WHOLE NEW GAME
Ex-Brewer Spiers back at Clemson ... as a football coach
Nearly 30 years after the Milwaukee Brewers made shortstop Bill Spiers a first-round draft pick out of Clemson University, he is back at that South Carolina school as both a student and assistant coach. And Spiers is coaching football, not baseball. How could such a thing happen, you ask? It all started when Spiers’ son, Will, decided to join the Clemson football program as a walk-on punter in 2016. When the elder Spiers bumped into football coach Dabo Swinney last spring, Swinney asked if he had his degree from Clemson.
Spiers explained that he was drafted by the Brewers as a junior and never returned to school to finish his studies during or after his 13-year career in the major leagues. Swinney, who strongly believes that athletes should graduate whenever possible, informed Spiers of a program called Tiger Trust, which allows former students who left early for pro careers to return and earn a degree at school expense.
“He said, ‘You can come back and coach for me and go back to school,’ ” recalled Spiers. “I said, ‘Yeah, right. I’m going to come back to school at 50 years old.’
“I was happy with my life back home and wasn’t planning on getting my degree. But Coach Swinney can sell ice to an Eskimo. Let’s put it that way.”
Spiers accepted Swinney’s offer to get his degree while serving as an undergraduate coach for the football team. In that role, Spiers will be on the sideline Monday night at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., when Clemson and Alabama clash for the second consecutive year for the national championship.
The Crimson Tide won a thriller last year, 45-40, and
is favored to repeat, but the Tigers are highly motivated to avenge that defeat.
“We can do it. Our kids believe it,” Spiers said in a telephone interview from Clemson. “Last year, we should have beaten them. We had three or four plays that were mental busts that caused us to lose.
“Our kids are excited about the opportunity to play them again. This team has a tremendous will about them. It’s going to be fun to watch. We will be prepared.”
Clemson long has been a family affair for Spiers. His father, Bud, who died last May, played shortstop for the Tigers in 1958, under then-new coach Bill Wilhelm, helping the school advance to the College World Series.
Bud Spiers had a .947 fielding percentage that season, which stood as a Clemson record for shortstops until Bill broke it in 1987 with a .950 mark. That defensive prowess was a factor in the Brewers making him the 13th player taken in the June amateur draft that year.
Spiers was the last first-round pick during the legendary Wilhelm’s 36-year career at Clemson. But, before heading off to a successful baseball career, Spiers played a season of football for Clemson in 1986 under coach Danny Ford. With his punting game a mess, a desperate Ford placed an ad in the student newspaper, asking anyone who thought he could punt to show up for a mass tryout.
Beyond being an all-state baseball player at Wade Hampton Academy in Orangeburg, S.C., Spiers was a heralded quarterback and punter, so he tossed his foot in the ring and won the job. Referred to only as “Shortstop” by Ford, Spiers averaged 39.2 yards per punt for a Clemson team that won the Atlantic Coast Conference crown and defeated Stanford in the Gator Bowl.
With that background, it was only fitting that Spiers would return to Clemson as son Will joined the football team as a punter. His oldest daughter, Ashley, was working for the football team as a student assistant and still does after graduating in December.
After retiring as a majorleague baseball player after the 2001 season, Spiers returned home to tiny Cameron, S.C., and kept his hand in sports as a volunteer baseball and football coach at Calhoun Academy in nearby St. Matthews. In 2015, Spiers took over as head coach and won state crowns in both sports.
Will Spiers played for the Calhoun football team and wanted to follow in his father’s punting footsteps at Clemson, so the die was cast, as it turns out, for the entire family. Bill and wife Laura agreed to move from Cameron to Clemson, some three hours to the north, enrolling youngest daughter Mary Crosby in a local high school.
During that decision-making process, Bud Spiers was terminally ill, and Bill fretted about leaving his mother alone back on the family farm. In a moving, emotional conversation, his father told him to follow his heart back to Clemson.
“He looked at me and said, ‘Look, you continue what you’re planning to do. I’m so proud,’ ” Spiers said. “Secretly, he always wanted me to get my degree. I never did know that until he was close to passing away and told me. So, that’s been a driving force for me.”
Because he coached his son from youth leagues through high school, Spiers worried that Will would not be able to carve his own path at Clemson with dad serving as a coach. Swinney told him there was plenty of room for individuality in the school’s large football program, and Spiers has given his son breathing room while working with the offensive side of the team.
“I talked to Will about it and he was OK with it,” said Spiers, whose son is redshirting as a freshman. “We want him to do things on his own. But it’s been a blessing to be able to spend these years with my kids.
“Ashley graduated in December but is still working in the football office. We’re hoping she stays up here and gets a job up here so she’ll still be around. And there’s no other place Mary Crosby wants to go to college.”
The plan is for the Spiers family to stay at Clemson until Bill graduates in December. He took classes in both pre-med and marketing the first time around but now is working toward a degree in parks, recreation and tourism management.
“We were looking for the quickest path to a degree and this was it,” Spiers said. “I had all my core classes done (from the first time as a student).
“Everybody asks, ‘What’s your goal in all of this?’ I don’t really have any goals. We’re just riding this wave and we’ll see what happens. When Will came for his official visit, there was a big group and they said, ‘Everybody stand up who has a degree from Clemson.’ I couldn’t stand up.
“That was a little sticking point. It will be neat to finish what I started. I’ve got one semester under my belt and two to go.”
As for being in class with students his son’s age, Spiers said, “The first day I was real anxious. But being a coach, I was prepared for it because you know how to get on their level. So, in the classroom, I just got on their level.
“School is a lot easier when you’re 50 years old and have that experience. I got a 4.0 my first semester. So, I got my first 4.0 as a 50-year-old. Imagine that.”
Spiers’ younger brother, Michael, also played baseball at Clemson and was most valuable player of the 1991 ACC tournament. That Tigers team advanced to the College World Series and won a school-record 60 games. Continuing the family tradition, Michael’s son, Carson, is a freshman on the Clemson baseball team.
In ’91, Bill was in his third season as the Brewers’ starting shortstop. He eventually would morph into a valuable utility player who saw action at short, second base, third base and in the outfield.
After six seasons with the Brewers (1989-’94), Spiers was claimed off waivers by the Mets and played one year in New York. He spent the next six years in Houston before retiring with 1,252 games and a .271 career batting average under his belt. His 922 major-league hits are the most for any former Clemson player.
Now, he’s back where it all started in terms of evolving into a first-round draft pick, so Spiers has come full circle in that regard.
“This has disrupted my life in a great way,” Spiers said. “I tell Coach Swinney all the time that this is better than the big leagues. It has been incredible. The culture he has created here is second to none. It has been a pleasure to work for him.
“Being a part of it from the inside is an unbelievable experience. I’m really blessed to have this opportunity. It’s crazy, it really is. The Clemson people are excited I’m back and getting my degree. There’s no doubt I made the right decision.”