You won’t believe what one college coach told Will Shipley when he was in high school.

During an interview on the Next Up with Adam Breneman podcast, Shipley was asked to recall the craziest thing that a coach said to him during the recruiting process.

Shipley brought up something wild that he heard from a coach at a camp early in the recruiting process when he was going into his sophomore year at Weddington (N.C.) High School.

Despite what Shipley felt was a strong showing at this particular school’s camp, one coach (Shipley understandably didn’t name the school or coach) told him that he should switch sports and play lacrosse in college instead of football.

“I think probably one of the craziest things that I’ve ever heard, and it’s not a positive thing – and I’m not going to mention the school – but I went to a camp and ran a 4.4 flat, did everything I was supposed to, and just didn’t feel right with the coach throughout the whole camp,” Shipley said. “I went up to him after with respect and was just like, ‘Hey coach, you think I can get better in any way, what ways do you think I can improve?’ And he told me, ‘You probably need to switch sports.’ He said, ‘You should play lacrosse in college.’ Yeah, to my face. To my face. So, that’s one of those people that I love proving wrong.”

Shipley added that the camp where he heard that from the coach was at “a very big school.”

“Everybody would be really amazed if I was to say it, but out of respect for him and the university, I’m not going to,” Shipley said. “But yeah, that was the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Because like I said, I thought I had a great day. I’m high off of running a 4.4 and catching balls against linebackers all day, and he told me I needed to switch sports.”

An outstanding lacrosse athlete who received college offers for that sport as well, Shipley was ranked as the nation’s No. 1 all-purpose back in the 2021 class when he committed to Clemson on May 5, 2020, over a slew of other major football offers.

It’s safe to say Shipley made a smart decision to stick with football.

Now a rising junior for the Tigers, he enters the 2023 season with 1,920 career rushing yards and 26 touchdowns to go with 54 career receptions for 358 yards over 24 career games (19 starts). Last season, he became the first player in ACC history to be selected as a first-team All-ACC honoree in three different categories (running back, all-purpose and specialist) and was one of four finalists for the Paul Hornung Award (nation’s most versatile player).

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