The first person to interview Dabo Swinney at the ACC Football Kickoff on Tuesday was no other than his former boss, former Clemson head coach Tommy Bowden.

“What a way to start the day off,” Swinney said.

“I’m not sure he’s quite all into this media stuff, but he’s getting better. I think he’s getting more entrenched.”

Swinney coached the wide receivers under Bowden for six seasons at Clemson before Bowden was pushed out the door by then athletic director Terry Don Phillips following a disappointing 3-3 start to the 2008 season.

Thanks to Bowden’s last request before he left, Swinney was given the interim job, and he has been the Tigers head coach ever since.

“When they made the change at Clemson, Terry Don Phillips, I’ll never forget it, that day, his exact words to me were, ‘That was Coach Bowden’s suggestion, would he give me a shot to be the interim.’ I’m very much indebted to Tommy Bowden,” Swinney said.

Since October 13, 2008, the Tigers have gone 61-26, a 70.1 win percentage. They have won three ACC Atlantic Division Titles, have played in the ACC Championship Game twice and have won the ACC once. They have also played in two Orange Bowls, beating Ohio State in the 2014 game. They have also taken down LSU and Oklahoma in bowl games, and have produced four straight 10-win seasons.

Through it all, Bowden has been right there pulling for Swinney and the Tigers.

Former Clemson coach Tommy Bowden and current coach Dabo Swinney still have a close relationship today.

“He’s been incredibly supportive. He’s as good as it gets as far as a person,” Swinney said.

Swinney’s and Bowden’s relationship goes all the way back to the days when Bowden was Swinney’s position coach at Alabama. Bowden gave the tall and skinny kid from Pelham, Ala., his first opportunity when Swinney walked on to the football team in 1988.

“I love Coach Bowden. I wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for Tommy Bowden,” Swinney said. “He was my first position coach at Alabama. A lot of people don’t know that. When I first joined the team in the fall of ’88, spring of ’89, fall of ’89, he was the receivers coach. I really liked him as a coach. He was an excellent receivers coach, a lot of energy.”

In the spring of 1990, Bowden left Alabama for Kentucky, but they maintained a relationship. Bowden then went from Kentucky to Auburn and then Tulane as head coach.

“As I finished my playing career, I would see him before the games. We would always talk,” Swinney said. “Then I got right into coaching. So I’d see him on the road all the years that I was at Alabama and he was at Auburn. Then obviously he got the Tulane job. I was still at Alabama coaching receivers then, but I always communicated with him, even when he went to Clemson.”

After he got out of coaching in 2001, following Mike DuBose’s firing at Alabama, Swinney stayed in contact with Bowden, and when Rick Stockstill left Clemson in 2003 to become an offensive coordinator, Bowden wasted no time in reaching out to Swinney about the opening on his staff.

“He literally called me out of the blue on a Friday. I coached eight years at Alabama then got out of coaching in ‘01 and ‘02, those two seasons,” Swinney said. “He just called me in February of ‘03, asked me if I was interested in getting back into coaching. I said, ‘Absolutely!’ Had it not been for that relationship, just that seed that was planted years ago when I was just a young player, I probably wouldn’t have had that opportunity.

“So I’m very fortunate that he gave me a chance to come to Clemson. We have a great relationship.”

And that relationship continues today.