Earlier today I received news that hit like a punch to the gut: Olivia Raye Wrenn passed away unexpectedly on Dec. 22 at the age of 30.
I don't want to make it sound like I was a close friend of the family. But something just grabbed me when I wrote about her story back in April of 2020. She, her mother and family just came off right away as special people. You just can't fake that. So even though I didn't keep in great touch there was still this warmth there from the experience that's hard to explain.
I asked her mother Giselle if I could celebrate her today, the eve of her 31st birthday. She said she'd love nothing more.
So here was my attempt back in 2020 at trying to do justice to the positively delightful story of Olivia and Dabo:
Picture the mother of a special-needs child rushing into the Clemson Bi-Lo to grab some coffee creamer and seeing Dabo Swinney in the check-out line, picking up a Valentine's Day card for his wife Kathleen.
Picture the mother thanking Swinney for a football he has recently signed and sent to her daughter Olivia. Picture Swinney telling the mother to tell Olivia, who is waiting outside in the car, that he's glad she's doing better after having gone through some tough times recently.
Now picture the mother, Giselle Wrenn, back in the car and pulling out of the parking space and telling Olivia she wouldn't believe who she just saw in that Bi-Lo.
Now picture, as the car is pulling away, seeing Clemson’s head football coach running alongside that Chevy Tahoe and screaming.
OLIVIA!!! YOU'RE MY GIRL! I LOVE YOU! HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!
"We both started crying," Giselle says now, seven years later. "I was crying so hard that I had to turn my head away from him. I was asking myself: 'Who does this? Who does this? We're nobody.'"
Olivia Wrenn was somebody to Swinney the first moment he laid eyes on her years earlier. She was 15 years old and headed for a full spinal-fusion surgery to correct severe scoliosis. Her grandfather wrote to Swinney's secretary, informed her of the situation and asked if Swinney might be able to spend a few minutes visiting with her to offer some encouragement.
This was March of 2009, and Swinney had just begun his first spring practice as Clemson's head coach. He told his secretary to tell the family to come on up from Mount Pleasant and they would visit. Giselle figured they'd get a quick greeting and maybe a picture before Swinney rushed off to practice.
"He comes barreling around the corner and looks at Olivia in her wheelchair and just starts engaging," Giselle said. "Some people are intimidated by her because she doesn't speak that well."
Over 45 minutes in the McFadden Building that day, Olivia told Swinney what type of surgery she was having. Swinney related the story of his mother, who as a child battled polio, scoliosis and endured two spinal-fusion surgeries.
The moment was already beyond surreal to Giselle, a 1983 Clemson grad and hardcore fan whose two other daughters graduated from Clemson.
But then Swinney said something that left her speechless.
"There is something about your daughter," he told her. "She just has a light about her, doesn't she?"
No one had ever said that to her about Olivia. And now Clemson's football coach was saying it. With conviction.
Olivia was born in January of 1994 and spent the first week of her life in the NICU at MUSC in Charleston. She had no muscle tone, and her body could be twisted into any way imaginable. Physical therapists said she was like a wet dish rag.
Doctors predicted Olivia would never walk or talk. Over the first eight years of her life she was hospitalized regularly for various surgeries on her pelvis, her hips and her ankles. At one point she was fed with a tube through her stomach.
Over the years, extensive DNA mapping and genetic testing have not conclusively revealed a specific syndrome.
"There's no road map for Olivia as far as trying to predict her future," her mother says. "No one thought she'd be alive this long at the beginning."
Olivia's father is Ray Wrenn, who played on the 1981 national championship team. Giselle and Ray are divorced, but Ray has been very much present and was there that day when Olivia and Swinney were introduced.
Swinney asked Olivia if she had any plans for the rest of the day and wondered if she'd like to come watch practice. When it was over, Swinney introduced her to the team and told everyone what she was facing.
"Never take your good health and life for granted," he told his players that day.
Months earlier, after he took over as head coach in 2008, Swinney immediately instituted the Tiger Walk as a pregame ritual that would establish a closer connection with the fans.
Giselle's family has always tailgated at the McFadden Building, a short walk to where the buses stop on Perimeter Road two hours before games. So after Olivia's surgery that April, as they were going through the long and trying days of rehab, they didn't have time to write Swinney a thank-you note. But they did resolve that they were going to start going to Tiger Walk, to get a glimpse of the coach as he walked by.
So they did when Middle Tennessee State came to town to open the 2009 season. And here came Swinney off that first bus, immediately recognizing Olivia and her mother and remembering their names.
The next game, they were in that same spot. And here came Dabo to that same spot. It has happened before every home game ever since, as the state troopers assigned to Swinney know to clear the way to Olivia.
The girl in the wheelchair is a part of his pregame ritual, same as his habit of kissing that rock and pointing to the sky a few moments before every kickoff at Death Valley.
"It's not just that he stops to talk to her," her mother said. "It's that he always says something different: One time he brought her an All-In chip. Another time he'll flash the inside of his jacket and show her the Tiger paw inside. If it's the first game of the season, he'll say he missed her. Before the Notre Dame game in 2015, he told her to stay dry because the team was going to need her support."
In that same 2009 season, things began to sour quickly for the football team. The Tigers suffered an ugly loss at Maryland to fall to 2-3, and it seemed evident that this bold idea to promote a receivers coach might blow up in Clemson's face.
Giselle wrote Swinney a letter after that Maryland loss, telling him she believed in him and that valuable lessons can come from both the highest of hills and the lowest of valleys. Oh, and she also thanked him for that visit in his office the previous spring.
A few weeks later, Swinney sent a letter back thanking her for the note and telling her better days were ahead.
"We are working to make Clemson a champion again, and I am glad that you and Olivia are ALL IN with us," he wrote.
Giselle, now: "This man sends thank-you notes in response to thank-you notes. You send him a note trying to lift him up, and he ends up sending one back lifting you up more."
In 2015, Olivia graduated from the special-needs program at Wando High School. Swinney, who was made aware of the occasion, went to the rock at Memorial Stadium and recorded a video message.
He told her that, just like the rock, she was very special as well. He brought up that light he noticed the first day he met her six years earlier.
"Everyone that knows you and is around you, they all see that great light through you," he said to her.
That night, they had a party for Olivia at the house in Mount Pleasant. The room of 40-plus people was silent when the video started and they saw Swinney standing atop the hill and talking to the girl in the wheelchair.
"We were all shaking," Giselle says now. "Gamecock fans were in my house dripping tears. It still gives me goosebumps."
Year after year of the Tiger Walk tradition has given Olivia profile, and with that strength. Her mother has resolved that she's just going to follow her daughter's wheelchair wherever it goes, because it seems uplifting and out-of-body things happen whenever they're around Clemson and in Swinney's general orbit.
It could mean Nuk Hopkins, back in Clemson for a home game in recent years, noticing them from afar in the parking lot and pulling away from a cluster of autograph seekers just to catch up and ask how Olivia is doing.
It could mean Tajh Boyd, after spotting them at a local pizza establishment, sitting down at their table just to talk about life.
It could mean Brent Venables and other players practicing their own tradition of visiting with Olivia on the way from the buses to the stadium on game days.
It could mean, after Giselle rented a car and drove Olivia to Arizona for the 2016 CFP semifinal against Ohio State, Hunter Renfrow's father spotting them outside the stadium waiting for the doors to open and asking if they wanted to lock hands and participate in a pre-game prayer with a group of players' parents.
Giselle believes this is all trickle-down magic from the grace and genuine interest the head coach has shown in her daughter.
"It's just the culture," she said. "We feel seen. We feel acknowledged. He just spreads that positivity to my whole family.
"My goodness. Does Dabo's life ever stop giving back to us? It just seems like it's never ending."
It includes that Valentine's Day seven years ago, when Giselle rushed in to get that coffee creamer and ran into Swinney.
Surely some people in that Bi-Lo parking lot walked away wondering why in the heck Clemson's football coach was running alongside a car and telling someone named Olivia he loved her.
Maybe he was telling the rest of the world that Olivia Wrenn was somebody.
I don't want to make it sound like I was a close friend of the family. But something just grabbed me when I wrote about her story back in April of 2020. She, her mother and family just came off right away as special people. You just can't fake that. So even though I didn't keep in great touch there was still this warmth there from the experience that's hard to explain.
I asked her mother Giselle if I could celebrate her today, the eve of her 31st birthday. She said she'd love nothing more.
So here was my attempt back in 2020 at trying to do justice to the positively delightful story of Olivia and Dabo:
Picture the mother of a special-needs child rushing into the Clemson Bi-Lo to grab some coffee creamer and seeing Dabo Swinney in the check-out line, picking up a Valentine's Day card for his wife Kathleen.
Picture the mother thanking Swinney for a football he has recently signed and sent to her daughter Olivia. Picture Swinney telling the mother to tell Olivia, who is waiting outside in the car, that he's glad she's doing better after having gone through some tough times recently.
Now picture the mother, Giselle Wrenn, back in the car and pulling out of the parking space and telling Olivia she wouldn't believe who she just saw in that Bi-Lo.
Now picture, as the car is pulling away, seeing Clemson’s head football coach running alongside that Chevy Tahoe and screaming.
OLIVIA!!! YOU'RE MY GIRL! I LOVE YOU! HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!
"We both started crying," Giselle says now, seven years later. "I was crying so hard that I had to turn my head away from him. I was asking myself: 'Who does this? Who does this? We're nobody.'"
Olivia Wrenn was somebody to Swinney the first moment he laid eyes on her years earlier. She was 15 years old and headed for a full spinal-fusion surgery to correct severe scoliosis. Her grandfather wrote to Swinney's secretary, informed her of the situation and asked if Swinney might be able to spend a few minutes visiting with her to offer some encouragement.
This was March of 2009, and Swinney had just begun his first spring practice as Clemson's head coach. He told his secretary to tell the family to come on up from Mount Pleasant and they would visit. Giselle figured they'd get a quick greeting and maybe a picture before Swinney rushed off to practice.
"He comes barreling around the corner and looks at Olivia in her wheelchair and just starts engaging," Giselle said. "Some people are intimidated by her because she doesn't speak that well."
Over 45 minutes in the McFadden Building that day, Olivia told Swinney what type of surgery she was having. Swinney related the story of his mother, who as a child battled polio, scoliosis and endured two spinal-fusion surgeries.
The moment was already beyond surreal to Giselle, a 1983 Clemson grad and hardcore fan whose two other daughters graduated from Clemson.
But then Swinney said something that left her speechless.
"There is something about your daughter," he told her. "She just has a light about her, doesn't she?"
No one had ever said that to her about Olivia. And now Clemson's football coach was saying it. With conviction.
Olivia was born in January of 1994 and spent the first week of her life in the NICU at MUSC in Charleston. She had no muscle tone, and her body could be twisted into any way imaginable. Physical therapists said she was like a wet dish rag.
Doctors predicted Olivia would never walk or talk. Over the first eight years of her life she was hospitalized regularly for various surgeries on her pelvis, her hips and her ankles. At one point she was fed with a tube through her stomach.
Over the years, extensive DNA mapping and genetic testing have not conclusively revealed a specific syndrome.
"There's no road map for Olivia as far as trying to predict her future," her mother says. "No one thought she'd be alive this long at the beginning."
Olivia's father is Ray Wrenn, who played on the 1981 national championship team. Giselle and Ray are divorced, but Ray has been very much present and was there that day when Olivia and Swinney were introduced.
Swinney asked Olivia if she had any plans for the rest of the day and wondered if she'd like to come watch practice. When it was over, Swinney introduced her to the team and told everyone what she was facing.
"Never take your good health and life for granted," he told his players that day.
Months earlier, after he took over as head coach in 2008, Swinney immediately instituted the Tiger Walk as a pregame ritual that would establish a closer connection with the fans.
Giselle's family has always tailgated at the McFadden Building, a short walk to where the buses stop on Perimeter Road two hours before games. So after Olivia's surgery that April, as they were going through the long and trying days of rehab, they didn't have time to write Swinney a thank-you note. But they did resolve that they were going to start going to Tiger Walk, to get a glimpse of the coach as he walked by.
So they did when Middle Tennessee State came to town to open the 2009 season. And here came Swinney off that first bus, immediately recognizing Olivia and her mother and remembering their names.
The next game, they were in that same spot. And here came Dabo to that same spot. It has happened before every home game ever since, as the state troopers assigned to Swinney know to clear the way to Olivia.
The girl in the wheelchair is a part of his pregame ritual, same as his habit of kissing that rock and pointing to the sky a few moments before every kickoff at Death Valley.
"It's not just that he stops to talk to her," her mother said. "It's that he always says something different: One time he brought her an All-In chip. Another time he'll flash the inside of his jacket and show her the Tiger paw inside. If it's the first game of the season, he'll say he missed her. Before the Notre Dame game in 2015, he told her to stay dry because the team was going to need her support."
In that same 2009 season, things began to sour quickly for the football team. The Tigers suffered an ugly loss at Maryland to fall to 2-3, and it seemed evident that this bold idea to promote a receivers coach might blow up in Clemson's face.
Giselle wrote Swinney a letter after that Maryland loss, telling him she believed in him and that valuable lessons can come from both the highest of hills and the lowest of valleys. Oh, and she also thanked him for that visit in his office the previous spring.
A few weeks later, Swinney sent a letter back thanking her for the note and telling her better days were ahead.
"We are working to make Clemson a champion again, and I am glad that you and Olivia are ALL IN with us," he wrote.
Giselle, now: "This man sends thank-you notes in response to thank-you notes. You send him a note trying to lift him up, and he ends up sending one back lifting you up more."
In 2015, Olivia graduated from the special-needs program at Wando High School. Swinney, who was made aware of the occasion, went to the rock at Memorial Stadium and recorded a video message.
He told her that, just like the rock, she was very special as well. He brought up that light he noticed the first day he met her six years earlier.
"Everyone that knows you and is around you, they all see that great light through you," he said to her.
That night, they had a party for Olivia at the house in Mount Pleasant. The room of 40-plus people was silent when the video started and they saw Swinney standing atop the hill and talking to the girl in the wheelchair.
"We were all shaking," Giselle says now. "Gamecock fans were in my house dripping tears. It still gives me goosebumps."
Year after year of the Tiger Walk tradition has given Olivia profile, and with that strength. Her mother has resolved that she's just going to follow her daughter's wheelchair wherever it goes, because it seems uplifting and out-of-body things happen whenever they're around Clemson and in Swinney's general orbit.
It could mean Nuk Hopkins, back in Clemson for a home game in recent years, noticing them from afar in the parking lot and pulling away from a cluster of autograph seekers just to catch up and ask how Olivia is doing.
It could mean Tajh Boyd, after spotting them at a local pizza establishment, sitting down at their table just to talk about life.
It could mean Brent Venables and other players practicing their own tradition of visiting with Olivia on the way from the buses to the stadium on game days.
It could mean, after Giselle rented a car and drove Olivia to Arizona for the 2016 CFP semifinal against Ohio State, Hunter Renfrow's father spotting them outside the stadium waiting for the doors to open and asking if they wanted to lock hands and participate in a pre-game prayer with a group of players' parents.
Giselle believes this is all trickle-down magic from the grace and genuine interest the head coach has shown in her daughter.
"It's just the culture," she said. "We feel seen. We feel acknowledged. He just spreads that positivity to my whole family.
"My goodness. Does Dabo's life ever stop giving back to us? It just seems like it's never ending."
It includes that Valentine's Day seven years ago, when Giselle rushed in to get that coffee creamer and ran into Swinney.
Surely some people in that Bi-Lo parking lot walked away wondering why in the heck Clemson's football coach was running alongside a car and telling someone named Olivia he loved her.
Maybe he was telling the rest of the world that Olivia Wrenn was somebody.
Last edited:
