Wilkins on Swinney: People Are Trying to Really Spin a Negative Picture

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney and the Clemson football program have been in the public eye the last two weeks. But even so, current and former players are rallying around their leader.

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney and the Clemson football program have been in the public eye the last two weeks — and not for the best of reasons. 

A day after Swinney's statement regarding the state of the nation was met with mixed reviews, former player Kanyon Tuttle took to Twitter to call out Swinney for allowing an assistant head coach and tight ends coach Danny Pearman to use n-word in a practice three years ago.

"Cap (slang for liar), you allowed a coach to call a player the N-word during practice with no repercussions. Not even a team apology. When we had the sit-in in front of sikes you suggested us players try to stay out of it to limit distractions. Stop protecting your brand, take a stand," Tuttle wrote.

Monday, Swinney addressed the accusations and calls for Pearman to be fired.

"First of all, anybody who has been in our program knows there are two words in particular I don't want to hear," Swinney said. "One is the n-word and the other is GD. I would fire a coach immediately if he called a player the n-word. That absolutely did not happen."

"A story broke this week. And the story was not in context. But what happened was we had I didn't know anything about it. It was a coach and his player, Coach Pearman and DJ off doing a drill and a part of the field wasn't in front of the whole team or anything like that. And Coach Pearman was correcting DJ to do the right thing ... And DJ, you know, just kind of, you know, said something he probably shouldn't have said and he said, you know, 'I blocked the wrong effing n-word.'

"And Coach Pearman, you know, thought he was saying to him and he's mad and he reacted. And he basically, in correcting him repeated to say the phrase and he said, We don't say we blocked the wrong effing n-word. And he repeated, and he shouldn't have done it. There's no excuse for even saying that. It doesn't matter what the context is, but there is a big difference.

"He did not call someone an n-word. And so again, I didn't know anything about it. Things happen. There's a lot of things that don't allow in our program. But when things happen, we deal with it. Sometimes it's in private, sometimes it's public. This particular case, the player came to me in private, and we had handled in private. And I think it's important to know, because every case is different. But this particular player, DJ, I've known him his entire life. Coach Pearman's known him his entire life.

Swinney also addressed a photo that was taken of him in a "Football Matters" shirt and added that he not only agrees with the Black Lives Matter movement, but feels there needs to be more done.

"It's a shirt I've had for a couple years, it's given to pretty much every coach by the National Football foundation," Swinney said. "And, you know, that's been their promotional thing, I think, since all the way back in 2014. And I would just say any incident, you know, that I was trying to mock the Black Lives movement, it is just an attack on my character, just an attack on my character, and really sad. But I also will say, I wholeheartedly support Black Lives Matter. In fact, I don't quite think that's adequate enough, I think, I think Black Lives significantly and equally matter to me just like laws matters, kind of like, Hey, we might have to, I think Black Lives significantly and equally matter.

"All right, God loves us all. None of us are better than anybody else. It doesn't matter what the color of our skin is where we're born, any of that stuff. All right, in the eyes of God, we are all equal. We're all first team. We're all five stars. We all got an eternal contract. And that is what I believe."

Swinney has been the recipient of a wave of support from a bevy of current players — quarterback Trevor Lawrence, linebacker Mike Jones Jr., wide receiver Cornell Powell and numerous others — as well as former players Deshaun Watson and DeAndre Hopkins, both of whom took to Twitter to issue their support for their head coach.

The latest former player to issue his support for Swinney is current Miami Dolphin Christian Wilkins.

“So about everything going on with Coach Swinney and the media, I just really feel like people are trying to really spin a negative picture of Coach Swinney in a lot of ways. And that’s not who he is at all," Wilkins said in a Zoom meeting with the media Thursday. "That’s not the guy I’ve known since I was, what, a sophomore and junior in high school. You know what I’m saying? He’s a man of faith. He loves his players. I know his character. I know his heart. I see a lot of different things being said about him that I don’t necessarily agree with because I know him personally. 

"And I know his intentions and I know his heart and I know he’s a great coach, and he’s passionate about developing young men on and off the field. Granted, he might not have said all the right things, he might have done some things that people disagree with and that maybe I disagree with. But that just shows where someone like me could really be a help to Coach Swinney too, just as someone who’s close with him and as someone who loves him, continue to help educate him, just have those conversations with him about things going on with him and the media as well. But I’m not going to let anyone create a negative image of Coach Swinney because my experience with him has been great and a lot of other players feel that way as well.”