There are better times for Dabo Swinney to divert his focus from football. This is Notre Dame week, in case you haven't heard.
But some things are far more important than what seems like the most important thing in the world. So Swinney, with his wife Kathleen, have made a strong and heartfelt effort to fight breast cancer. Kathleen lost her sister to cancer two years ago, so it's something that's very personal and emotional to them.
We'll lead today's blog with a transcript from yesterday's proceedings. And for more information, you can click on the official release here.
COACH SWINNEY: All right. Welcome to the party. Good to be with you all today. Just before we kind of get into the game here, just some comments.
Obviously, we want to thank everyone for being here today. Thursday is October 1st, as most of you all are aware, and it's the start of national Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As you all are all pretty much aware, you local folks around here, that's something that's really something that Kathleen and I are very passionate about and near and dear to our heart.
And Kath and I want to thank Clemson University, first of all, for the support that they give us and what we're trying to do. Coke and OOBE and St. Francis, Southern Fried Cotton, and the Tiger Sports Shop for partnering up with us in this cause.
With us today are Mike Pereyo and Tom Merritt from OOBE. I think they're responsible for my nice shirt here today. Appreciate them. Erik Whaley from St. Francis right here, and Dan and Marcy Radakovic who I think they don't need an introduction. You all know who they are. Appreciate their support.
Miss Beth Clements, the first lady of Clemson University here. We always appreciate her support. We appreciate Chris Bandy and Southern Fried Cotton. I'm not sure if Chris is here today. But they've been a great partner, and Julie Ibrahim, who I think all of you know with the Tiger Sports Shop and the athletic department and all the other things that she's involved with, but really great to have her support as well.
Just a little update on where we are with our foundation. To date we have pledged and given a little over $1.7 million, and we've had over $280,000-plus of that, just strictly to breast cancer research.
In 2016, we're going to exceed well over $2 million. So the proceeds from what we're going to be talking about, which is all the merchandise sales that will be going on through the month of October is going to benefit our foundation and our continued fight to really just try to find a cure.
I'm watching the news last night and they're telling us that there's water on Mars, and that we've somehow now we can go to Mars, and if we can go to Mars and we can do all these things, then I know we can find a cure for breast cancer. So just appreciate everyone being here today and all the fine samples that we have. I'm going to turn it over to the real star of the show, and that's Kathleen.
KATHLEEN SWINNEY: Thank y'all. I'm happy to be here. I was just going to get a little information. The pins that you see us all wearing, that is, again this year, our custom design, 2015 Tiger Paw Breast Cancer Awareness pin, and they are going to be sold at all the retailers press release, and they're also going to be sold starting today at ClemsonTigers.com, and they're going to be available at the stadium for all the three October home games.
So we've always had a big hit with these every year, so it would be great if everybody could go out and buy one. They're still $5, and the proceeds benefit breast cancer research.
And again, we're also -- we have a lot of great people standing up here. We have partnered with a lot of corporate sponsors, and now Julie at the Tiger Sports Shop is going to be selling OOBE merchandise this year, and if you see all of our models here, we have men's attire and women's attire. Look how good Dan looks in that OOBE shirt, and the ladies. We have the pullovers, and we have a lot of great looking stuff, so that will be available this month at the Tiger Sports Shop.
So we thank Tom and Mike and Julie for all those OOBE clothes. So hopefully the fans will get out there and get some of those clothes. Also our friends at Southern Fried Cotton have come up with this shirt for breast cancer awareness. And they'll be sold starting today at Southern Fried Cotton. Part of the proceeds will go to the All-In Foundation and those proceeds will go to pay for women's mammograms who can't afford them.
They can get the mammograms on the St. Francis mobile mammography bus. And I think Chris told me for every 15 shirts that they sell, that will pay for one woman's mammogram, so that's really important because they run about $150, and women, that's not something you're going to go spend money on, especially if you don't have insurance. That's just a lot of money. So thanks to St. Francis, they have a pink bus.
Probably a lot of you all are familiar with that, and they go around to Anderson County, Pickens and Greenville counties, and they give mammograms to women who are underinsured or uninsured. So it's really, I think Erik was saying today, this year there are six women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer who got their mammogram on that bus who otherwise would probably not have gotten one and would not be getting the treatment they need.
So all of these proceeds are going to help us. So I hope y'all will go out and buy the pins and the shirts, and all the nice wear for your husband's or for Christmas or whatever.
One other exciting thing. Our foundation has sponsored or we have partnered with Clemson Bioengineering department, and they are working on putting, I think y'all have heard us discuss this before -- they're working on putting an anti-cancer agent in when a woman has a mastectomy into the reconstruction, an agent that would emit like an anti-cancer drug throughout her life. So they're on the breaking edge of this project, and it's right here at Clemson University.
So our foundation is committed right now to $50,000 for their two-year grant. And hopefully in the future we can give more so Brian Booth and his friends over here right on campus are working on breast cancer research right here at Clemson for those of you who didn't know it.
So we're very excited about that, and I think with that, y'all probably want to hear Dabo speak. So thank you.
COACH SWINNEY: We appreciate y'all indulging us with that. I know this is a big game and all that type of stuff, but there are so many bigger things out there than a football game. We've been impacted just like many of you and many of the people watching with this horrible disease, so hopefully we can continue to create some awareness throughout the year, not just the month of October, but obviously the month of October is the time that we want to really step it up, if you will, and participate.
The only other thing I would say along those lines is I got a letter yesterday from Russell Wilson. I think everybody knows Russell Wilson, and he has a foundation called Why Not You Foundation, and basically October is also domestic violence month, and he's kind of challenged everyone to pass the peace I think is his initiative or movement that he is part of.
So certainly accept that challenge in trying to do our part in creating awareness for another really bad thing out there in our society. So with that, I'm going to move on and get into this ballgame here. So won't make y'all stand the whole time. So appreciate y'all being here and being part of this. Thank you.
A few Wednesday links:
-- Manie Robinson and Bart Boatwright of The Greenville News debut The Dabo Swinney Variety Show.
Fantastic stuff.
Hey, this thought just occurred: Is Deshaun Watson disgruntled with Dabo saying he can't even get him tickets?
Here, you can see New Yorkers lining up for scaffolding jobs after hearing Dabo's take on the industry:
-- Just a fantastic read from Andy Staples on life lessons learned by Jeff Scott and Tony Elliott.
Wow on this recollection from Scott:
I've been around this my whole life. I understand what the graduate assistants' jobs are. But you remember the old saying about dressing for the job that you want instead of the job that you have? I show up with dress shoes on, a nice pair of khaki pants, a dress shirt. I'm fired up, ready to go. Mike Dooley, who is now one of our football operations directors, was the other graduate assistant. We shared an office.
The back of the bookcase probably had 75 notebooks from the last 10 years. It's day one, I'm going to clean up this office. I'm going to take all the notebooks we don't use and throw them away. We're going to have a clean start on day one. So I spent that morning throwing away 75 binders. I come back from lunch and Vic Koenning, the defensive coordinator, walks in. He says, 'Hey, I need that playbook we have back there in the GA office. It's the only one we have. It's very important. I need you to go back and get that for me.' I knew I'd thrown all of them away. I threw them in the big dumpster out behind the football offices.
So, my one hope on my very first day is they have not thrown out the trash. I go out there, and luckily—some would say unluckily—they had not emptied the trash. It's one of these big dumpsters that you can't reach into. You literally have to get into it. It's me and Mike Dooley. We looked at each other for about three or four minutes. I figured out that I'm going to have to get in this dumpster to get this binder out. In all my dress clothes, I go dumpster diving. Of course, the very last one in the bottom of the dumpster is the playbook he was wanting.
It was really a great reminder for me that you can't be afraid to get dirty and do the type of work no one else wants to do. Also, you're going to screw up, and you'd better figure out how to fix it. I was not going back to coach Koenning without that notebook.
-- Gene Sapakoff says Deshaun Watson hasn't faced a great defense yet.
Watson, hampered by injuries last year, has played in only six full games at Clemson — three in 2014 and three this season.
He is 6-0 in those games, and winning matters most.
But two of the programs he beat in 2014 — North Carolina and South Carolina — were so bad on defense, they hired new defensive coordinators.
This year, Watson beat Wofford, an FCS team, Appalachian State, a semi-FCS team, and didn’t look very good against a Louisville team coming off a loss to Houston.
Watson was 21 of 30 passing for 199 yards in the 20-17 victory over the Cardinals with two touchdown passes and two interceptions, plus 54 yards rushing on 12 carries.
That’s fine for most players, just not Heisman-worthy.
Watson had some nice numbers at Florida State last year (19 of 28 passing for 266 yards, 30 yards rushing and a touchdown) when he came in early for ineffective Cole Stoudt. Still, Clemson lost, 23-17. The Seminoles didn’t have Jameis Winston at quarterback that night and finished 77th in the nation in total defense.
Not surprisingly, no one in the Clemson football building seems ready to panic.
“It’s a little bit unfair to a young man that he gets so much pressure put on him from outside sources,” Clemson play-caller Tony Elliott said. “But here internally, he’s Superman. That’s Deshaun Watson. He’s the same Deshaun we see out on the practice field. The biggest thing is just him getting back in his groove to make the impossible play. But he’s making all the routine plays we need him to make.”
-- We close with a version of "On Your Way Down," by Allen Toussaint, that's just dripping with swampy New Orleans funk:
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