There are a number of great college football coaches I would want my son, if I had one, to play for. Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, Kirby Smart, Mark Richt and Gus Malzahn just to name a few. But if I had to pick one it would be Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney.
Recently, Coach Swinney appeared on Molly Fletcher’s fantastic Game Changers podcast. As I listened to their incredible one-hour discussion, I was reminded why this was a man I would want influencing my son for four years.
The following are 34 Reasons I Would Want My Son To Play For Clemson Head Coach Dabo Swinney I gleaned from his interview with Molly Fletcher:
- Coach Swinney Would Serve My Son’s Heart – “The core philosophy of our program is serve their heart, not their talent. This is why I got into coaching and what my priorities should be each and every day.”
- Coach Swinney Serves His Staff – “My role is to love and serve my staff.”
- Coach Swinney Would Have A Relationship With My Son – “To serve someone’s heart you have to have a relationship with you. You have to be connected to them.”
- Coach Swinney Would Help Me Teach My Son To Bloom Where He Is Planted – “Bloom where you’re planted.”
- Coach Swinney Would Make My Son’s Development A Priority – “If we focus on the inside, we’ll bloom on the outside… So many companies focus so much on the customers, they don’t do a good caring for their staff or employees… If you do a great job with your employees, they’ll do a great job with the employees.”
- Coach Swinney Would Would Help Me Remind My Son To Love And Respect Others – “They’ll be a lot of great moments in our life but we’re defined by how we live between those moments. It’s who we are on that journey, how we love and respect other people.”
- Coach Swinney Would Properly Frame Failure – “Sometimes some of your greatest moments are when you fail.”
- Coach Swinney Loves Jesus Christ – “February 3, 1986 was the biggest (moment in my life) because that’s when I was saved.”
- Coach Swinney Would Help Me Teach My Son To Dream Beyond His Current Circumstances – “God never said, Oops.’ .. As a person of faith God is going to give me a hope and peace to dream beyond my circumstances.”
- Coach Swinney Would Help Me Teach My Son To Think The Right Way – “That’s a powerful thing when a young person begins thinking the right way.”
- Coach Swinney Has Clarity For His Own Life – “Coaching gave me clarity for my life and turned my liability into my greatest asset.”
- Coach Swinney Is Always Looking Ahead – “We’ve got have a windshield mentality… It’s all about what’s next.”
- Coach Swinney Would Help My Son Prepare For His Future Opportunities – “You’ve to prepare for your opportunity.”
- Coach Swinney Has Unique Relational Abilities – “God has given me a unique ability to connect, to challenge, to discipline, to nurture, to serve, to love and have unique relationships with those that I’m around.”
- Coach Swinney Loves God And Loves People – “God was going to put me in some kind of profession where I was going to be around people on a daily basis.”
- Coach Swinney Is Consistent – “Sometimes you have to be willing to have tough, consistent discipline to have a consistent culture.”
- Coach Swinney Would Teach My Son Focus On The Bigger Picture – “The true art of coaching is finding how to connect and finding how to motivate that individual picture to buy into a bigger picture of a team.”
- Coach Swinney Would Meet My Son Where He Is – “They don’t all develop the same. They’re all different. You’ve got to meet them where they are.”
- Coach Swinney Would Teach My Son Do Little Things Better Than Anyone Else – “It’s doing the little things better than anyone else.”
- Coach Swinney Would Put My Son In Position To Command The Attention Of The World – “When you do the common things in an uncommon way you will command the attention of the world.” – George Washington Carver
- Coach Swinney Would Allow My Son The Opportunity To Do Big Things – “Little things lead to big things.”
- Coach Swinney Would Give My Son Everything Known To Man To Be Successful – “We give you everything known to man to make you successful. We give you a great place to live. We give you training. We give you great food. We give you great coaching. We give you strength and conditioning. We give you education. We give you scholarships. We give you all these things. I can’t give you guts. I can’t give you heart… You’ve got to bring that yourself. That’s on you.”
- Coach Swinney Would Give My Son The Opportunity To Finish With No Regrets – “Let’s just finish with no regrets.”
- Coach Swinney Would Help Me Build Pride Into My Son – “It’s one thing to think you’re good enough. It’s another thing to know you are.”
- Coach Swinney Would Make My Son Better – “The great ones make everyone better. The great ones make everybody calmer.”
- Coach Swinney Would Work With God To Develop My Son – “Failure doesn’t have to define you. A lot of people when they have failure or adversity in life it either destroys you or define you. With God, He’ll use that failure to develop you.”
- Coach Swinney Would Give My Son Feedback On Where He Is At – “Our goals are the same every year as far as our team goals. We do do goals with them individually to tell them where they are.”
- Coach Swinney Focuses On Daily Commitment More Than Goals – “Goals are great if it’s the daily commitment that matters the most.”
- Coach Swinney Will Not De-Recruit My Son – “I hate the term ‘de-recruit’. If I have to de-recruit it means I wasn’t genuine upfront.”
- Coach Swinney Loves His Players – “The key to coaching is love.”
- Coach Swinney Will Always Love His Players – “There might be some things I don’t like but I’ll always love you.”
- Coach Swinney Will Help Me Teach My Son Humility And Discipline – “Guys trying to create their own uniform. That’s one of my pet peeves.”
- Coach Swinney Puts Family First – “No job is worth your family.”
- Coach Swinney Will Help Me Teach My Son How To Manage Money – “Make sure you manage your money because it’s (coaching) a volatile profession.”
Who would you want to coach your son or daughter and why?
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