Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Clowney hopes to reunite with another Carolina legend
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Jadeveon Clowney’s return to Charlotte, the city “just up the road” from his Rock Hill, S.C., hometown, is a homecoming he has embraced.
But reuniting with another particular player would make it even sweeter.
Clowney, the All-Pro pass rusher the Carolina Panthers signed to a two-year deal earlier this week, told reporters on Friday that he would love to team up with Stephon Gilmore — his fellow Rock Hill native, South Pointe High School graduate and South Carolina Gamecocks legend.
Clowney’s already asked Gilmore about the prospects, he said.
“Yeah, I’m trying to get him to pull up,” Clowney said of Gilmore with a big smile. “I was like, ‘We gotta do the Rock Hill thing over, the South Carolina thing over.’ Trying to get him to come home with me again and have some fun.”
Clowney said he reached out to Gilmore before he signed to ask him what it was like to play for their childhood NFL team, considering it being so close to their childhood friends and family. Gilmore signed with the Panthers in October 2021 — a successful if brief tenure for the 2019 Defensive Player of the Year cornerback.
“Before I signed, I did talk to Stephon, and he was like, ‘I’m trying to get them to sign me back too,’ ” Clowney said of his conversation with Gilmore. “And I was like, ‘Now I’m gonna sign this contract now, and you’re telling me when I sign, you’re gonna come.’ And he was like, ‘We’re going to see, man.’ ”
It might be an understatement to say Rock Hill would be “delighted” if Clowney and Gilmore played for the Carolina Panthers at the same time. Clowney and Gilmore, of course, are two of the biggest names to come out of the city of 70,000 just south of Charlotte and are huge reasons why the city dubs itself “Football City, USA.” Gilmore’s days as a Stallions quarterback and defensive back are stuff of statewide legend. And Clowney’s high school mixtape is of national lore.
Most football fans of a certain generation remember Clowney’s barrage of highlights — of the No. 7, red-jersey-wearing mammoth charging through opposing offensive linemen as if they were helpless fish in a ship’s path. And those highlights don’t even include that helmet-popping-off hit in the Outback Bowl in 2013 while he played for South Carolina, which pops up on the timelines of every dutiful Gamecocks football fan at least once a week.
Clowney and Gilmore reuniting would also delight Panthers fans.
Clowney, for one, had a career year in Baltimore in 2023 — a season that he called his “Kobe year” — in which he notched 9.5 sacks. The NFL veteran also added two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery and added to his prowess as a run-stopper, something this overachieving Panthers defense struggled with at times last year.