Clemson coach Dabo Swinney will not take live calls from fans on his weekly radio show in 2024, The State’s Chapel Fowler confirmed on Monday.
Instead, fans will now submit questions to Swinney via text and email that the coach can answer. The first airing of the new “Tiger Sports Hour with Dabo Swinney” will air Monday at 8 p.m. ET on the Clemson Athletic Network.
The decision follows a terse exchange last October between Swinney and a radio caller (“Tyler from Spartanburg”) who questioned why Swinney was earning more than $11 million a year in salary. The Tigers were 4-4 at the time and had just lost to NC State.
“You make $11.5 million a year. That’s second in college football if I’m not mistaken. I’m curious why that salary has led to a 4-4 record,” Tyler said before going on to add, “After that 2018 national title, something changed. There seems to be a lot of arrogance that came in. There’s a lot of friends and family. Three of the 10 on-the-field football coaches are external, experienced hires. Everyone else was an internal hire that had no experience before or was a former player or friend. So, I’m curious, why are we paying you $11.5 million to go 4-4? And it’s not just this year. It’s just been the refusal to accept…”
Swinney jumped in to cut off “Tyler” and proceeded to go on a fiery, minutes-long tirade.
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“I’ve listened to enough of you, Tyler. You can have all your opinions all you want. I don’t know how old you are, don’t really care. But let me tell you something, we won 11 games last year. And you’re part of the problem, to be honest with you. Because that is part of the problem. It’s people like you, that all you do… the expectation is greater than the appreciation. And that’s the problem.”
Swinney went on to refer to the caller as “some smart-ass kid.”
“I used to tell people all the time. They’d say, ‘What’s the difference in Clemson?’ Let me tell you. At some places, there’s an expectation, but at Clemson, there’s an appreciation. And what’s happened at Clemson is, we’ve won so much that even when we used to be ‘the fun in the winning,’ now even when you win, people like you complain and criticize the coaches and question everything. People like you,” Swinney said to the caller.
“When I hired Tony Elliott to be the offensive coordinator, who never called a play in his life. I’m sure you were critical then. All right, and he took us to two national championships. People like you, who just love to destroy people with your comments. All right, I’m sure you’ve never made any bad decisions. I’m sure you’ve lived a perfect life. I’m sure you’ve led a bunch of people. I’m sure you do your job.
“So to answer your question, I started as the lowest-paid coach in this frickin’ business. All right, and I’m where I am because I’ve worked my ass off every single day. And I ain’t gotta let some smart-ass kid get on this phone and create this stuff.”
Following the exchange, Clemson won its last five games of the season to finish 9-4 overall.
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