No, Dabo Swinney isn’t quitting & it’s not that hard to understand his quote in context

Dabo Swinney is trending on Twitter and it’s not for the reasons that Clemson football fans would hope as we’re a little more than two months away from the start of the 2021 season.

Swinney, who has led Clemson to six-straight CFB Playoff appearances and two National Championships, is being lit up on Twitter for a quote in which he said he would quit coaching if college athletes were paid.

"“We try to teach our guys, use football to create the opportunities, take advantage of the platform and the brand and the marketing you have available to you,” Swinney said. “But as far as paying players, professionalizing college athletics, that’s where you lose me. I’ll go do something else, because there’s enough entitlement in this world as it is.”"

Well, now that name, image & likeness (NIL) is officially legal, the Twitter trolls (or those who don’t care to comprehend the truth) are everywhere.

https://twitter.com/PFF/status/1410584798012248068?s=20

Understanding this quote from Dabo Swinney in context isn’t that hard, but people would rather just smear him

It’s amazing the amount of people who say they are legitimate reporters- many of which work at AL.com, go figure- joining in on this trend calling for Dabo Swinney to retire.

First, you have to understand the context of which the question was asked. Swinney was asked about the Northwestern football players’ union that was advocated to be paid and gain other benefits from the university– that’s not the same as NIL.

Swinney doesn’t want to manage a salary cap. He doesn’t want to have to be a part of salary negotiations with an athlete or have universities get into a bidding war for a recruit. He wants things tied to graduation because why? Well, despite what people on Twitter will say, he actually cares about his athletes.

He has never said anything about not being in favor of athletes benefitting from their NIL and making profit from third-parties that are not tied to the university.

As a matter of fact, he offered that as a potential solution a couple of years ago.

"“There are things I’d love to see in continued improvement, but I think everything should be tied to education and graduation. The very few, the 1.6 percent that get to go on to the NFL, for those who don’t — maybe there’s an annuity or stipend that when they graduate, they get that,” Swinney said. “That’s a model that can be an improvement. Maybe it is the likeness. I don’t know. Then you have others out there who say we should just professionalize college athletics.”"

In that quote, he clearly puts NIL and professionalizing college athletics in two different categories. They’re not the same.

As you hear and see people smear Dabo Swinney over the next few weeks as NIL becomes more prominent, don’t read too much into it. You’ll probably find that the vast majority of them have either a political bias or they are tied to a team like Alabama, South Carolina, Ohio State or Georgia.

As Swinney has said in the past: “Don’t worry about criticism from those you wouldn’t take advice from.”

He’s not going anywhere and it shouldn’t be surprising when social media trolls try to start something to paint him in a bad light. They’re just grasping to the hope that they don’t have to play Clemson again.