When you think of Clemson Football, who is the first person you think about? There is no right or wrong answer.
This was the question thrown out on the Out of Bounds Show Thursday afternoon on 105.5 The Roar in the Upstate of South Carolina. I liked the question so I figured I would borrow it, or in this case, take it.
I think I know the answer for most of you. The answer is Dabo Swinney.
And that is totally understandable.
Swinney is without a doubt the greatest football coach Clemson has ever had. We all know his record and what has done for the Clemson Football Program.
A few of you will probably think of Danny Ford. I get that too.
Ford was Clemson Football in the 1980s, leading the Tigers to their first national championship in 1981 and owning the ACC for an entire decade. The run Clemson had in the 1980s was unmatched until Dabo Swinney came around.
However, when I think of Clemson Football I think of Frank Howard.
Frank Howard blows a kiss good bye to Big Thursday following the Tigers’ 27-0 victory over South Carolina in 1959. (File photo)
Howard is Clemson Football. He is to Clemson what Bear Bryant is to Alabama or Wood Hayes is to Ohio State.
“When you think of Clemson football, you think of Coach Howard,” Ford said. “He is the one who set it up for us and what we were able to accomplish during our time here. People knew about Clemson long before us because of Coach Howard.”
Howard spent 30 years walking up and down the sideline of the stadium he built. His Clemson teams won a combined 165 games, just one of three active coaches at the time of his retirement with 150 or more victories.
In all, Howard won eight conference championships, including six Atlantic Coast Conference Championships. He also guided the program to national prominence with multiple bowl appearances in prestigious games like the Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Gator Bowl.
His 1948 team went undefeated and untied with an 11-0 record, which it capped with a win over Missouri in the 1949 Gator Bowl. In 1951, the Tigers completed another undefeated season, 9-0-1, with a win over Miami in the 1951 Orange Bowl Classic.
It was the 1951 Orange Bowl that made it Howard’s mission to publicize Clemson as often as he could. Following the regular season, the 10th-ranked Tigers accepted an invitation to play in their first Orange Bowl game.
No one in South Florida was happy when it was announced Clemson would play undefeated and 15th-ranked Miami in the Orange Bowl. They wanted to know why their local team and prestigious bowl game was hosting what they felt was a school no one knew anything about.
When Howard got word of this reaction, he was not happy. It bothered him. Normally, he would just brush something of this matter off. However, this one got to him. He felt his team and Clemson deserved more respect.
During a post regular-season banquet, Howard vented his displeasure.
“They ought to read the AP poll if they want to know about Clemson,” he said.
Clemson felt disrespected again after it was announced national champion LSU was going to play the Tigers in the 1959 Sugar Bowl Classic in New Orleans.
Clemson was 8-2 and finished 12th in the final AP Poll in 1958. Sugar Bowl officials were impressed by the ACC Champions and extended the team an invitation to play in their bowl game.
The local press wanted to know why the Sugar Bowl picked such a lowly school such as Clemson to play the mighty Bayou Tigers from Baton Rouge. The New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote, “Oh, Frank Howard, we beg of you to warn that team of yours that LSU now reigns supreme; and when it reigns, it pours.”
However, Howard wasn’t to be out done.
“This coaching business will get you if you let it. More letters come in from alumni and even small boys and girls telling me what I have to do about (Billy) Cannon and the Chinese Bandits,” Howard said in a speech to the Biloxi, Mississippi Chamber of Commerce, while waving newspaper clippings. “If I didn’t have a coaching job, I’d be between the shafts of a plow. But with all its trials, coaching beats plowing. I’ve always found you meet a lot of dumb guys in the newspaper and radio business, and tonight’s no exception.”
The ACC’s Tigers held their own against the national champions in the Sugar Bowl. Cannon’s 9-yard touchdown pass on a halfback option to Mickey Mangham, in the third quarter, turned out to be the only score in a 7-0 LSU victory.
“Clemson is the best football team we met this year,” Cannon said after the game. “They really hit.”
With Howard boasting about Clemson to the media and then with his teams’ performing well on the biggest of stages, no one was asking anymore “Where is Clemson?” or “Why are we playing them?”
Howard retired as head football coach at Clemson following the 1969 season and stayed on as athletic director until he officially retired from athletics in 1974.
Even in retirement Howard continued on as Clemson’s biggest ambassador, and because of his quick-whit and sense of humor, he became a popular guest speaker all over the country. The media, especially columnist, called him just to hear one of his stories.
Nearly all the way up to his death in January of 1996, Howard booked speaking engagements and in doing so he sold Clemson’s brand and made sure everyone knew about Clemson. From the day he took over for Jess Neely in 1940, Howard’s one mission was to make sure everyone knew where Clemson, South Carolina was.
That is why, when I think of Clemson Football. I think of Frank Howard.
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