By now many of you have heard of Dabo Swinney's new media policy. Among its tenets are...
- Swinney will no longer do one-on-one interviews with local media, including radio.
- No media access to assistant coaches.
- Only the coordinators will be available to media.
- Freshman players won’t be available for interviews until week of the first game
- No media access to grad assistants, strength coaches, player development coaches, and so on.
Now, I’m told by my bullshit “sources close to the situation” this isn’t the brainchild of athletics director Terry Don Phillips, nor SID Tim Bourret. This is all Swinney.
I can understand a few of them. The ban on assistant coaches is a good one, I think. Assistants are way way way too busy recruiting and coaching to worry about media access. If I were a head coach, I’d rather them focus on recruiting than half-and-half between that and interviews. Sure, former running backs coach André Powell had a foot-in-mouth moment when he said that backs André Ellington and Jamie Harper decided who would play and when during games, and that was beyond stupid and irresponsible as a coach. But there is a bigger issue I think.
Same thing with the grad assistants, strength coaches, development coaches, and so on. They’re so far down the totem pole I’m not sure there would be any meat on that interview’s bones.
I do think the restriction of access to incoming freshmen is a good idea, too. Those youngsters are too busy acclimating to a new life, independence, an academic environment and so on, in addition to football responsibilities mind you, to have to worry about media interviews and what to say and how to say it and when. I’m sure many of them would love an interview; they’re in the spotlight. What campus celebrity wouldn’t love that? But there are more important things for them to be concerned with initially. And, this access is only temporary. After their cherry is busted during that first game, they’re open to the media.
I’m guessing those freshmen’s parents like that too.
What’s baffling, though, is that Swinney is self-imposing a ban on the media, and stranger it’s only the local media.
After coming off Clemson’s first losing season in over a decade, first back-to-back losses to the South Carolina Gamecocks in 40 years and him scolding the fanbase multiple times during this past season (quacking ducks, crazy five percenters, message board fans being irrelevant), the timing of this can’t be considered as mere coincidence. Swinney utterly failed Clemson in 2010, and this particular media restriction smacks of humiliation and unwillingness to face the music.
Sure he's admitted failure, that it's all on him. But it's easy to take full responsibility when there are no real consequences, isn't it? As long as Phillips is there, Swinney's job is safe wins and losses be damed. So Swinney's mea culpa is light and airy at best. He's also doing this in the comforts of a press conference, where he's not being thrown fastballs and the questions pretty much controlled. Throw in there that Clemson's local beat media has been a rather nutless bunch ever since I can remember, and it makes for situation that's an all-out joke.
Furthermore, if his scoldings of the fans have alienated him from them, this only alienates him more. No radio interviews translates into no call-ins from fans during the broadcast, I’d think, which means even more disconnection from the fans.
One thing that suckered many fans in to him was his likeability and openness. After all the hideous “accomplishments” he’s achieved this past season, it’s easy to think that Swinney is now skulking into a corner hoping that time will pass and fans will forget the atrocities he’s committed in light of the program's top-10 recruiting class. As if Swinney can actually coach and develop these fine athletes to be better than they are. Please. And don’t think that fans are letting him off the hook. Swinney's enemies in the fanbase seem to be on the rise.
Not only is Swinney alienating himself further from the fans, but now he’s alienating himself from the local media. Not the national media, mind you. Probably because he feels the national humps don’t know (nor care) about Clemson enough because their livelihood doesn’t depend on the school and therefore they’ll likely be more distant, and thus nicer, to him in interviews. The local media knows him all too well, warts and all, and Swinney doesn’t want anyone with a mirror holding it up in front of him.
A while back I saw ESPN’s “30 For 30” on Southern Methodist's glory years back in the 1980s, a time the Mustangs were hell on wheels but were brought down by scandal and were subsequently put on probation, including the death penalty. During that segment legendary announcer Brent Musberger said something like “when the local beat media turn on you, you’re finished as a coach”.
If that’s true, then Swinney has indeed laid the groundwork to be skewered by everyone from Bart Wright to Travis Sawchik to Larry Williams. The only way out of it is to have a humongous season this year, and humongous doesn't mean nine goddamn wins; it means at least 10 regular season wins, an ACC title and an Orange Bowl win. If he loses or continues on with Tommy Bowden's 8-win tradition with all that talent, the media will have a field day. I know I will.
And after inexplicably driving a 10-win talented team head on into 6-7 last year, what do you think will happen in ’11?
