Following college sports as a kid, I'd be like: Clemson. Where the hell is Clemson? By learning sports rivalries, you learn the regions and the culture of a state.
I remember when I was coaching down at Florida, we would always lose kids in recruiting battles to Clemson. I would tell my coaches that we shouldn't be losing kids to Clemson. Charlie Strong responded ‘coach have you ever actually been to Clemson?’ I hadn’t but I’ll tell you what, I’ve been here now and I get it. This is an exceptional, special place.
I'm not trying to be like everybody else. I want to be Clemson, and Clemson's not for everybody.
As long as I've been at Clemson, there's not a guy that's more committed to Clemson than Kelly Bryant. There's not a better leader. This guy, he's the epitome of what you want. He's what you want your son to be like. I love him like a son.
You may not have any interest in Clemson whatsoever, but if Clemson calls, and they want to pay for you to come, and feed you and put you in a hotel, well, who doesn't want to go do that? Sign me up. Let's go, man.
I want guys that are sincerely interested in coming to Clemson. I don't need any practice recruiting, and I don't like wasting time. I want to be transparent, and I want prospects to be transparent, and if they're really interested in Clemson, then they're going to come here unofficially on their own.
South Carolina is one of the most racist states in America. John C. Calhoun is the name of a building at our school and he was a slave owner. Clemson, the name Clemson itself, was like a guy who was a slave owner. South Carolina, their whole history is messed up.
I could never be a sports writer, unless my assignment was to write 'sports sports sports sports sports' for three pages.
When Clemson players rub that rock and run down the hill, it's the most exciting 25 seconds in college football.
I'm not knocking the other sports; I love other sports. There's a competitive and a technical level of them that I won't understand, probably, to a certain extent, but I've done a lot of other sports competing on college teams, and there's just nothing like fighting.
To convert college sports into professional sports would be tantamount to converting it into minor league sports. And we know that in the U.S., minor league sports aren’t very successful either for fan support or for the fan experience.
I like sports. I'm a big football fan. When I was a kid, I was a... I don't even know how to describe it... I was an obsessed Brooklyn Dodgers fan. And I think when they left Brooklyn, which was simultaneous with me starting college, everything changed, and I haven't had the same passion for sports.
It's great to learn more about sports I'm probably less familiar with - stock car racing, rodeo, e-sports - and realize that a lot of the people at the center of those sports bring the same level of passion, commitment and disciple that I try to with football. Sports is a way of life for billions of people around the planet.
I was a creative kid; I wasn't really into sports, and sports in the South are a pretty big deal. It's like a religion down there.
The last few years I became a lot more into sports. Growing up, the sports I liked were independent sports, like skateboarding. I was really into skateboarding, and not necessarily team televised sports.
As a kid I was fascinated with sports, and I loved sports more than anything else. The first books I read were about sports, like books about Baseball Joe, as one baseball hero was called.
Sports culture has long had a major impact on American culture. The values taught and celebrated in sports are conservative.