Can't remember exactly where I saw it, but I've seen more than once where, when Clemson football's lack of toughness is brought up, someone of note says that the program needs to recruit more players and fewer athletes. While I get where they're going with this, it does sound rather abstract. I can only assume that this has to do, at least in part, with the psychology of the footballer in question.
I'm guessing the psychology part of this basically says that, to oversimplify, athletes have good measurables. Forty times, vertical leaps, the kind of stuff you can put a number on basically. Great, great talents who are a threat every time they step onto the field. Players, on the other hand, may not have all the elite numbers but they have heart. They thrive on competition and have an almost sociopathic need to smash someone in the mouth. They want to go up against and slay the biggest dragons in Mordor. Modern day Beowulfs, to be corny. To borrow from former USC coach Pete Carroll's recruiting philosophy, the best players don't want to win – they need to win.
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So I am speaking with someone about Clemson recruiting, something I'm not terribly acute at nor do I care to be, and they're telling me they read someplace that prized recruit Nick Dawson, a North Carolinian linebacker currently with scads of offers nationwide, would have followed his BFF Germone Hopper, a four-star Tar Heel State baller and Clemson commit, and committed to Clemson a lot earlier had it not been for coach Dabo Swinney's 2011 linebacker windfall on National Signing Day with signees Stephone Anthony, Tony Steward and Lateek Townsend. Says he's concerned about getting playing time.
Dawson says he's not afraid of competition, but really?
Here's the cold-hard fact, Nick: Anthony, Steward nor Townsend are going anywhere, period. Get over it. If you sign with Clemson you are going to compete with them. That's inevitable. If you think Swinney is stupid enough to bench them in favor of you....well, wait a minute there...
If you think a coach who knows what he's doing is going to shower you with favor in lieu of an incoming stocked linebacker corps, you're the one being stupid. But then again this is Clemson we're talking about, a school where decision-making takes a back seat to politics, so you have that working in your favor.
Here's a reality check: those who aren't afraid of competition don't shy away from it, which is exactly what Dawson's doing by virtue of his own words and his hesitancy to commit. If you want to go to a place where you will be starting from day-one, that only happens at a school that has no linebackers, and BCS schools with no linebackers lose games. And given its Signing Day success a few months ago, Clemson appears to no longer be one of them, for now. Just move on, man. Commit somewhere else where you'll get your ass kissed.
Perhaps this is what some former players and coaches are talking about when they distinguish between “talented athletes” and true ballers. Maybe this is what former Clemson and Carolina Panther standout Brentson Bucker meant when he said Clemson needs more winners and fewer athletes. People like Chris Morocco, DeChane Cameron, Ed McDaniel, Rob Bodine and Rodney Williams – those who weren't top prospects coming out of high school but worked their asses off and led Clemson to big winning. Grown-ass men who may or may not have a Pinto body but sure as hell have a Ferrari engine.
I'm no coach, admittedly, but if I was and I hear about a recruit expressing the kind of hesitation that Dawson has, I immediately requestion myself asking if I really want this “player” on my team.
It's tragic to see such potential talent symbiotically coexist with such a potential waste of it, which quite possibly goes to the heart of the very definition of prima donna. And perhaps therein lies one big difference between athletes and ballers.
