One of Grace Raynor's first experiences covering Clemson was for a football game some folks might remember -- in Tampa, featuring the Tigers and Crimson Tide playing for the national championship.
Raynor still shudders at her harrowing experience writing on a tight deadline late that night for The Post and Courier newspaper. It was such a traumatic experience that she called her mother the next morning and told her she didn't think she was cut out for this sportswriting thing.
As it turned out, Raynor was more than cut out for it. She established herself as an excellent storyteller over the years, including when she moved to The Athletic in 2019.
Over the last year Raynor has moved away from covering Clemson and carved a new and exciting world for herself: Unearthing interesting stories from the always-interesting world of recruiting.
Raynor, who will soon move from the Upstate to Virginia, visited with The Dubcast as she was preparing for that move -- plus an upcoming vacation to Italy.
She reflects on her years covering Dabo Swinney and the Tigers, and she gives her take on how the football program is positioned in a new era of the transfer portal, NIL, and a conference that appears in serious danger.

Grace Raynor

Telling the stories behind the stories of Clemson football and beyond.

Sports

As part of Tigerillustrated.com's lengthy 25th anniversary series uncovering untold stories over that stretch of time, we continue with a glimpse back at the transformative days of 2008.
Two days after a dominant victory over South Carolina that sealed the removal of the interim tag from his title, Dabo Swinney was introduced at a press conference on the third floor of the West End Zone facility.
This is the uncut digital audio from that press conference, provided by Jeff Kallin and Matt Glenn of the Clemson Athletics Department.
Terry Don Phillips drew an ovation toward the end of the press conference when he said: 
"I say with great confidence that Dabo Swinney is going to become one of the great coaches in America."

Dabo Retrospective, Part 2

As part of Tigerillustrated.com's extensive unearthing of the history that led to Dabo Swinney becoming the figure who would transform not just a football program but an entire community, we take a glimpse back to the two-month period in 2008 when everything changed.
We present the audio from some key moments during that timeline:
-- The introduction of Swinney as interim coach on Oct. 13, 2008, when Tommy Bowden suggested a change to AD Terry Don Phillips and Phillips shocked many by elevating a receivers coach who had no head-coaching or coordinating experience;
-- The coach's show that followed his first victory in charge, an exhilarating and vital triumph at Boston College that snapped a three-game losing streak to the Eagles;
-- The press conference that followed a convincing victory over rival South Carolina, which sealed the removal of the interim title. Swinney, on what it was like to hear the crowd chanting his name as the final seconds ticked off: "I felt like Britney Spears."
-- The news coverage that accompanied the press conference two days later to announce his hiring.

A Dabo Swinney retrospective

Patrick Sapp played football at Clemson, and now he's watching his 19-year-old son Josh play football at Clemson.
What makes it most special is Patrick's 7-year-old son Miles gets to watch it all as the family makes memories of a lifetime.
Sapp rejoins The Dubcast to talk about his six years on the football staff at Greenville High School, and why he chose to give it up after last season.
Sapp's role as a television personality is going to increase moving forward as he contributes to FOX Carolina in various ways.
Sapp also keeps close tabs on Clemson football, and he was in attendance when Trent Pearman stole the show at last week's spring game.
Sapp believes Cade Klubnik will maintain his hold on the starting role, but he said Pearman's performance does make things more interesting in the Tigers' quarterback room.
He also gives high marks to Dabo Swinney's hire of Matt Luke and Chris Rumph, who have brought more energy and fire to the program.
"We've got to get back to the basics and the grind," he said. "We've got to be tougher. We've got to be better. We've got to be stronger. We've got to be more disciplined, and we've got to play with an attitude. I think that was the emphasis for the hires. ... You bring in guys who have the experience, who have the confidence, who have the moxie to walk out every day and challenge their players, challenge the attitude of the team. 
 
"If you watch them practice, you can see that Nick Eason, Coach Rumph and coach Luke are his attitude guys. Those are the guys who are setting the attitude and the tone for everybody. I think Coach Swinney understood he needed that on his staff."

Patrick Sapp

Jerome Hall is less busy than he used to be, having given up his job as a college referee a year ago after 20 years.
Yet he still teaches at RD Anderson Applied Technology Center from 8 AM to 3 PM each weekday, instructing high school students in carpentry and officiating.
Four days a week, he leaves school at 3 and heads straight to the courthouse and works until 7 as a magistrate for the Spartanburg County court system.
And somehow he still found a way to follow his son PJ in his final season at Clemson, which of course included recent trips to Memphis and Los Angeles as the Tigers made a stirring run to the Elite Eight.
Jerome, who will turn 55 in two weeks, reflects on his son's life and what makes him one of the iconic figures in Clemson basketball history.
The Hall family also shares a deep love and appreciation for Brad Brownell, whose only promise during PJ's recruitment was that Clemson would take care of him.
"He was the only coach who didn't promise him a starting spot right away," Jerome said.

Jerome Hall

Had he not chosen the coaching profession, Cliff Ellis could've easily spent his life as a professional musician.
In the mid-1960s, his group The Villagers was a sensation and even recorded at the legendary Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala.
Ellis remembers joining Roy Orbison on stage at a sold-out concert in Dothan, Ala.
"If you can perform in front of people with Roy Orbison behind you, you're going to be OK going up against Dean Smith and Mike Krzyzewski," he said.
Ellis announced his retirement in December, ending a 49-year coaching career. His final 17 seasons were at Coastal Carolina, where he led the Chanticleers to 297 victories and 10 postseason appearances.
His 831 career NCAA victories put him at ninth in Division I basketball history behind Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim, Bob Huggins, Jim Calhoun, Roy Williams, Bob Knight, Dean Smith and Adolph Rupp.
Ellis says the changing landscape of college athletics, namely NIL and the transfer portal, led him to walk away.
He's currently writing a book about his life, and he looks back fondly on his time at Clemson from 1984 to 1994.
Ellis led Clemson to its only ACC title in school history in 1989-90 when the Tigers claimed the regular-season title with back-to-back home triumphs over North Carolina and Duke.
Four years later, he abruptly resigned and later took the head job at Auburn. He said he was angry over the Clemson administration's handling of the Wayne Buckingham situation in the face of NCAA scrutiny of the player's eligibility as a freshman.
Ellis remembers exactly where he was on Jan. 18, 1990 when he heard Danny Ford was out as Clemson's coach.
"I was playing golf with our pilot, Earle Ambrose," he said. "We were on the 15th hole at Boscobel. It was a tough, tough time.
"But I told Danny at the time to tell Clemson thanks a million. Because they paid him a million dollars. And then he went to Arkansas and got another thanks-a-million. I never got those thanks-a-millions."

Grace Raynor

Download our free app to listen on your phone