CLEMSON — Clemson University’s faculty and staff are in the process of getting to know its new president — Dr. Kevin Guskiewicz.
The former President at Michigan State University was officially approved by Clemson University’s Board of Trustees on Wednesday morning. He is Clemson’s 16th university president in its 136-year history.
And though Guskiewicz is new to the Clemson Family, he is not new to everyone. Clemson head football coach Dabo Swinney knows him really well.
“Coach Swinney and I texted last night and agreed that we can do a lot of great things together for Clemson,” Guskiewicz said.
Clemson’s new president and its football coach met about 13 years ago at an ACC Football Coaches meeting in Charlotte. Guskiewicz was there speaking to the league’s 15 coaches regarding a sport-related concussions study he was a part of at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He served as dean of the UNC College of Arts and Sciences, as a department chair and as a Kenan Distinguished Professor in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science. He was executive director of the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes at UNC and the founding director of the Matthew Gfeller Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center.
According to Guskiewicz, Clemson’s football team participated in the study. However, Guskiewicz was not optimistic when he was asked by the league to present their research to the ACC’s football coaches in Charlotte.
“Do you think the fifteen coaches are going to sit around and listen to a concussion researcher for an hour and a half and talk concussions,” Guskiewicz recalled asking an ACC representative at the time. “I was very taken by Coach Swinney because he was the only coach in the room that raised his hand and asked some questions.”
Of course, 13 years ago, Clemson was at the infancy stages of its football dynasty, and Swinney did not have the clout that he has now. The Tigers, at the time, owned just one ACC Championship under Swinney, which they won in 2011.
“He was the most curious coach in the room about this and asked some questions that he sincerely wanted to know the answers to, so we can make a safer environment for his team,” Guskiewicz recalled. “I hope he remembers that, but he challenged me.”
And that was one of the things Guskiewicz took from that brief meeting with Swinney.
“I like to be challenged and now we are going to be in an environment where we will work together to move Clemson forward and probably, on occasion, challenge one another,” he said.