CUBBIE BLUE
Clemson’s Swinney needed theme for his team, and he found it when he visited Maddon’s Cubs
TAMPA, Fla. — It was late April, and Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney still was searching his brain for a team theme for the 2016 season.
Little did he know the very words he was looking for were waiting for him at Wrigley Field. In the manager’s office. In this all- things- Cubs world, it somehow only makes sense that Joe Maddon would have a hand in Clemson’s effort to win a national championship.
One of the reasons the Tigers were able to reach the College Football Playoff title game Monday — against Alabama for the second consecutive season — is because they ‘‘ embraced the target’’ from the first day of training camp. Also — and this was a real key — they ‘‘ tried not to suck.’’
Gee, where have we heard those phrases before?
Swinney only spent about a halfhour in the Cubs’ sparkling new clubhouse, yet he managed to rob Maddon blind.
‘‘ I got a chance to kind of see the culture in there,’’ he recalled Saturday, ‘‘ and I was like: ‘ Man, this is really cool. These guys are loose. They know they’ve got a good team.’ ’’
Swinney, 47, is no seamhead. He was in Chicago with assistant coaches Brent Venables and Marion Hobby for the NFL draft, and one of them got the idea to check out Wrigley and the surging Cubs, who were off to a 15- 5 start. So Swinney called his agent, Mike Brown, and asked whether he knew anyone who could hook them up with tickets.
‘‘ He goes, ‘ Well, I know Joe Maddon,’ ’’ Swinney said. ‘‘ And I go, ‘ Who’s Joe Maddon?’ He went, ‘ He’s the manager.’ I go, ‘ That’s a pretty good guy to know.’ ’’
Swinney and his party were invited into the clubhouse during a rain delay of a game against the Brewers that eventually was postponed. As first impressions go, this one was pretty big.
‘‘ I walk in there, and