GREENVILLE, S.C. — The third-ranked Clemson Tigers may not have been practicing on the football field on Tuesday afternoon, but they were at practice. They were practicing their good-life skills instead of their football skills.

A week after Dabo Swinney became the interim head coach at Clemson in 2008, he decided his team needed to do a little bit of community service instead of working out on the practice field. Like this week, the Tigers were off so Swinney loaded up the buses and they headed to Greenville where they volunteered their time at the hospital.

On Tuesday, the entire Clemson football team and coaches came to Greenville to work in the Grace Point neighborhood – assisting with the construction of two houses at Grace Point; building new fencing along the property line; performing landscaping on six other houses, and completing other tasks in the community.

Swinney says he took a lot of heat that first week when he did that, but since then everyone has embraced the concept of taking some time out of their busy schedule to help someone in need.

“The message was we are practicing for life,” Swinney said. “We are practicing to build our culture here for what we want to be, and the type of program we want to have. We have done that every year since.”

Clemson also has a community service day project during bowl practice session as well.

Watch Dabo Swinney discuss the Tigers’ community service project as well as talking about Deshaun Watson and the special recognition he received from the All-State Good-Works Team.

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