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Former Clemson Football Coach Danny Ford Who Helmed National Championship Clemson Team in '81 Says He Prefers to Stay on the Sidelines When It Comes to Giving Bowden Advice During "The Big Picture on the Radio" Program on ETV Radio
For Immediate Release
August 31, 2007
Columbia SC...Former Clemson football Coach Danny Ford, whose name will forever be enshrined in SC football history for leading the '81 Clemson players to the National Championship, told ETV Radio's Andrew Gobeil on Friday that when it comes to weighing-in on the current Clemson team, he prefers to stay on the sidelines.
Said Ford: "I talked to (Coach Bowden) several times about coming any time I wanted to over there. But that is just not in my personality, and that's not me. Because as I go over and I see something and somebody asks me, I am going to tell somebody the truth...and it wouldn't be good for me to go around...talking, so I just keep myself out of that situation. (I) wish him well, he has a tough job, but everybody's got a tough job...if you don't do a good job they just get rid of you, so that's just the way it is.
"We don't have a daily, weekly, monthly, 'Hello how are you doing?' ...I am not over there and I don't want to be over there. I don't want to sit in an office over there. I go to a few ballgames, watch a lot of them, listen to them on the radio, but that's their time. I've had my time."
Still later in the interview when Gobeil asked for his prediction about the upcoming Clemson season, Ford said, "You never really know until the first game. I can probably predict it a little bit closer after I see what they do against Florida State. But I don't know what kind of football team they got, and I don't think they know. And I don't think Florida State knows what kind they got because they've just been practicing against each other. You never know 'til you play."
And when reminiscing about his first foray into the national spotlight as Clemson's head coach in the Gator Bowl, versus Ohio State's Woody Hayes, Ford said, "It was like a country boy going to the Fair for the first time...My eyes were wide open...I had never been a head coach, and it was on national TV. It couldn't have gotten much bigger for me, and of course Coach Hayes had been to hundreds and hundreds of 'em..."
The Big Picture on the Radio can be heard Fridays at 9 a.m. on ETV Radio's four news formats: 88.1-WRJA Sumter, 89.1-WLJK Aiken, 89.9- WJWJ Beaufort, and 90.1-WHMC Conway. The program can also be streamed from www.myetv.org.
Contact: Catherine Christman (803) 737-3259 or christman@scetv.org.
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