlockton-type big. He was well, well built and big. You see a kid like that on the basketball court and see him dunk a ball, that was pretty impressive. You could see his athleticism. He was a good young man, smiled a lot. He liked to laugh.

"He had a great family. He had a big family. He had a lot of brothers and sisters. His daddy was a painter and a small man. He wasn't a tall man, but he was a muscular guy. His mother was a larger lady, but was the boss of the household. Michael Dean takes after his daddy more than William, who takes after his mama. His mama worked the cafeteria there at the elementary school. She was a great woman. They lived in that white house down the street. She had diabetes and later passed away. She was just a super, super lady who kind of ran the family. His daddy was a quiet guy."

Ard. But when you saw him initially, you felt he could be a great one?

Ford. "Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You know, we had to beat Michigan State for him at the end. They were pretty good back then. I ran into Michigan State at one of his basketball games one night."

Ard. You get into the spring of 1981 now, you have virtually your entire offense back, six starters back on defense, so you obviously felt better about your team. Privately, exiting the spring that year, what did you feel you could get out of your team?

Ford. "If you go back and look, the reason we had some experience now is because those kids had the mess beat out of them the year before, so they had grown up now. They had to grow up. We had nothing, zero when I went to Arkansas and they had to grow up the same way. They didn't win until after I left. They got beat up enough that they needed to win. You just grow up and you get tired of losing.

"Once you get a program where you need to have it through recruiting and you keep your numbers straight, and you don't miss on many in recruiting, then you should always have a pretty good program at Clemson. Because they've got everything else. There again, though, we got caught in that year (1980). Now they're older, more experienced.

"Did I think we were going 12-0? No. But I felt we could be better because our kids had grown up some."

Ard. You open the season with a win over Wofford, a close win at Tulane, then you beat a No. 4-ranked Georgia team 13-3 in a game where UGA committed nine turnovers. You began the season unranked, but the win over UGA put you at No. 14 in the polls the following week.

Ford. "We had been scheduled to play Villanova, but ended up playing Wofford. We got behind to them at one time. We go to Tulane and it's 6-5 early, but we end up winning. We have a big, big ballgame and beat UGA. They had nine turnovers, but we were really, really good on defense. If somebody had 80 yards rushing on us, that was a good day for them. The team that scored the most on us was Wake, but we beat them 82-24."

Ard. But the win over UGA, was this the moment where you felt like you had something special brewing?

Ford. "It was a lift, yes. We had a good ballgame and everybody for Clemson was high, feeling good. But any time you beat UGA, you felt good. You felt like you were going to have a good year. It was a step forward for us. We played Kentucky on the road and knew very little about them. And that's a hard place to play at night, but we got through it. We just hit a stretch of schedule where we did well, beating N.C. State, Wake and then North Carolina 10-8 and they were ranked eighth."

Ard. I want to talk about Vince Dooley for a moment. What was your relationship with him like in the 1980's?

Ford. (Pausing) "It was OK. When I first came to Clemson, there was a guy named Sam Mitchell on Georgia's staff. They had lost their offensive line coach. I had been here a short time. Coach Dooley called me and talked to me about a job on their staff. And I went down there and visited with him. I met him in Atlanta one day after I had been recruiting a school down there. And he offered me a job.

"But when I moved from Alabama, I was the youngest guy on the staff. When I left Alabama I was making around $20,000 a year. I went to Virginia Tech and more than doubled my salary, because that's the only way I was going to leave. I was afraid coach Bryant was going to move me up as the offensive line coach. I felt like I wasn't ready. Other coaches were leaving and we didn't know how much longer coach Bryant was going to be there. Pat Dye had offered me a job at East Carolina, too. I know that coach Bryant told the assistant AD that he didn't want me to go, but the next year I got the job offer at Virginia Tech and talked to coach Bryant about that. He said, 'What do you feel like doing?' I told him I felt I needed to go. So he told me I should probably go. I got a good raise at Virginia Tech, because that's the only way I was going to go. But when I got up there, it wasn't really a raise once I found out about the cost of living and taxes. When I came here, I got another big raise, otherwise I wouldn't have left Virginia Tech.

"So when I went to visit with coach Dooley, he couldn't pay me what Clemson was paying me. It would have put his coaches out of line on the pay scale. Back then coaches weren't making a whole lot of money. It was a good living, better than a lot of people in society, but it wasn't the kind of salary you see today. With his coaches at UGA, if he had given me $50,000 or so to move, it would have just knocked some of his other guys out of line. So it didn't work. And I'm glad it didn't work. I don't know if I would have gone.

"But our relationship was OK. I enjoyed playing against them. I liked that challenge. But I liked all challenges.

"We were just different people. We were just totally different. At times, we had our run-ins. He was established and I was a guy coming up trying to get established. I enjoyed going up against them, especially when we won."