Clemson fans officially enter Austerity

If you’ve read The Guardian (UK), NewStatesman (UK) or Le Monde (France) the past year, you likely noticed a catchy new europhrase to describe all the economic collapses and other malgoings-on in places like Spain, Greece, Ireland and, when it comes to university education and specifically tuition hikes, The Realm.

“Austerity”.

Which basically describes a period of widespread and enormous hardship. And with the release of Clemson president James Barker’s blog where he and university board chairman David Wilkins endorsed failed athletic director Terry Don Phillips and failed head football coach Dabo Swinney, many fans, especially the long-time ones, will begin enduring said hardship.

“Cut the hyperbole; it’s just a game silly!”

Wrong. When you’re talking about fans who’ve spent thousands of their hard-earned dollars each year on IPTAY membership dues, season ticket purchases and tailgating paraphernalia, it’s no longer a game. It’s an investment. And some people spend tens of thousands of dollars each year on games.

Thinking people who view it as “just a game” don’t spend that kind of coin. Unless they’re naive, which many Clemson fans are unfortunately.

No pun intended, but while the HSAS at Clemson isn’t at red alert, it’s a damn solid orange. I shouldn’t have to remind fans of the failures of Phillips, Barker or Swinney (okay, I’ll throw you a bone - Bowden extension then firing him six games later then promoting in experienced receiver coach to head coach, manipulating classroom metrics to climb a magazine’s abstract ranking, meddling in Billy Napier’s playcalling which directly causes offensive failures, respectively), so when university brass endorses this clear string of failure, it sends a clear message to the fans.

“We don’t care and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

They believe this because they know that Clemson fans not just among the most loyal in the nation, but they are so to a big fault. They know many fans have this religious worship of everything Clemson, or that they’re addicted, and they know these fans will pony up their money no matter what. It makes no sense but the fans nor the administration cares.

What the university is to fans is what a televangelist is to the poor elderly. It’s sickening and wrong, but the duped masses “believe” anyway.

Hell, there are many fans who have zero faith in the university, the athletic department and the football program but they still toss Clemson their salad anyway. It’s ridiculous and pathetic. Talk about a bunch of rubes.

In the end, you’ll see Clemson’s fans continuing to shovel money at their addiction, incorrectly thinking that to not give money is the worse alternative, Clemson football will continue to go 7-8 regular season wins with no ACC titles and a quaternary, quinary or senary bowl per year and then reward its bad head coach a contract extension for stability purposes. There will be an outcry, then Clemson will sign a top-15 recruiting class, the fans will rejoice, spring ball will come and Swinney and company will laud the players’ efforts (as if he really is capable of accurately analyzing players), fans will buy into it, summer comes and we hear more hype, fall comes and fans discover that this or that freshman is tearing it up, the hype goes through the roof once again until...

The season starts and Clemson, as normal, looks barfy right out of the gate. Seven to eight regular season wins ensues, no ACC titles...well, you get it.

The cycle starts once again and fans, particularly those who’ve been around for decades, have been stuck in it.

But this time there is no hope of change. Or at least positive change. Because he is his golden boy, Swinney is going nowhere as long as Phillips runs the athletic department, and as we now know from Barker and Wilkins, Phillips is going nowhere as long as Barker is there. And Barker is going nowhere.

The failed status quo is firmly entrenched at Clemson, and the fans and players, believe it or not, will suffer the consequences. Fans will give their money and time for naught, and the players will suffer because they will not be properly coached and developed, much less prepared for the NFL, the dream of many top high school prospects.

Firing off e-mails to the board or the president won’t do. Putting up billboards won’t change a thing. Bitching on message boards is pissing against the wind.

I’m not even certain stopping your contributions will change anything. But at least you won’t be wasting your money any longer.

And at this point, that’s the only way Clemson fans can exit their austerity.

It's over - Max Lennon has won.

Last rumors we've all heard on the possible departure of Clemson athletic director Terry Don Phillips don't offer any resounding hope for athletics, particularly football.

After the past few weeks of hearing of TDP being on a hot seat, that the university board of trustees have taken keen interest in Phillips' leadership for the past year or two, Phillips is out by year's end, and all that, we're now hearing that university president James Barker is not only not going to force Phillips out but that Phillips left the meeting with Barker encouraged?

It's almost a law of physics at this point: whatever encourages Barker and Phillips should be discouraging to fans.

At this point, as fans you have to be solidly in the fifth stage of grief: acceptance. How anyone can still get pissed over the endless stream of poor decisions made by athletic department officials and university brass? This has been 25 years in the making when then-president Max Lennon launched a war against Clemson's nationally-vaunted football program with his “academics will never be subordinate to athletics” manifesto.

But that was then, and this is now. And the mediocrity will....check that, let's not call this phenomenon at Clemson “mediocrity” anymore. This is failure.

Sure, Clemson posts non-losing seasons in football, as the administration is clearly not playing to win as much as they're playing not to lose. But when you have the facilities Clemson has, the fan support, the money (it's there, y'all, Clemson is solidly in the black), the recruits, the tradition and so on and you continue to fall short every single time, that's failure. Because failure is determined by what resources you have available to you and what success is defined as being (ACC title), and when you can't be successful in a terrible football conference with SEC-level resources, you're a failure. Plain and simple.

Laziness, frugality, unjustified arrogance, complacency, visionless, just-another-day-at-the-office – this is the energy at Clemson right now. Abject carelessness and resentment toward anything football by university leadership has been so strong for decades that it's spilled over into all other sports. Clemson athletics has had a significant overall drop in ACC championships, swimming and diving programs have been dropped, and an all-time low morale lives inside Jervey walls as verbal abuse by one or more athletic officials has been widely reported.

How Death Valley still stuffs 70,000+ most autumn Saturdays amazes me. If this were any other school whose fans cared about athletics more than the administration, you wouldn't have near that number.

But at Clemson, you do. And it's because fans have long had this religious loyalty to football, and religion can be a very blinding entity. I direct you to the followers of Muslim extremism and wacko Christian evangelism for evidence. But I do know one thing - you don't make some earthly entity or person (like a coach) into a god, and then follow him into hell. Nor do you don't allow yourself to be put into a position to where if you are considering not giving to Clemson anymore that the university or its henchmen guilt you out of it by convincing you that if you stop giving then you'll be taking food out of some “poor” player's mouth. That just makes you a dumbass and you deserve to get taken for a ride by the carnies at Clemson University if you're this stupid.

How else do you explain why 70,000+ show up every autumn Saturday after spending thousands of hard-earned dollars (in this economy no less) on IPTAY dues, season tickets and tailgating paraphernaila to watch a chronically-failed football program at work? It's religion and that's what the university is counting on. For you to be so blindly loyal that you continue to giving these carnies dollar on top of dollar and they continue to do the same failed things they've always done. They're taking you for a ride – you just haven't realized it yet.

Perhaps it's time for you to wake up a bit out of your drunken stupor from that orange kool-aid bender you've been on for 20 years. Perhaps you should consider other outlets for your entertainment, or pursue some other life path that won't lead you into failure for once. Cut bait and move on from fishing in the same spot that hasn't given you a bite in years.

In other words, if the university doesn't care about athletic success and ACC championships in football, why should you? As a fan you can't do anything to overcome poor leadership. The boosters can't even do that. Clemson's proved it for years.

If you're still worried that if you stop giving then you're turning your back on “your kids”? Don't worry, Clemson graduates numerous people every year, they'll be more than happy to take your spot and loyally feed those starving players in your absence.

Because after all, there's a sucker born every minute.