📡 Clemson Football Built By Crimson Tide Men

[RTB X Bot]

The Sheraton Hotel in downtown Birmingham was built originally as a Hyatt, and an unusual feature was the bar being a part of the lobby – not much privacy for one enjoying a cocktail. I was passing through one afternoon when I spotted a familiar figure having a beer.

I went over and reintroduced myself to Frank Howard, the legendary former football coach at Clemson, and he invited me to join him.

Howard had played football at Alabama for Wallace Wade, 1928-30, and had served as Clemson’s head football coach from 1940-69, and is in the College Football Hall of Fame. One of his favorite past-times was to poke the bear – in this case meaning Alabama Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, for whom I worked.

He gave me a message to deliver to “Beah,” as Howard called him. I decided it was in my best interest to not deliver that message.

Howard, who hailed from Barlow Bend, Ala., had an all-time coaching record of 165-118-12 for the Tigers, and also served as director of athletics at Clemson.

He is one of five men who played football at Alabama and went on to be head football coach at Clemson, including current Tigers Coach Dabo Swinney.
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Alabama and Clemson will meet in the semifinal game of the College Football Playoff in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1. The Tide has an all-time record of 13-4 against Clemson, three of the losses occurring in 1900, 1904, and 1905, the fourth loss in last year’s CFP national championship game.

Cecil “Hootie” Ingram, a Tuscaloosan who was an All-Southeastern Conference performer for Coach Harold “Red” Drew (1952-54), had the difficult task of following the legendary Howard and had a 12-21 record in his three-year tenure as head coach of the Tigers (1970-72). Ingram is much better known as an outstanding athletics administrator in the SEC office and as director of athletics at Florida State and at Alabama (1989-96).

Charley Pell of Albertville was an All-SEC lineman for Bryant, 1960-62 and assistant Tide coach in 1963, and became head coach at Clemson in 1977. He served through the regular season of 1978 with an 18-4-1 record before leaving to take the head football coaching job at Florida. He was ACC Coach of the Year in both his seasons at Clemson.

(Pell and his wife, Ward, were in New Orleans for the Alabama-Notre Dame Sugar Bowl game at the end of the 1973 season. Herby Kirby, a reporter for the now-defunct Birmingham Post-Herald, covered Alabama’s small colleges when Pell was head coach at Jacksonville State. Kirby suffered a stroke in the Tulane Stadium press box which would prove fatal. The Pells stayed in New Orleans at the hospital until Kirby’s family could get there the next day.)

When Pell left for Florida, Howard – who was still athletics director at Clemson – took Bryant’s advice and elevated Danny Ford to head coach of the Tigers. Ford, a Gadsden native, had been an All-SEC lineman at Bama and an assistant coach for the Tide, 1972-73, and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame this year. He was head coach at Clemson from the Gator Bowl game at the end of the 1978 season through 1989 and had a record of 96-29-4, including winning the 1981 national championship, the first in Clemson history. He was a national coach of the year.

In his first game as head coach of the Tigers, Clemson defeated Ohio State, 17-15, a game best-remembered as the game in which a frustrated Buckeyes Coach Woody Hayes punched Clemson nose tackle Charlie Bauman, resulting in the firing of the legendary Ohio State coach the following day.

Dabo Swinney, who walked on at Alabama and eventually earned a scholarship from Coach Gene Stallings, played in 1990-92. The Pelham native was in his final game as a player as Bama won the 1992 national championship in the Louisiana Superdome, where Swinney will lead his Tigers against the Tide this year. Swinney was hired as a graduate assistant by Stallings and then served as an assistant coach for the Tide from 1996 through 2000. Since being elevated to head coach of the Tigers during the 2007 season, Swinney has a record of 98-29, second only to Howard in number of wins. His Clemson team defeated Alabama last year for the school’s second national championship and Swinney has been voted national coach of the year in both 2015 and 2016.

One other Clemson head coach with Alabama connections is Tommy Bowden, who served as an assistant coach under Bill Curry, 1987-89, and preceded Swinney as head coach at Clemson. He had a record of 72-45 in his tenure as head coach of the Tigers, 1999 through the first few games of 2008, and was twice ACC Coach of the Year. Swinney replaced him for the final seven games of the 2008 season.

Incidentally, Alabama has had the same number of men who played football for the Crimson Tide who went on to be head coach at Bama – J.B. “Ears” Whitworth (1955-57), Paul Bryant (1958-82), Ray Perkins (1983-86), Mike DuBose (1997-2000), and Mike Shula (2003-06).