In defense of Clemson’s Dabo Swinney and the values he’s upholding | Opinion

Since the Miami and N.C. State losses, I’ve been hearing from Clemson fans: “Dabo has got to adapt to the new college football.”

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney’s resistance to the portal and criticism of the NIL are his fight, and Clemson fans seemed to trust their coach before the season. With four losses, fans seem less concerned about the values Swinney is trying to uphold.

In “Meditations on Moloch,” author Scott Alexander defines Moloch as “exactly what the history books says he is. He is the god of child sacrifice, the fiery furnace into which you toss your babies in exchange for victory in war. He always and everywhere offers the same deal: throw what you love most into the flames, and I can grant you power.” Or, throw away the values you have upheld since 2008 — begin to use the transfer portal, get behind the NIL — sacrifice your beliefs in dedication, teamwork, growth, etc. for the short-term reward of winning.

Instead of applauding Swinney for his integrity, for a willingness to push back against the entropic forces at play in college sports, critics are calling him anti-progress, regressive and stubborn.

While undoubtedly some positive effects are emerging from the new transfer rules and the NIL, the potential for these changes to ruin college football is significant. I think Swinney sees that and is right to fear it. But he, like all college football coaches, is in a multi-polar trap, which, according to Alexander, “threaten(s) to destroy all human values.”

Multi-polar traps are situations where “self-interest compels multiple parties to act against their collective interest, leading to detrimental outcomes or even destruction.” Once one team takes advantage of the new rules, then every team is compelled to, else their team will struggle to compete. And, of course, arguing that the rules are legal is not an ethical justification.

When you’re trying to survive or thrive in a new environment, values become secondary. And this is what bothers me about the Swinney situation — ultimately, I think he is being criticized for upholding eternal values that have been the foundation of his program for 15 years: dedication, sacrifice, teamwork, growth, etc. because these values aren’t currently winning.

Well, that’s the thing about eternal values, they’re eternal for a reason — they are long-term strategies. They are transformational, not transactional.

Everyone around him is giving in, and he’s not. I am reminded of Howard Roark’s words from “The Fountainhead”: “To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That’s what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul — would you understand why that’s much harder?”

Swinney is not above criticism (e.g., playcalling, nepotism, etc.), but he needs time to figure out how to maintain the program’s reputation while finding success. Maybe that means eventually using the transfer portal to some degree, who knows?

If he and his staff do things right, Clemson will be on top again. If fans want to be Colorado, a flash in the pan, jump off the Clemson bandwagon and join theirs.

Winning as the single measure of success has crept to the high school level as well — recruiting violations, either in spirit or by the letter, plague the independent school world, and some charter schools are challenged to schedule games because of their excesses. In either case, there is no regulating force, other than the school’s or coach’s ethical position.

Swinney is Clemson’s regulating force, and right now, the values of the program don’t align with new transfer portal rules, so he chose the former over the latter, which can be frustrating — because in that decision he made a claim: winning is not the most important thing, and that claim may not align with your principles.

Clemson has fashioned itself as a program that maintains values even, or especially, during challenging times. That’s integrity, and his fight, to me, is one of the most interesting stories in sports right now. My advice to him, echoing “The Fountainhead,” is “to hold out if it takes everything you own.”

Brent Kaneft is head of school at Wilson Hall, a PK-12 independent school in Sumter, S.C.