The Washington Post - 29.08.2019

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU D7

diplomat to Belgium who went

on to become steeped in the evil

of owning and selling slaves, a

fact the university has come to

openly acknowledge in recent

years.

“He was from Pennsylvania,”

Reel said. “He was educated in

France. And he never studied a

whole lot of agriculture but be-

came sympathetic to it when he

married John C. Calhoun’s

daughter” — Calhoun, the 19th-

century U.S. vice president, sena-

tor and secretary of state —

“whom he met in Washington,

D.C. She was serving as her fa-

ther’s secretary. Those were the

days before Congress had an un-

limited budget, and congressmen

hired their family members to

serve as secretaries and door

openers and whatnot.”

After a time on Long Island

and Philadelphia — “She didn’t

like either one of them,” Reel said

of Mrs. Clemson — the couple

moved to South Carolina.

Mr. Clemson helped pioneer sci-

ence-based agriculture reform.

Eventually, he left a will. Unfore-

seeably, his name has come to

appear constantly on American

TV with African American play-

ers leading the upsurge. In turn,

Clemson’s football recruiters can

lure even big-time Californians

here and there.

Swinney visited Folsom even-

tually, which Ngata called “an

honor” a nd told Lina Washington

of the ABC affiliate in Sacramen-

to, “He was so interested in the

Johnny Cash,” who recorded his

famed live album “A t Folsom

Prison” there. Richardson, Nga-

ta’s prep coach who moved on to

Sacramento State, says, “It just

seems there’s a lot of love and

camaraderie with the [Clemson]

program.”

Uiagalelei, Rivals’ No. 1 pro-

style quarterback, released a

2-minute 20-second video in May,

announcing his decision at the

1:50 mark and including a men-

tion of the Clemson program’s

emphasis on Christianity, saying

he hoped to “get more connected

with God.” It ended with Ui-

agalelei and Swinney hugging in

Clemson’s stadium, a sight un-

imaginable when the school pro-

moted Swinney from wide receiv-

ers coach in October 2008 as an

apparent stopgap.

And then: “If Joseph Ngata has

a great freshman season, I think

recruits in California will be more

open to going and visiting,” Gor-

ney said. After all, he said, “Kids

now know you have to fly to

Atlanta, get in a rental car to go t o

Clemson.”

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invited to the alumni box. I

taught about 10,000 of these stu-

dents, I think. And they put me in

the alumni box because I know

half of the people there already.

And they don’t mind a few hot

dogs spent on me. It’s crowded

now. I’m happy to say that as we

look out over the stands, there are

a lot of young people in the

stands. They’re young high

school and college students. And

that means a future for our audi-

ence.”

Anderson sees real estate do-

ing what real estate does during

good times and says, “It would be

hard for me to say that it isn’t”

football.

In the old applications game,

the number rose from 15,542 in

2008 to 28,844 in 2018, an in-

crease the 44-16 ransacking of

Alabama in January doesn’t fig-

ure to stem.

Still, even the rare Californians

bound for Clemson might won-

der how Clemson got to be Clem-

son. It rose from a will.

The will came from Thomas

Green Clemson (1807-88), who

left the land and concept. Clem-

son University, founded in 1889,

gets its name from a Philadel-

phian, French-speaking former

of Greenville. It hums along with

about 17,000 citizens until its

quiet, unobstructed midyears go

interrupted each late summer

when the university, also called

Clemson, reconvenes with its

24,000-strong.

In recent years, that normal

crowdedness has seemed to in-

tensify.

“Yes, there’re more stoplights,”

said Jerry Reel, the wit-rich for-

mer Clemson historian who ar-

rived as in 1963 as a graduate

student in British medieval his-

tory and remained until retire-

ment and beyond. “A nd it’s s lower

to get through town.”

Asked whether football fuels

that, Reel said: “Well, it’s got to be

traceable to something. I can’t

think of any other reasons.”

Said Reel: “It’s interesting.

Now when I go to football games,

I don’t sit in the stands. I get

who joined Clemson in 2000.

“Now the reach is kind of grow-

ing.”

He spots football among the

catalysts.

“Greater familiarity with the

name? Absolutely,” he said. “Fa-

miliarity with exactly where we

are? No.” Duke University, which

also has a name that doesn’t hint

at its geography, has North Caro-

lina eight miles away, so the

ritualistic basketball contempt

between the two help Americans

recognize the location of Duke.

Clemson doesn’t have a North

Carolina eight miles away, which

sometimes brings a question.

Where and what is this Clem-

son?

Clemson is a town in north-

west South Carolina. It sits

124 miles northeast of Atlanta,

134 miles west-southwest of

Charlotte and 30 miles southwest

glands.

“When you’d go to high school

games a few years ago, you would

never see a Clemson coach there,”

Gorney said. “I think I saw [re-

cruiting coordinator and quarter-

backs coach] Brandon Streeter

twice last year.”

In 2018, Folsom five-star wide

receiver Joseph Ngata drew the

longing of every university but

the Sorbonne in Paris — and who

knows, maybe even the Sor-

bonne. In 2 019, the same went for

Uiagalelei, including the five

stars. In August 2018, Ngata eye-

balled Clemson’s renowned pen-

chant for fashioning brilliant re-

ceivers and became the first Cali-

fornia player to choose Clemson

since 1991.

In May 2019, Uiagalelei be-

came the second.

In a country where football

rosters and student bodies often

widen together, so it goes at

Clemson. “We used to be sort of

South Carolina, Georgia, North

Carolina and, of all places, New

Jersey because we were the engi-

neering school and there’s not

enough space at Rutgers,” said

Paul Christopher Anderson,

Clemson’s university historian

since May and a professor

BY CHUCK CULPEPPER

Evidence suggests that the
proper noun “Clemson,” for so
long limited to mostly regional
usage, has expanded its reach in
recent years. It has done so
through that most American of
methods: having a football team
that routinely goes on television
and beats the pure living hell
out of other people’s football
teams.
As of the first Clemson-Ala-
bama national championship
game after the 2015 season, the
Clemson roster had 124 players
from 16 states, including 106
from the four-state corridor be-
tween North Carolina and Flori-
da, with 62 of those from South
Carolina, Clemson’s state. This
season, which Clemson begins
Thursday night against Georgia
Te ch as defending national cham-
pion and the obvious No. 1, its
roster shows 116 players from
19 states, including 81 from that
four-state corridor, with 40 from
South Carolina.
For a microcosm, check Cali-
fornia, that distant dreamland
where language often expands.
“When I got out here in 2010,
2011, 2012, nobody talked about
Clemson. Nobody even men-
tioned them,” s aid Adam Gorney,
the national recruiting analyst
for Rivals and Yahoo Sports.
Nowadays, with Coach Dabo
Swinney’s Clemson teams omni-
present in the past four College
Football Playoffs with two
titles, even Californians
sometimes speak the word
“Clemson.”
It came up two winters ago,
when Kris Richardson took a
phone call 2,126 miles from Clem-
son at Folsom High near Sacra-
mento. On the line spoke Clem-
son offensive coordinator Jeff
Scott, saying, basically, Hey, I’m
in town.
“I said, ‘Okay, all right,’ ” said
Richardson, who had coached at
Folsom for 23 seasons by then but
had never heard from Clemson,
even as he coached NFL-bound
sorts such as Jordan Richards,
Jake Browning and Jonah Wil-
liams.
Down the vast s tate, “Clemson”
turned up again (and again) last
fall 2,005 miles from Clemson at
Bellflower, Calif., in southeast Los
Angeles County, where DJ Ui-
agalelei has demonstrated the
kind of quarterbacking that acti-
vates coaches’ and fans’ slobber

Ron Prince’s
journey to
Howard
University w as
lengthy and —
almost literally —
circular. He g rew
up in Junction
City, K an., and w as
recruited to play football at
Dodge City Community College.
He w as good enough to receive
attention from a number of
Football Championship Series-
level p rograms and wanted to go
to Howard a s a midyear transfer
in December 1989.
“Two of the women at o ur
church who were friends with my
mom kept telling h er w hen I was
younger, ‘You need t o send t hat
boy t o Howard,’ ” h e said, smiling
at t he memory. “ I think one o f
them went to Howard, but a lot of
people i n the black community
knew that Thurgood Marshall
went there and knew a bout his
involvement” i n the S upreme
Court’s landmark Brown v. Board
of Education ruling in 1954.
Sitting i n his office as the
football program’s n ew h ead
coach s hortly before i ts s eason
opener S aturday at Maryland,
Prince h as high expectations for
his players, t oo.
“I honestly believe we can
build a program here that is t he
FCS equivalent of w hat David
Shaw has built at S tanford,” h e
said. “A t eam that consistently
wins on the field but also
produces kids who graduate and
go o n to do important t hings
when they’re d one playing
football.
“When I meet with my p layers,
I tell them, ‘A t least o ne member
of the S enate should come out of
this room — and so should an
investigative reporter w ho will
make sure h e doesn’t a buse the
office; that a Goldman S achs CEO
should c ome out of this room a nd
so should someone f rom CNBC

who will j ump all over h im if he

doesn’t s tay on the straight and

narrow.’ ”

Prince s miled. “I wouldn’t be

here if I didn’t t hink all of that

was p ossible.”

The truth is, it took Prince

nearly 30 years to get here. He

was set to visit t he school as a

potential t ransfer s tudent in

1989, but t here w as a snag w ith

the p lane ticket t o Washington.

“They finally said they wanted m e

to commit without making a

visit,” Prince s aid. “My coach at

Dodge City [Jerry Cullen] handed

me a plane ticket t o go v isit

Appalachian State. He s aid, ‘ If

they offer you a scholarship, take

it.’ That’s w hat happened.”

After g raduating f rom

Appalachian, Prince t ook the

LSAT a nd thought about applying

to law school. But C ullen o ffered

him the c hance to come back to

Dodge City as a volunteer

assistant, a nd he decided to give

it a try.

That b egan a journey during

which he worked for 12 teams

over more than 25 years. His

previous e xperience as a head

coach w as the a lmost impossible

job o f succeeding B ill S nyder at

Kansas State in 2006. The

Wildcats beat fourth-ranked

Te xas in that first season and

went 7-6, going to the Texas Bowl.

Two 5-7 seasons later, Prince w as

fired.

“I like to tell p eople that t he

only thing better t han being hired

at a school 12 miles from w here

you grew u p is being f ired at t hat

school,” h e said. “The support I

got from t he c ommunity was

great.” He paused. “A nd I do still

have the best first three years on

the j ob record in the history of the

school. I’ve always been

completely at p eace w ith what

happened there, for good and for

bad.”

Two years ago, when Prince

was f ired from the Detroit Lions

along with head coach Jim

Caldwell, h e thought perhaps it

was time to get o ut o f coaching.

He a nd his wife, Sarah, had

invested i n a number of farms in

Indiana, and they thought about

going to live full t ime on o ne of

them and manage t he others

from there.

Then Jim Harbaugh called

with an offer to become

Michigan’s o ffensive analyst. It

was one of those jobs coaches

create to get around NCAA

coaching limits. Prince t ook it,

and e ven though he didn’t c oach

on the field during practice, he

spent hours b reaking down film

on Michigan’s p layers a nd their

opponents and r eporting to

Harbaugh o n strengths and

weaknesses. He l oved i t.

“Really reminded me of how

much I love coaching,” h e said.

“The thing about Jim is he’s a

pure football coach. I mean, he’s

all-in. He’ll talk to you a bout

football all day long. I had a great

time working f or him.”

And then he got another c all

from Howard. The time it was

from Athletic Director Kery

Davis, who needed a coach t o

replace Mike L ondon after

London left l ast November t o

take the j ob at William & Mary.

This time, Prince, 49, did get a

plane ticket — t o Atlanta to meet

with Davis and Howard President

Wayne A.I. Frederick.

“If not for what Mike

accomplished here in his two

years, n o way would I have

touched the job with a 10-foot

pole,” Prince s aid. “ It i sn’t j ust

that they started to have success

on the field. I t’s the

improvements h e made in terms

of academics and o rganization.

We h ave a young team right now,

but w e aren’t s tarting on s quare

one.”

Howard went 7-4 in London’s

first season, including a stunning

upset of UNLV as a 45-point

underdog, and was 4 -6 a year ago.

That w as clear progress after t he

team had gone 3-19 the previous

two seasons. Just as important,

the t eam’s G PA i mproved to 2.79.

In Prince’s f irst semester in

charge, it was 3.08.

“We haven’t played a game y et,

but I f eel like we’ve made a lot of

progress a lready,” Prince s aid.

“We’ve got 20 players c ommitted

for n ext year, and all of them h ave

GPAs o f at l east 3.0 e ntering their

senior year of h igh school. Six

were recruited b y Ivy League

schools and chose Howard. We

have an advantage there because

we can o ffer t hem a n athletic

scholarship; t he Ivies c an’t.”

When Howard takes the field

for i ts season opener at Maryland

on Saturday, o nly s ix seniors will

be on the two-deep depth chart,

the m ost important being

quarterback Caylin Newton.

Another i s Marcellos A llison, who

was an a ll-conference linebacker

a year ago. With the defense

going from a 3 -4 t o a 4-3, he will

play defensive end. But he also

will start at t ight end.

“He can do it,” Prince said.

“He’ll enjoy playing tight end and

not just m ucking it up on the D-

line. He’s got great hands, and he’s

a terrific athlete. So why not?”

There also will b e 15 f reshmen

on the two deep. One of them i s

Prince’s s on James III, w ho will

start at c enter — one of two true

freshmen who will start on the

offensive line.

Prince i s convinced he can run

a football program that will m ake

fans proud, a s well a s a faculty

that is often skeptical a bout

athletics. Howard hasn’t w on a

Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference

title since 1993. Prince believes

that can — and should — change

soon.

“I know w hat Howard i s and

what it’s n ot,” he said. “I k now

what it can be and what it can’t

be. But I think I ’m d ifferent from

a lot of g uys who have experience

at b ig-time programs or in the

NFL and come to an HBCU school

and think t hey’re missionaries,

doing e veryone a favor b y being

there.

“I know t here’s a long way to go

here, but I believe we can do great

things. I can’t w ait to see what

happens.”

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Fo r more by John Feinstein, visit

wa shingtonpost.com/feinstein.

college football

Howard’s new coach has expectations for his players that go far beyond the field

John

Feinstein

Where’s Clemson? Now all over, from sea to shining sea.

JEFF CHIU/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Clemson has been part of the past four College Football Playoffs, including two national titles. The Tigers open Thursday vs. Georgia Tech.

Formerly regional school

is recruiting nationally

after winning two titles

TONI L. SANDYS/THE WASHINGTON POST

Ron Prince wants his Howard team to produce “kids who graduate and go on to do important things.”

“Greater familiarity with the name? Absolutely.

Familiarity with exactly where we are? No.”

Paul Christopher Anderson, university historian at Clemson University,

on the school’s increased fame with the recent success of its football team.

Georgia Tech at No. 1 Clemson

8 p.m., ACC Network