Last fall Tigerillustrated.com released a week-long series exploring some of the deeper layers of Dabo Swinney's life and leadership by listening to various voices who have witnessed the inner workings of it.

In this in-depth series, our subscribers heard from a group of well-connected people who shared their personal stories of how Swinney has transformed not just a football program, but also an entire athletic department, university and surrounding community.

ALSO SEE: THE STORY OF DABO SWINNEY - Part 1 | Clemson's recruiting class signees | Clemson's junior commitments

For parts one and two of the series we spoke with Swinney's mother - Carol McIntosh - who never liked anyone telling her she couldn't do something. She always had an optimistic attitude, even under the bleakest circumstances imaginable.

Sound familiar?

"You want to know where my toughness comes from?" Dabo says now. "You want to know where my grit comes from? My will to achieve something better? It comes from the example my mother set for me my whole life."

Today we release Part 2 of The Story Of Dabo Swinney and McIntosh’s own against-all-odds story, in her own words:

I went to high school, and my wheels really started turning there. I wanted to do things I had never been able to do. I had missed out on everything as a child.

I knew I couldn’t be a cheerleader because it was too athletic -- too over my head, literally. But I had watched the band, and I’d watched the majorettes. And I thought: “Hmm. They’re just doing these little dance steps. And they’ve just got a baton they’re twirling.” I kept watching it and watching it. I finally thought to myself: “I can do that. I know I can do that.” So I had my mom get me a baton and I started working.

I spent a lot of time in the front yard marching. I couldn’t get my arms up over my head, but I would do different things with the baton below my waist. So I ended up becoming a majorette at Woodlawn High School. I never would have thought – well I shouldn’t say that, because I never said never. Never once did I say never about anything.

So many of my dreams have come true. So many. And I’m so grateful when I can share my story with anyone. Because my childhood was a challenge. And my mom, God bless her. I don’t know how she did it all those years. I really don’t. But I look back and I think about what I went through, and it wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t perfect. I didn’t get to do all these things other children were doing. But you know what? It made me what I am today. That’s what I believe.

I was 40 years old when I saw my dad for the first time. Shortly after that, he became sick. He was in the hospital, and he was on life support. There was no one there with him, and I was called to the hospital. They asked me to come sit in the lobby. So I did. I didn’t even think of not going, because I never had any bitterness or resentment toward him even though he left the family when I was an infant. Why he never came around, I just never went there.

I went to the hospital and I was sitting in the lobby by myself. The nurse came out and told me they were about to take him off life support. She told me I was welcome to go in and be with him if I would like. Well, I knew I wasn’t going to let him die alone. I just wasn’t that kind of person. So I went back there, and the nurse started to unplug everything. I asked her: How long do you think it will be? She told me not very long – seconds, maybe five minutes. She told me I could whisper in his ear whatever I wanted to say. So I did. I bent over and I slid my arm up under his head and his neck and pulled him up, got right in his ear.

First, I said the Lord’s Prayer to him. And then I said, “I’ve never been able to call you Daddy, but today I’m going to call you Daddy.” I said, “Daddy, you can go now. You can go. Everything is forgiven. Jesus loves you no matter what, and I love you too. I never knew you. You were never there. But I’m thankful that I could be here with you. So you can let go now. Go be with Jesus.” And that was it. He was gone. I always thought it was sort of meant to be for me to be with him when he died.

I think all that I went through as a child made my heart very sensitive to others. It helped me have a lot of compassion and a lot of love. But also, everything I missed as a child I have been able to live through my boys. I’ve made up for lost time. I’ve had so much fun with my sons, and my grandsons. I did so many things with them that I never got to do as a child.

But one thing I probably should have done was explain to them earlier about my childhood, so they could understand what I went through and maybe why I was the way I was at times. Because I was stubborn. And I didn’t want anybody telling me I couldn’t do something; I was going to try to do it no matter what. No matter what people told me, I would think it would work. My husband Larry gets aggravated with me even now. He’ll say, “No, Carol. That’s not going to happen.” And I’ll say, “Just trust me. It’ll be fine.” But I have learned so much from my boys. I love my boys. I can’t even describe how much I love my boys. And I love my family. They have taken care of me and protected me and seen me through some difficult times.

I met Kathleen when she was a young child. She became my best buddy, especially when Dabo and I were living together in Tuscaloosa. God bless her soul. She became my best soulmate. I confided in her. She would listen. I probably drove her crazy, but she was my best friend. We ran up and down the road together going to Dabo’s football games, and we’d sit there in the stands and yell and wave our pompoms. We were his biggest fans. God bless her. She is an angel to this family. She is truly an angel.

I am so grateful to my sons, not for any material thing that they gave me or can do for me. And I know they will always see to it that I have everything that I need. But it’s their love, their love, that is right here in my heart. And their spirit. I have learned so much from them. I probably grew up with them, learning a lot of things from them.

I am so blessed. I thank God every day. Every day I put my feet on the floor, I’m so thankful that I can walk. I’m thankful that I’ve learned to use my arms somewhat. There’s a lot of things I can’t do with my arms still, but I don’t ever say anything to anybody about it. I grew up not wanting to ask anybody to help me, because I was taught that in therapy and rehab: “We don’t do it for you; we’re here to show you how to do it.” And I had to do it. I was forced to do it, no matter how hard it was. So I grew up never wanting to ask anybody for help. That’s a polio patient for you. That’s a polio survivor, just a personality that you have. You want to be independent. You want to be your own person.

There’s so many things that could’ve happened to me. First of all, they didn’t even think I was going to live. So I overcame all these odds and was told I’d never be able to do this or do that. Instead of just falling into that and succumbing to it, I had such a will to live. And I remember my mom telling me that so many times. She would say: “You’re just a stubborn little baby. You are a stubborn little girl. You’re just determined to get through all of this and be normal” – what I called normal, and what I began to accept as my normal.

When Dabo was growing up and we were going through hard times, I always tried to share with him: “Dabo, faith will get you through it. You’ve just got to have faith. Keep having faith, and this will eventually go away too.” Because that’s how I lived my life. That’s how I lived all of my childhood and that’s all I knew. Because I had nothing else. It was just trust. I had to trust a lot of people, because I was in the hands of strangers basically – doctors, nurses and all these caregivers. But I had a very strong faith. And I remember Dabo at a very young age having that same very strong faith.

I remember it even when he was born, and I know only a mother could relate to this because I think only a mother can have these feelings. But the moment he was born, when I first saw him he had two little fists that he was holding up. And I thought, “Well, this little boy is going to be a fighter.” Well, sure enough he was. He turned out to be a fighter.

But I just sensed something as he grew. He was a good baby, never complained about anything. He was just a model child. He was loved by everybody. Even when he started going to the little day school at church, the teachers would always comment about how he cared about the other children, and how if one of them didn’t know how to do something he was always willing to help them and show them.

I remember one day he came home and he was on the floor working in his coloring book. He would keep on showing it to me, seeking my approval, and I’d always make it a big deal and say, “Oh Dabo that’s so beautiful! You’re so good!” And he kept showing me things and he would be so happy that I was pleased. He brought back a picture one time and I said, “Oh my goodness Dabo, I don’t know where you came from son! You’re just too smart! You’re so good!” And he kept coloring and was so serious as he said: “Jesus sent me because he knew you needed me.”

At the time I just laughed and told him he was right. I sort of blew it off and never thought about it much again until these things started unfolding in his life, and things started happening in our lives and he was helping me and I was trying to help him. That’s when all of that started coming back to me and I thought, “You know, there was something there then.”

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He was like that as a child. In elementary school and middle school, he was the most loved child. Teachers loved him. His peers loved him. He was always so caring of other children. And it didn’t matter to him where they came from, what they had, what color they were. He got along with everybody, and they were all drawn to him like a magnet. He just showed so much compassion and so much love to other children and to other people, period.

In all the years of him growing up, this is how I know Dabo. And he has not changed. At all. He is still the same Dabo that he was in elementary, middle, high school and college. He was just the most caring person, and everything was always positive. Everything was always good. In his mind, there was always a way that it would turn out fine. He would pray, and he believed in God and he had so much faith. That was always so uplifting to me. But he was that way with everybody that knew him.

I’ve since had his teachers tell me this: If one of his teachers was having a bad day, he would be uplifting to them. So this is not anything new. I think there was a spirit in him from the day he was born. It’s amazing. I have to just stop sometimes and I can’t believe it. I think: “God, you did put this child here. This has been a special person, and he is continuing your work.” I just know it’s a God thing. I know God’s hands were on him the day he was born. I really do.

I never told my boys the full extent of what I went through as a child until about six years ago. And here’s part of my explanation for going that long without sharing it to them: There was so much that I overcame. So many of the things I had dreamed about and hoped for came true. So when I got married and started having children, I didn’t want to go back and rehash anything. I didn’t want to relive the days when people thought I was a cripple and people would look at me strangely. I just didn’t want any of that. I didn’t want any sympathy. I wanted to be who I was: A strong person. And so my boys didn’t grow up knowing everything I went through. They did know I had surgery; they would ask me, “Mom, what is this big scar on your back from? And why are you curved?” So I would explain some of it to them, but I didn’t go into all that I went through.

So finally I decided that was going to change. I told myself that these boys and my grandsons really needed to know my history, my childhood and everything. So I made a scrapbook for each one of my boys. And the scrapbook started out with when I was a healthy baby. And then it went on, all through my childhood, until I had my three boys starting at age 18. I told stories in that scrapbook. I had pictures. I even pointed to the window of the hospital that my bed was in.

After I gave them the scrapbooks, we got to talking about it more. And then I started talking about it with my grandchildren. I told them: “Y’all really need to know this before I’m gone, because otherwise you won’t really know much about my childhood.” They all knew that I had been through some things, but they didn’t know the extent of it. And as kids they wouldn’t have really understood the extent of it. So they were older when I began to share things, and I’m glad I did. Because I wanted them all to know. When my grandkids were young and we’d be at the beach, they would come up to me and say, “Nana, why do you have that big scar on your back?” I would tell them I had scoliosis as a child and had to have surgery, and that would be it. But they became older, and I felt it was just time to share all the details.

They never knew about the full body casts. They never knew how terrified I was when they used a power saw to cut through the body casts, or that I was dipped into hot water every day. They never knew what I truly endured. They never knew that a hospital raised me. I know Dabo has endured a lot, and all my boys probably have, but none of them had a clue as to how bad my childhood was. I mean I was 9 years old and had a power saw going down the side of my head, and down both sides of my body to my knees. And my mom wasn’t there holding my hand. I was in a casting room, and the only people there were the doctors and the people who performed the casting. I was alone. Back then, they didn’t even allow children in the hospital. They had to be over 16. So I never got to see my three siblings that much. But even beyond that, my mother couldn’t come daily. There were only those two visiting days a week, Sunday and Wednesday.

That was just all I knew as a child. Periodically I would get to go home for a weekend, that is if they could find a way to manage me. One time, an ambulance service volunteered and donated an ambulance. I was in the full body cast, and I think it was Thanksgiving maybe. They donated their ambulance to come pick me up and take me to my mom’s house to spend the Thanksgiving holiday. They came back and picked me up on Sunday afternoon and took me back to the Crippled Children’s Hospital. So things like that, my children never knew about.

Sometimes I think I’m living my childhood now by enjoying life so much and seeing Dabo doing what he’s doing. He’s living a life that I had always dreamed of. And I think: “God, you are so good because you are blessing him, and through him I’m getting all these blessings that I never had for so many years.”

I was just reading a poem recently and it said “I drink from my saucer because my cup overflows with blessings.” That’s the way my life is now. I’m so thankful God has blessed Dabo, and it’s been that way all of his life. Through him I have always been so blessed. God uses him. I grew up seeing football teams come visit my children’s home. So I can really relate to when he takes his team to go visit these little children. Some of them are there for a long time in these hospitals. Some of them are there for months. I was there for most all of my childhood. But here again, my faith got me through.

Sometimes people will ask me, “How did you deal with that? Don’t you have issues now from being separated from your mother for so long?” I feel secure that I don’t, because I feel secure in my faith. I’ve always known I’ve had God with me. I’ve always believed that. And I would pray every day that I would be able to be away from my mother.

For Dabo to have not known until six years ago how important football was to my upbringing, he was really taken with it when I told him that football built my hospital. He was amazed by it, just like I am. He thought it was pretty unique and unbelievable, really, that football could be such a big influence in both of our lives.

Polio leaves you with problems for the rest of your life. In fact, I was just at the neurologist last week. I have to go every six months and they check me out just to see the strength, whether I’m maintaining or not. There’s certain ways I can use my arms, and there’s certain ways I can’t use them at all. So I can maybe pull toward my body, but I can’t push away. So it’s different muscles. And I’ve been that way since I was 2 years old.

I was just determined. I was a fighter. My attitude was: “Hey, I am not giving up. I am going to use my arms, and I’m going to do this and I’m going to do that.” And I just stayed with it, and stayed with it, and stayed with it until I could use my arms better and do some of the things I wanted to do. To this day I can’t raise my arms over my head and do much of anything, like style my hair. I have to do it certain ways and adapt. I have had to adapt my entire life. I have had to learn to adapt, and that’s what polio patients always have to do.

Sometimes I’ll have flashbacks to those days. Sometimes I’ll dream about it, or I’ll be in a confined space and it will take me back. Or I’ll be reading something or see a picture and I’ll think: “Oh, my goodness, How I remember those days.”

Thing is, I don’t ever remember not being happy in those years. I don’t remember crying for my mother, and I think that’s what helped her too. She would come and go and I wouldn’t cry when she would go to leave because I kept saying to myself, “She’ll be back,” and I would count the days. “Monday and Tuesday, and then she’ll be back again.” That’s what she would always tell me when she would leave. She would say, “Now, I’ll be right back. You’ve just got two days.” That’s how I made it. I did anything I could to make it, and I adjusted. In that type of situation, it also really helps the parent if the child is a strong child. And obviously I was a strong child who handled the situation very well. I never put any guilt on my mother, never cried when she left me. So she would leave feeling happy, feeling good. Optimism and a fighting spirit helped immensely in those days.

Dabo and I talk all the time about the hard times we experienced when he was in high school and college, when his father’s alcoholism tore the family apart and left Dabo and I bouncing around to different places to stay. We lost our home and then were staying in a condo but we were evicted after three months because we couldn’t pay the rent. At the time I was making $8 an hour working at a department store. For a time we were staying in friends’ homes, with Dabo sleeping on the floor. Through all that, he was an honor-roll student and excellent in sports. He was always so positive; he always saw the good in situations and was convinced he could make something work.

When he went to Alabama I moved in with him and we shared the same room and bed for three years. It was Unit 81 at Fountainbleau Apartments, and Dabo and a friend each paid $130 a month for the two-bedroom unit. I still had my job in Birmingham as a sales clerk at the Parisian department store, and I would wake up at 6 every morning and drive an hour to work before driving an hour back to Tuscaloosa at night. We had this tiny closet, and Dabo put a broom across the two shelves so it gave us both a place to hang our clothes. During those days we would look at each other and laugh: “Where have we come from?” We had gone from not having to live like this to having to live like this, and we would both say that nothing is forever. We lost everything, but the important part is how you pick everything up and go on with it. And we took what we had and did the very best we could with it.

Many, many times, Dabo would tell me back then: “One of these days, we won’t have to live like this. It will get better.” And I would tell him: “Son, these have been some of the happiest days of my life being right here, cramped up in this apartment with you, being a mom to you and some of these football players, cooking for all of y’all, and just having love all around me.” We were struggling, our hearts were broken and we had nothing, but we were so happy. And it gave me peace. And I believed him when he told me that someday it would be better.

I knew all of Dabo’s life that he was going to be famous someday. Now what he was going to be, I had no idea. But from the point he was a very young child, from the things he would say and do and how he was when he was in middle school and high school, I knew at some point in his life every household was going to know his name. I didn’t know if he was going to be a famous doctor, the President of the United States or what, but I knew in my heart he was going to be famous. And I knew that someday life was going to be easier for all of us, and much better for all of us. He would tell me, “Mom, one day you’re going to have your own place and I’m going to buy you a house.” He would tell me that all the time.

Nowadays, we talk about those old days all the time. We both will look at each other and he’ll say: “This is a long way from No. 81, isn’t it?” Something will come up and we’ll have a laugh about it. We’ll think back to when we hung our clothes on that broomstick, or when I used to cook chicken and dumplings for Dabo and his teammates on Monday nights. Even now, on his birthday I’ll make chicken and dumplings and we’ll say: “This is better than Tuscaloosa, isn’t it?” It’s something we’ll never forget. And because of it, we’ll never take anything for granted.

All his life, Dabo has been the most humble person. He’s been so very humble and loving and kind to me, and he just wants to help other people. He wants to share his blessings with others. Growing up, material things didn’t matter to him. He didn’t care about name-brand clothes or shoes or anything like that. That was just not important to him, and it’s not today. He’s not into all of that; he’s just happy. He’s gone from nothing to being able to have anything he wants now. But we still always remind each other that money can’t buy happiness, nor can money buy health.

I thank God every day that I’m able to travel and go to his ball games, to watch him and watch my two grandsons on the team, and all three of them together. My goodness, how many people get to experience that? God has blessed us so much.

I still have some breathing problems to this day. I have to be very careful to not get pneumonia or bronchitis. Because of my scoliosis, my lungs are very crowded and restricted from my spine; it pushes on my lungs and it causes me to be very short of breath. Years ago, doctors told me: “Carol, just be thankful and grateful for what you have.” They told me a day might come when I may need something to help me breathe. They told me that I might not live to be very old. I’m 74 and will turn 75 in November. So every year that goes by, I’m more grateful and thankful for my health.

My mother died at age 79. My oldest sister died at 75, and my other sister died at age 74 or 75. My brother passed away two years ago, so here I am: the youngest of four, the one who had this horrible disease, and by the grace of God I’m still here. That’s why I’ll never understand when people complain about having a birthday and getting older. I just cringe when I hear that. I’m thinking: “Oh God, be grateful for your birthday. Be thankful you’re still here to have another birthday.” So I feel like I’m doing well. I’ve made it this far, and I hope and pray for many more years of good health. I want to spend so much more time watching my grandsons. That is my life, and I love it.

People always ask me if I ever imagined the incredible success that Dabo has had in coaching, and I really don’t know how to answer them. The truth is I’m not really shocked at anything Dabo accomplishes. Just like me, he has always had a determined spirit about him and a sense that he could do anything. Just like me, he has never wanted anyone to tell him he couldn’t do something. All the way from the day he was born, with those two little balled-up fists, he has been a fighter. I don’t know if I had balled-up fists when I was born, but I have been a fighter too.

I do think he is an awful lot like me. I just see how I was as a child growing up and I see a lot of that in him now. And when I hear him speaking, I really see a lot of it in him. I think it was just kind of born into him, and he saw the toughness in me as he was growing up. And again, I think God had his hands on him. He was special from day one and he still is. He’s never changed.

I’ll close with a memory from my high school days, after I had realized my dream of becoming a majorette for Woodlawn High School. Our football team happened to play in the annual game that raised money for the Crippled Children’s Hospital, and I was able to perform in that game at halftime. I was able to march on that field, using my two legs and two arms and holding my head high.

And I did it for a sport and a cause that built my hospital and saved my life.

Amazing.

Around the same time, The Birmingham News featured me on the cover of its Sunday magazine. The headline was “Cinderella Story.”

Yes, it has been a Cinderella story as far as I can see it. That’s what it has been to me.

The lesson: Everything ends well.

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