TLDR...I am trying to get my head around all these kids
May 16, 2019, 3:05 PM
Leaving teams. The rational adult in me says” Thank you young men and congrats on graduating from Clemson”. I’m not a terribly unreasonable man, I was an experienced diplomat of over 25 years dealing in the middle ground. I just believe that if we celebrate and sell our special culture at Clemson to these young men and they buy-in, then they accept that they are a member of lifelong brotherhood. Then, after all the national attention, official visits where they are treated as Gods, twitter followers hanging on every word, professional commitment videos broadcast on national tv, then, it all ends and they become just another part of a team. Some, not all, may expect some special dispensation for having been a 5* and may or may not perform when the spotlight no longer shines. Then, if things don’t go their way they want to pack up and go wherever. That’s fine but they need to do so with the understanding that you are letting your team down. These 3 recent transfer portal entrants all have every right to do what they need to do for their future but this is life and all decisions have consequences. The long term consequence of leaving your team, your brothers is that, bottom line, you quit. In this culture and Dabo’s Love for all of his players, it goes against everything you originally believed and professed when you signed on the dotted line. Coaches are professionals, they are not going to belittle these kids in public but it has to hurt them. All the energy, coaching and care they have given is just deemed null and void as these kids abandon their commitment. It is going to take some time for some of us to wrap our heads around this transfer portal thing.