When he was an inspiring coach at Virginia Tech in the early to mid-1970s, Terry Don Phillips made his first trip to Clemson as a graduate assistant coach. He was assigned to come to Clemson to scout both the Tigers and Virginia, two opponents on the Hokies’ schedule.
At the time Clemson was not what we know Clemson to be today. The Tigers had not been relevant nationally on the football field in quite some time. The program had not been to a bowl game since 1959 and after winning its last ACC Championship in 1967, it struggled to compete as Clemson recorded eight losing seasons in nine years.
So, when Phillips came to Clemson for his first ever experience, he expected to see two bad teams, which he did. However, what he did not expect was to see Memorial Stadium filled to capacity.
“I could not believe what I was seeing,” he said. “There was not an empty seat in the house. The place was packed, and they were there watching two bad teams. Every inch of the place was filled with orange. I had not seen anything like it. It was amazing.
“I knew then how passionate Clemson fans were about their program. That was not a good team, but they were there. They showed up. That stuck with me. From that point on, I knew if I was given the opportunity, and the timing was right, I wanted to coach at Clemson.”
A few years later, Phillips was given that opportunity when Charlie Pell asked him to come down from Virginia Tech and join his coaching staff at Clemson. Unfortunately, the timing was not right as Phillips was finishing up his doctorate degree.
However, Phillips still played a role in the Tigers’ turnaround under Pell. Phillips was good friends with a guy named Danny Ford, a talented up-and-coming assistant coach, who coached the offensive line at Virginia Tech. Pell asked Phillips to talk to Ford on his behalf. As we all know, the rest is history.
Ford helped Pell’s two teams at Clemson post an 18-4-1 record from 1977-’78. It ended the Tigers’ long span of losing and ushered in a new era of Clemson football.
Ford became the head coach at Clemson prior to the 1978 Gator Bowl after Pell left for Florida. Three years later, the Tigers’ won the 1981 National Championship and Clemson Football changed forever.
Fast forward to 2002 and Phillips got a second chance to come to Clemson, however, not as a coach, but as its athletic director. This time, the timing was right as Phillips left Oklahoma State to take over at Clemson.
Six years later, Phillips found himself sitting in the board room at Clemson watching an inspiring head coach give a presentation to the board of trustees to be Clemson’s next head football coach. That guy was Dabo Swinney.
During his presentation, Swinney was asked by one of the trustees what his plan was and if he could make Clemson more like Georgia, Florida, Texas and Ohio State, teams that were winning at a high level at the time.
Swinney said no. He said Clemson needs to be Clemson.
“I thought it was very good,” Phillips recalled. “I thought it was a very good presentation because we are Clemson. Clemson has a very good history in football. It is not like Clemson had a drought for its entire line.
“I came from another part of the country and I can tell you Clemson is a well-respected program, and it has been for a long time. It predates Dabo, me and anybody else. It is not like it is a program that does not hold respect outside our area. Clemson is very well respected.”
The board of trustees liked Swinney’s answer, too. Like Phillips, they too supported Swinney and his vision to make Clemson nationally relevant once again. They just needed to give him the time, which they did.
Ten years, two national championships and 116 wins later, Clemson is on top of the college football mountain, and Swinney did it by making Clemson shine as Clemson.
It’s been nearly 45 years since Phillips made his first trip to Clemson and in his opinion, Clemson is still the same great place today that it was then.
“We just need to be Clemson. And Dabo recognized that,” he said. “We don’t need to be anybody else. This is an outstanding university and it has a great history, in particular with its military history. It is not like no one has never heard of Clemson. It is a well-respected university nationally and its football program … Clemson has not been operating in a vacuum. We have had some really good teams and some great players through the years.”
Move over Alabama, Clemson is the new King of College Football. In our new magazine “Little Ole Clemson”: The Best “Little” Dynasty Ever, we examine not just the 2018 team’s run to being “the best ever” but examine the last four seasons and how Dabo Swinney turned Clemson into the new dynasty of college football. We also take a look at the role former athletic director Terry Don Phillips played. We go behind the scenes at the Tigers’ run to a second national championship in three seasons and the previous three national championship runs. It also features stories on the Power Rangers, the 2018 senior class, high quality photos and much, much more.
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