By Ed McGranahan.

Ryan,

We’re hardly friends and barely acquainted. In fact, I probably know more about you than you me so this may seem a bit pretentious.

As a reporter, I’ve gotten to know a little about a lot of players at Clemson, some a good deal more than others. More than a year ago I telephoned your father for a story about the young man driven to succeed Dalton Freeman as Clemson’s starting center and learned you had been a championship swimmer in Greenville’s S.A.I.L. program. Your high school coach was effusive about a kid with a nonstop motor who refused to quit. Freeman told me several times that the job would be in great hands after he left. Even he had a gaffe or two, but generally his word was good enough for me.

As a fan “hate” was never part of my lexicon except in describing the nastiness after a loss, so it’s hard to relate to the venomous reaction to a mistake during the Florida State game. Nobody loved their teams more than I. The stack of scrapbooks and trading cards and newspaper clippings were more than any mother wished to tolerate, which was probably why some disappeared while I was away at school. Guaranteed she would cry if she knew what some of the “junk” is worth today.

Most kids weren’t into sports like me. My father took me to high school football games because we didn’t have a college of note nearby and it wasn’t a big deal in our community. My grandmother followed WVU basketball during the Rod Hundley-Jerry West era and I would listen to radio broadcasts with her during weekend visits. And while many kids in my neighborhood were Cleveland Indians fans, I was hooked on the Pirates at 11 when Bill Mazeroski homered to beat the Yankees in 1960 World Series.

Was I ever disappointed? Frequently if you knew the Pirates, or the Mountaineers after they hired Bucky Waters or the Browns since Art Modell packed the trucks and moved to Baltimore. Hate? It never occurred to me, though Waters and Modell never received birthday cards.

Over the years I’ve seen fans evolve with the 24/7 exposure to sports on dozens of TV channels and the emergence of the Internet. Other than the copious quantities of information and the opportunity to see virtually every game in season, I don’t see much good coming of the metamorphosis. Social networking, the Internet, costume shops and face paint have created an anonymity that seems to imbue fans with questionable courage and judgment.

All this must seem strange coming from a person who’s made a career playing to fans’ passions, stirring the proverbial pot with news, information and analysis to keep pace with the competition. But I’ve always thought of myself as a journalist not a personality with a caricature on Twitter and Facebook, and as a reporter and editor my best was either writing or choosing a well-crafted story that either offered a unique perspective or tugged at emotion.

While my loyalties to specific teams have grayed over the years, I am still a fan of sports as a pastime and my love of football is as strong as it was when I followed Dad to those high school games in smoky steel towns along the Ohio River. That’s why it hurt to hear about what you encountered last weekend. My son pointed out the other day that many fans don’t understand how incidents such as yours, threats and harsh criticism of any player or coach, also touches dads and moms and wives, brothers and sisters and sons and daughters.

My wish is that the experience won’t sour your enthusiasm and that you can continue to keep the motor running through another season because, as Coach Swinney said, that wasn’t a fan.

Ed