CLEMSON — To understand how Dabo Swinney was able to turn the fortunes of the Clemson football program around after it appeared everything was spiraling out of control in mid-October, you first have to understand who Dabo Swinney really is and where he comes from.

“When he was about four years old, I saw that there was something different and real special about him,” Swinney’s mother Carol McIntosh said.

Though she did not know it at the time, it was Swinney’s upbeat and positive outlook on life that helped her and her family through some of the most difficult times in their lives.

“There has always been a spirit in him, and everybody that he has been around him since he was a child has just been touched. That spirit is very contagious,” McIntosh said.

Swinney’s spirit got his mother through the tough times of her ex-husband’s battle with alcoholism, a divorce that ended 25 years of marriage and the rocky road of 10 years worth of struggles for her and her youngest son.

“He would lift me up. It was always like that,” McIntosh said. “Even when our family did break up, he was like, ‘It will be okay Mom. We can work it out. We can do this.’ He was always positive. He could always see the silver lining.”

It’s hard to imagines there was any silver lining for Swinney and his family to find in his younger days.

For a good bit of his life, the guy who will lead the Clemson football program into a new era had every reason to quit before life even got started.

But quitting isn’t an option for Dabo Swinney. Instead, he tries and usually finds the positives in a tough and difficult situation, which he uses as a driving mechanism to turn things around.

“I have always had a good attitude even when I probably shouldn’t have,” he said. “That’s just what I believe, and that is just part of my spiritual foundation.

“I have always trusted God, and I knew he would have a plan.”

What that plan was he had no idea as a young teenager, while trying not to let anyone know what was going on at what he described as a dysfunctional home.

“But you would’ve never known it,” said Jim Phillips, who was part of the coaching staff when Swinney was at Pelham High School in Pelham, Ala. “He always had a smile and still has one of the most positive attitudes of any person that I have ever met.

“What people see with Dabo, that’s who he really is, he is a real go-getter.”

THE EARLY YEARS

When looking back at his younger days, Swinney doesn’t think back and look at them as negatives.

“That’s why I am, who I am,” he said with a smile. “That’s my past. That’s what it is. It allowed me to be the man that I am.”

But he never let it define who he was. Instead, he watched and learned from his dad’s mistakes. Swinney describes his dad as a good man who was a hard-working father and husband. He owned his own business where he sold and fixed household appliances.

Ervil Swinney was a good provider for his family, and he provided them a nice home. But there was a side to him that not everyone saw and that the family did their very best to hide.

“My dad was a great dad. He was funny, and he had a great personality. He was a good dad, but when he started drinking it was bad,” Dabo Swinney recalled. “I mean bad things happened, bad things. Things that kids should not see, hear or be around. Things like that.”

Swinney started noticing those things when he was about nine years old. His dad’s drinking led to arguments, then fighting and then it slowly started to separate the family. Swinney’s dad would stay gone until the early morning hours at times and soon things started to go south for his business, forcing him to move his operations inside his home.

He later lost his house, and the family began a whirlwind of moving from one house to another while doing everything they could to make ends meet. His mother even started working at K-Mart – her first-ever job – and other places to try and bring in extra income.

“It was just the things that come along with living with an alcoholic,” Swinney said. “It was just a very, very tough situation. He would be gone a lot. We hid things from friends and stuff like that and then we lost our house. He started to have financial problems.”

And then the family broke up.

When Swinney was about 16 years old, McIntosh decided she had enough. Swinney, the youngest of three boys, joined his mother as they moved into a small townhome.

“I was very angry (at my dad) at this point,” Swinney said. “I loved my dad. I didn’t want to leave him.”

But he knew he had to. Swinney remembers those days as embarrassing times for him, especially when he had to get his coaches and friends to help him and his mother move away from his dad.

“It was very embarrassing because I hide things from my friends. I was dating (my wife) Kathleen. She came from a very functional, normal family, and mine was the exact opposite,” he said. “Her family is very educated and functional, mine was very dysfunctional and uneducated, but she did not care. But when you are young, you worry about things like that.”

But Swinney persevered. Despite all the distractions at home, he remained an A student and was a member of the Honors Society at Pelham High School. He also was a star athlete, lettering in three sports including the sport he loved more than any other – football.

“Dabo was a guy you just loved being around,” childhood friend and current Seneca Fire Chief Shane Phillips said. “He was always upbeat and positive. It didn’t seem like he ever let anything get to him.”

Even when Swinney and his mother were evicted from their home three months after leaving his father and started to bounce around from one friend’s house to another, Swinney did not get down or feel sorry for himself.

“To know Dabo, you would not think any of that was going on,” Phillips said. “He used everything that happened to him as a testimony instead of as an excuse.”

KEEEPING THE FAITH

Swinney says he was able to get through those tough times thanks to his faith in God. Saved at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes rally at about the same time and with the spiritual guidance of a young football coach by the name of Stewart Wiley, Swinney hung in there and kept his goals ahead of him.

“I was playing three sports and I was excelling, and I was trying to do the best I can,” he said. “I got saved. There were a lot of things going on in my life. God was working on me, and it was a very trying time for me.”

Swinney’s hard work and perseverance paid off when he was accepted into the University of Alabama as a biology major. Going to Alabama was a dream come true for the boy who grew up watching the Paul “Bear” Bryant show every Sunday afternoon.

“I always worked to go to Alabama,” he said. “That was my first goal. I got Pell grants and student loans, and that’s how I made it.

“I was going to be a doctor. I majored in biology and was going to make something of myself. I wanted a better life.”

So Swinney moved to Tuscaloosa when he was 18 years old, and though he was in school and loved the fact he was a student at the University of Alabama, something was still missing in his life. He missed playing football and while watching a game from the stands during his freshman year, he leaned over to his future wife and said, “I can do that.”

“The next week I went and met with the coaches, and of course they thought I was crazy,” he said.

Swinney was all of 160 pounds, but after talking with his high school coaches, Bill Curry and his staff decided to give him a shot and put him in a weight room program that he would have to complete in order to be eligible for spring practice.

Needless to say, Swinney was ready, and at the time, made an impression on a young assistant coach by the name of Tommy Bowden, who was in charge of the wide receivers. Swinney was just one of 47 who tried out as a walk-on that spring, and before it was said and done, he was just one of two that remained.

Bowden was so impressed he even played Swinney in the spring game and also put him in during a game that following season. But getting to that point was another challenge altogether for Swinney.

It was the summer of 1989 and after working all summer cleaning gutters, which he had done since he was 14, mowing yards and selling knives to housewives door-to-door, Swinney thought he was set to begin his career as an Alabama football player. However, there was a problem with his grants and student loans, and the business office informed him he had to pay at least half of his $1,100 tuition for that semester to keep his schedule.

“I didn’t have that kind of money,” Swinney remembered. “What was I going to do?”

Swinney admitted he started to cry. Everything he had worked so hard to do was going to be gone. He had just found out he owed this money, and he had less than a day to figure out a way to get it paid. That same day his power was cut off, because he was behind on his bill, and he was behind on his share of the rent.

At that point, he did the only thing he knew to do – he prayed.

“Finally I sat down and prayed about it, and I thought, ‘Okay, I will go home and work this semester and maybe I can take a class at UAB or something. I will do whatever I have to do. That’s what I will do. I will do something.’

“There was nothing I could do about it. I always just tried to make the best out of everything. I worked all last spring. I got to play in the spring game. I worked hard in that weight room program that past fall and winter and busted my butt and made friends and worked hard all summer. But there was nothing I could do.”

So Swinney went and got his mail, and as he was sitting there going through some of it, he noticed this letter from Discover Card. He didn’t know what Discover Card was, but it intrigued him, so he opened it up and inside were two blank checks.

Discover was running a promotion for Discover Card members and was giving them blank checks which could be used like a regular check from a checking account. Swinney was awarded a card several months earlier, but it was returned to Discover thanks to a bad address.

Though he never opened the account, Discover still sent him the checks. After verifying the promotion was legitimate and he was indeed a cardholder with a $1,000 balance, Swinney could not contain his joy.

“It was one of those moments in my life, where I knew that God has a plan for me. He has got my back,” Swinney said. “I have had several of those along the way, but this was probably one of the first ones.

“I just started crying right there. That lady today is probably telling someone this story across the country about this guy. I was going crazy. I called my mom, and I was crying and I told her, ‘You are not going to believe this.’

“You know there is a God when a specific prayer is answered like that. It was one of those moments where I knew and I thought to myself, ‘You know what? God has a plan for me.’ I just have to keep doing what I’m doing. I will never forget that.”

Alabama went on to win the SEC that year, and Swinney joined the team in New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl. But soon another trial was ahead in his life, and like all the others, he faced it head on.

STAYING FOCUSED

Moments after the Sugar Bowl, Bill Curry and his staff at Alabama were let go and in came Gene Stallings. Everyone that Swinney had to prove himself to the year before was gone and now he was sent back to the scout team where he would have to prove himself all over again.

At the same time, Swinney’s mother had moved in with him and his roommate in their small two-bedroom apartment.

“We lived together the next three years like that,” Swinney said. “Mom says it was some of the best years of her life. She was the team’s mom. She hung out with us and made the best of it.”

On the football field, Swinney was also making the best of it.

“They did not know me from Adam,” he said about Stallings’ first coaching staff. “All of these people that I had busted my butt for and had earned all their respect, they were all gone. I had to start right back over.

“I was so frustrated that spring because I didn’t play one snap in the spring game. I went from getting to play in a game to not even playing in the spring game. I was just a walk-on. Guys I had kind of pushed in front of, I was right back at the bottom.

“I got very frustrated that spring, but I made up my mind that I was going to stick with it. I was doing very well in school and I wanted to graduate from Alabama, and I made a lot of good friends. I decided that I’m not going to quit. I’m not quitting. I’m going to stick it out.”

Like always, Swinney worked his tail off to get the coaches to notice him, but he wasn’t having much luck until that one October afternoon when his position coach, Woody McCorvey, called him over.

“Woody had never said my name since he had gotten there. I mean never. I was sitting over there on a Tuesday, and it was literally like it was when I got this job, literally like I got this job,” Swinney said. “I was sitting over there on a Tuesday practice with Coach Oliver being a scout team guy in the middle of the season. We weren’t having a good season, but the next thing that I know, I was called over there.

“Woody said ‘Dab,’ that’s what he called me, and I swear to you that was the first time I had ever heard the guy call my name. He said, ‘Dab, I need somebody who can catch the football. I’m tired of this guy, and I’m tired of all this. I know you will catch the football. I’m going to give you a chance today son, and if you do a good job, then you are playing on Saturday.’”

Swinney could hardly contain himself. He ran into that locker room to retrieve a white jersey McCorvey had asked him to put on to show he was supposed to be running with the regular receivers. He was throwing all kinds of colored jerseys out of his locker due to all of the scout-team jerseys he obtained, and when he finally found a white one, he just sat there and got on his knees.

“I said, ‘God, this is it.’ I didn’t know if he was serious or what was going on. I was just trying to make the most of what I had,” Swinney remembered. “I went out there and had an unbelievable practice. All of sudden everyone started cheering for me and the next thing I know I’m in the first-team huddle, and I’m standing there like, ‘Hey, Gary Hollingsworth and Devon Russell.’

“They were all my heroes you know and here I am. All of my buddies on the scout team are over there like, ‘Do you see this?’ It was unbelievable. I never looked back.”

And like McCorvey promised, Swinney did play that Saturday, and he eventually earned a letter and then a scholarship.

“When I went in later that week, they put the travel squad list up, and I waited until everyone left and then I stole it,” he said. “Man, I made it. I had my name on that 70-man roster, and it is framed in my den down stairs today.

“I drove all the way home to Pelham and showed my brother. I made it. That was an emotional moment for me. I lettered that year, I lettered as a junior. I lettered as a senior, played on the special teams and had a good career. I went (to Alabama) when I was 18 and left when I was 31.

“I was a crawl-on. Then I became a walk-on. Then I became a player, then I got a scholarship, then I was a graduate assistant and then I became a full-time coach, and it was just an incredible ride there.”

OH WHAT A RIDE

During that ride Swinney got married to his high school sweetheart Kathleen, moved his mother into a nice apartment with the help of his in-laws and became one of the up-and-coming young assistants in college football.

Then came another one of those forks in the road where Swinney had to make another difficult choice. Mike Dubose, who had taken over for Stallings following the 1996 season, was fired following the 2000 season and Swinney, along with the rest of the staff, was not retained.

“It was a great run,” Swinney remembers. “I knew God still had a plan for me, but I didn’t know what.”

One day while he was cleaning out his Alabama office in December of 2000, Swinney got a call from his old strength and conditioning coach, Rich Wingo. Coach Wingo worked for Curry at Alabama, and Swinney had not really spoken with Wingo since he left the school in 1990.

“He called and asked me if I would come to work for him,” Swinney said.

Wingo was the president of a major development company in Birmingham, and he asked Swinney to join his office and sell commercial real estate. At first Swinney thought it was a crazy idea because he didn’t know the first thing about commercial real estate, but then he warmed up the idea and joined Wingo at AIG Baker in April of 2001.

“I made more money than I had ever made in my life while I was there,” Swinney said. “I worked from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. I did my job and I went home and I got paid for it with bonuses and all that kind of stuff. I got a dose of the real world. It was a very humbling experience.”

But there was something missing in Swinney’s world.

“I missed coaching football,” he said. “I mean it was a good job, but I didn’t feel like I was making a difference with kids and stuff. Sure I was coaching little league, teaching at clinics and going to speaking engagements, and I had my children, but I missed coaching.

“I had coached too long, and I had too much knowledge in my head. I was almost a coordinator when I was 30 years old, but I turned that job down to stay at Alabama. I knew I still wanted to coach, but it would have to be at the right time, with the right coach, the right staff and the right school.”

CLEMSON COMES CALLING

Swinney said he prayed about the situation and then left it with God.

“I knew if he kept the door closed there was not a situation out there for me that I needed,” he said. “When the first year had come and past since I had been out of coaching, I thought the door was probably going to be closed for good. I just kept on rolling, and I figured it wasn’t going to happen for me.”

Then Bowden called.

“He called me up and said he had a job open up, and he wanted to know if I was interested. I didn’t even know he had a job open up, but I was definitely interested,” Swinney said.

So Swinney flew to Clemson and immediately fell in love with it. The situation was ideal.

“I loved Clemson University, Tommy and the staff. I loved everything about it,” he said.

But he also realized what he was walking away from – a secured job, a new home that they were two weeks away from moving into and of course family. Swinney had never lived outside the state of Alabama, and he was about to take his parents’ and in-laws’ grandkids to South Carolina with Kathleen pregnant with the couple’s third child.

“I had a lot of people telling me not to do it,” Swinney said. “I had people calling me up saying, ‘Don’t take that job.’ They are going to get fired in six months. They just got killed by Texas Tech, recruiting was bad, there are no facilities. It wasn’t very good.”

But Swinney felt good about it.

He helped Clemson to a 9-4 record that first season, which ended with a win against No. 6 Tennessee in the Peach Bowl. Though he was starting all over again, Swinney’s wide receivers became one of the more improved areas on the team and Clemson’s recruiting also improved.

As recruiting coordinator he became one of the nation’s best recruiters, and soon, he was being courted by other schools. He turned down job offers to return to Alabama, including one that was reportedly worth $300,000 a year.

“Money has never really been the issue,” Swinney said. “I took a $100,000 pay cut to come here, and I have turned down $100,000 raises to go somewhere else. That’s not what’s important to me.”

When Swinney took over as interim coach following Bowden’s resignation in October, his mother and his former high school coach never doubted the interim tag would be removed from in front of his name and that the words head coach would replace it.

HEALING WOUNDS

Phillips, who has known Swinney since he was 12 years old, remembers Swinney saying that he wasn’t going to let the pressure get to him or the team. That they were just going to have fun. He said that’s Dabo Swinney.

“He was telling the truth. They were going to have some fun and they did,” Phillips said. “Tiger Walk, handing out pizza to the kids waiting in line, that’s Dabo Swinney. That’s not a guy trying to get a job, that’s the way he is all the time. That’s who he is.

“He has proved everyone wrong all his life. There were people who didn’t think he could walk on at Alabama, but he did it. There were people that thought he would never play, but he did and helped the team win a national championship.

“There were people who didn’t think he would ever be a coach, but he did it and he is one of the best. He has been proving people wrong all of his life and look where he is now… It didn’t surprise me at all.”

It also isn’t surprising that Swinney has done all this despite what he had to go through to get here. But the 39-year-old coach does not hold any grudges from those tough days of his youth. In fact, he embraces them because those times made him who he is today.

Though he admits he and his father’s relationship wasn’t always the best when he was in high school and college, things have since improved.

“Things started to get better and healing, and God went to work on Dad too,” Swinney said. “Now, the good side of the story is that everyone in my family is saved. My Dad got saved. He doesn’t drink. He smoked for 50 years, and he doesn’t smoke now.”

Swinney says one of the greatest days of his life was the day he moved his dad out of his old trailer that he lived in for 17 years and into the house he and Kathleen were living in before they moved to Clemson.

“Seeing the joy and pride that they take in their home now and just making a difference in his life makes all the difference,” Swinney said. “He has been sober for a good while now… He doesn’t touch it and he doesn’t smoke. He is a good man and always has been. He is a good dad. He just had problems you know, and he didn’t handle them the right way and that led to other problems and stuff like that.

“Life is good for him now, and it has just gotten better.”

Life is good for Dabo Swinney too, and not just because he is Clemson’s new head football coach. He is now able to experience one of the greatest moments in his life with all the people that he loves. His mom has since remarried and has been happily married for 10 years now.

His brothers Tracy, 45, and Tripp, 40, have experienced their own trials and tribulations, but are now on solid ground too. He helped put Tracy through college at Samford in Birmingham, and he is now a police officer in Pelham.

Tripp is a recovering alcoholic, who hit rock bottom in 2007. But with Dabo funding a six-month alcohol rehab program, Tripp has been sober since last March and is planning to marry his old high school sweetheart this coming year.

“It’s been quite a ride,” Dabo Swinney said. “All of these things have been motivating factors in my life, and it makes you who you are if you handle it the right way. If you handle it the wrong way, then it becomes excuses and you cannot become successful.

“The worst thing you can have in your life is bitterness and resentment. It’s a cancer. There were some bad things that went on in my life, but you have to forgive. God heals and wounds heal.”