Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney wants people to know he’s okay with players earning money.
The two-time national champion has been in the news a bunch ever since the era of NIL started because of some old comments about players getting paid. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
College athletes should have been able to earn money for decades.
The freedom-hating communists running the NCAA no longer have any power.
This is a MASSIVE win for athletes, capitalism, freedom and the American system. https://t.co/qbLMgB11T8
— David Hookstead (@dhookstead) July 1, 2021
A couple years ago, Swinney told ESPN, “They may do away with college football in three years. There may be no college football. They may want to professionalize college athletics. Well, then, maybe I’ll go to the pros. If I’m going to coach pro football, I might as well do that. I may get a terrible president or a terrible AD one day. I don’t know.”
Dabo Swinney says he may quit college football if players get paid https://t.co/dIhwfXGAQP pic.twitter.com/MxwEjJdSYW
— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 18, 2019
Well, now he wants people to know that he’s not against NIL and that people are taking his comments out of context. The superstar coach said the following during the ACC Media Days when addressing players getting paid, according to 247Sports:
We live in a world now where not everybody does much research. You go in the bathroom and hear somebody on the phone in the third stall and that’s your source. Just calling it like it is. And that’s the headline. I think people hear what they want to hear, and then unfortunately a lot of people write what they want to write to fit the story that they need. And it’s just not accurate. I’ve never had a problem with name, image and likeness. I think it should have been more. If I’d have been the czar, I’d have done it differently, because I don’t think everybody’s gonna have much opportunity with it. Some will. But not everybody will have opportunity. I would have liked to have seen it tied to graduation, education. … What I said, whenever that was, I still say. I am against professionalizing college athletics where we get away from the collegiate model and the value of a degree and the value of an education. I’ve never, ever said I’m against name, image and likeness. I think it’s a lot of common sense. I think it could be more. I think it could be tied more to the education process so everybody would have had a little more opportunity. I said that, whenever it was, but people hear what they want to hear.
Do we think Dabo is a bit triggered or do we think he’s a shade triggered? It doesn’t seem like he wants to talk about the subject at all.
He can try to spin it however he wants, but let’s not let him play too much revisionist history here. He was clearly not pumped about players getting paid when discussing it back in the day.
Now, Swinney wasn’t completely against the idea, and it definitely seemed like he was against direct payments from programs, which isn’t the case with NIL.
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Add in the fact Swinney also came out against a 12-team playoff, and it’s been a tough couple days for the head of Clemson’s program.
Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney doesn’t want the playoff to expand. @dhookstead explains why he’s 100% wrong. pic.twitter.com/LZwocvm05v
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 21, 2021
Of course, Swinney will get the last laugh if he wins another national title this season. If that happens, the opinions of talking heads like myself won’t matter at all.
