USA TODAY International Edition
Now is time for open race discussions
Now is the time to get it out in the open, college football players. Get it all out. Every racially insensitive incident that was swept under the rug, every coach who didn’t have your back when words and actions crossed the line that should never be crossed. Let’s hear about them. Let’s talk about them. Let’s learn from them.
That conversation was started Tuesday when former Clemson receiver Kanyon Tuttle broke the cone of silence around one of America’s top college football programs and tweeted about an incident where a member of Dabo Swinney’s staff used a racial epithet against a player and was not disciplined.
Though Tuttle did not identify the coach or player involved in the incident, a second person with knowledge of the Clemson program during that time period, who spoke to USA TODAY Sports on the condition of anonymity due to fears of retribution, confirmed that the events in Tuttle’s tweet were accurate.
Later, former Clemson tight end D. J. Greenlee told The State newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, that the incident occurred between himself and longtime special teams coordinator Danny Pearman during a practice.
“He heard me use the N- word basically, and basically tried to correct me by saying the N- word back,” Greenlee told The State. “He wasn’t saying that I was a N- word. It was, using the tone, in a word like, ‘ OK ... I was talking to my teammate and you came over here.”
Greenlee added he forgave Pearman but indicated that Swinney, aware of the incident, took a more passive role and didn’t address it in front of the team.
“( Pearman) apologized the rest of that season,” Greenlee said. “He knew he was in the wrong. You can’t hold a grudge against someone forever.”
Clemson released a statement from Pearman confirming the incident took place, saying, “While I did not direct the term at any player, I know there is no excuse for me using the language in any circumstance. I never should have repeated the phrase. It was wrong when I said it, and it is wrong today.”
Regardless of Greenlee’s magnanimity, it’s clear this incident was shocking to Clemson’s players at the time and burned in their memory.
And it’s just as obvious that Swinney, whose news conference Monday showed a fairly disappointing level of sophistication about the issues that have sparked protests across the country in recent days, needs to address his own shortcomings here.
As brilliant a program builder as Swinney has been, a coach who makes $ 9 million a year largely thanks to the work of African American teenagers cannot continue to be a credible leader to them in this environment without at least an apology for failing to discipline a white coach who clearly crossed a line with a black player.
That part is pretty simple. Tuttle’s tweet revealed something deeper.
There’s little reason to believe that Tuttle, a walk- on whose father, Perry Tuttle, was hailed on the cover of Sports Illustrated as the “Orange Bowl Hero” after Clemson won the 1981 national title, was driven by animus or agenda when he sent his tweet on Tuesday. It’s clear from a subsequent comment that he holds Swinney in high regard.
But with the very real conversations happening about systemic racism after George Floyd died with a police officer’s knee on his throat last week, Tuttle was not going to abide a phony one.
And that’s clearly what he believed Swinney was doing Monday in a news conference when he called it “a disgusting act of evil” without saying anything of substance on the direct issue of systemic racism or police brutality toward black people.
When Clemson posted a sound clip of that news conference, Tuttle retweeted it with the following comment: “Cap ( slang for lie), 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.”
The reference to “sikes” was about a campus- wide protest at Sikes Hall, where the university administration has its main offices. The protests took place in April 2016 after bananas were found on a campus monument to African American history, and some students felt that the university’s response was not strong enough.
According to the person who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Swinney discouraged players from attending because of the potential that it would create a story for the team to deal with, though the protests took place nearly five months before football season.
None of that makes Swinney a bad person. But it does put a dent in the portrait of his program as a fun- loving football utopia if that image was attained by glossing over a racially charged incident and discouraging college kids from a protest that might have meant something to them because it could hurt his image with white fans.
In that sense, Clemson almost certainly isn’t alone. But these are different times, and coaches must begin getting comfortable with the uncomfortable.
Tuttle certainly isn’t the only black college football player who harbored ill feelings about some aspects of what they experienced, who thought their voice was suppressed for the alleged good of the program. He’s just the first who put it out there as part of this new conversation.
If we want to see real changes, others should join him.