In June of 2007, I sat down with Terry Don Phillips for an interview that focused on his first five years at the helm as Clemson's athletics director.
Plenty of good things had happened over that five-year stretch, but it was hard to ignore the overall lack of ACC titles collected by the Tigers' athletics programs.
Here's an excerpt from the article, which appeared in The Post and Courier:
... (Phillips) has orchestrated long-awaited facilities improvements for the football program — including a $70-million overhaul of Memorial Stadium that is still in progress — plus numerous cosmetic enhancements in other sports.
The operating budget has increased more than $15 million during his tenure and will surpass $50 million this year. Clemson's athletic department is nearly $2 million in the black when most Division I schools are in the red.
But in terms of athletic performance, the Tigers have struggled to fill their trophy case in the expanded ACC. After winning 15 conference titles over the five years (actually six years) that preceded Phillips' arrival, Clemson has claimed a third of that total in the five years since. In two of the past three years — including 2006-07 — no Tigers team won an ACC title.
The baseball team is responsible for Clemson's lone ACC title in the past three years (2006). From 1971 to 2004, the Tigers came up empty in conference play just once (1994-95).
Phillips said then that he didn't want to take away from a team's successful season simply because that team didn't claim a conference title. He cited the men's soccer team, which finished fifth in the ACC in 2005 but advanced to the Final Four.
"That's a very successful season, and I don't want to take away from a season like that by saying because we didn't win a conference championship, it wasn't successful," Phillips said. "That's wrong for me to say that. But there's a reason they award conference championships. They're very important. We need to win our fair share, and we need to have our minds set on that goal — that conference championships are important."
Three years later, Phillips largely has the same frustrations as he looks at the past, present and future.
His athletics programs have picked up the ACC title pace, winning five crowns in the last three years (two in women's track and field, one in rowing, one in volleyball, and one in women's tennis).
But that's still just 10 ACC titles in eight years under TDP, and since 2004 just one of them has come in a men's sport (baseball in '06).
Phillips sat down with Ed McGranahan of The Greenville News this week, and the urgency he conveys in this article is similar to the urgency he conveyed three years ago.
“I think we’re at the point where we should be starting to generate some momentum,” Phillips said Tuesday.
“We’ve been trying to push the envelope the last seven years so that all of our sports programs can be in that upper tier and compete in the league and nationally.
“From my perspective we’re getting to the position where we’ve got a fighting chance.”
Phillips attributes the struggles to "infrastructure issues."
“When you’ve got some infrastructure issues you just don’t turn it over night,” he said.
“Certainly I’d liked it to be in the first two or three years. It would have certainly made my job a lot easier, but it didn’t happen. By the same token, we weren’t just sitting there feeling sorry for ourselves. I think it’s pretty clear we went out and were very aggressive in developing our facilities to put our programs in position to be successful.”
I'm asked often by Clemson fans how much longer I think TDP will be around, and every indication I've received of late is that he's intending to stick around a few more years.
That view is reinforced by this passage:
Phillips did not respond directly to a question about whether he planned to be at Clemson beyond the three years on his contract.
Clearly he wanted to see through the completion of the Westzone. There are plans for further upgrades for baseball and basketball. Momentum is building for an indoor football facility. And Phillips wants to sink more resources into academic support at Vickery Hall.
“You don’t wait until good things happen to try to develop your program because if you wait the chances good things are not going to happen,” he said.
“I want our program to be as good as it possibly can be,” he said. “It’s not fair to the program to not make decisions or work to improve the program. Nobody wants to step away from a program that’s struggling and not achieving at the level it’s capable of achieving.
“I believe that what we’ve done in the previous seven years is beginning to pay off.”
It should be noted that, of the 15 ACC titles that were amassed in the six years preceding TDP's arrival, 10 of them came in men's track and field.
TDP's 10 titles have been spread across seven different sports, while the 15 that preceded him came in four different sports.
But let's be honest: If the football team starts winning ACC titles with regularity, how many people will care if the non-revenue sports aren't collecting them at a high rate? Not many, I would imagine.
That's why so much of Phillips' legacy at Clemson hinges on the fortunes of Dabo Swinney.
If Swinney ends up delivering the glory that has been missing for so long in these parts, it'll be hard to say TDP's tenure was not a success. If Phillips' roll of the dice produces more of the same stuff we saw under Tommy Bowden, the view of his reign will not be glistening.
And it looks like there's a good chance he won't be around for the duration of Brad Brownell's tenure.
The baseball team finally gets a series victory, and Greg Wallace of the Independent-Mail wonders if it's merely a blip.
The remaining schedule is certainly conducive to a rebound.
Since taking two of three from Boston College April 2-4, the Tigers had lost three straight weekend sets, with a mid-week sweep of Georgia their only sustained success. In fact, their current three-game win streak is the longest since April 4-7 against BC and Georgia.
Beating the Eagles could be a platform towards regaining the momentum built by a 17-2 start; the next eight games are all against teams with RPIs over 130 in Maryland (No. 139), Wake Forest (No. 132), Furman (No. 244) and Presbyterian (No. 259).
“I’ve always had confidence in this team because I’ve seen us play,” Clemson coach Jack Leggett said. “If I hadn’t seen us play before, in the first 20 ballgames, I might have struggled. I knew it was there. It’s just a matter of us putting it all back together and getting everyone’s confidence together.”
Sad news about former Tiger Steve Durham.
Here's an interesting look at the Chicago basketball recruiting scene from an Illinois perspective. This writer says there won't be many recruiting battles between Oliver Purnell and Illini coach Bruce Weber, largely because Weber doesn't have much interest in playing the often-dirty games that accompany pulling talent out of the inner city.
I'm not going to name names or point fingers, but recruiting in the Chicago Public School League is a game within itself. There's some interesting deals being made and sometimes the juice is not worth the squeeze.
Weber has as much of an understanding of Public League recruiting as I do. He doesn't like it, he doesn't understand it, and he doesn't need it.
And later...
Weber will continue to recruit in the suburbs (Jereme Richmond, Waukegan; Brandon Paul, Gurnee) and down state (Meyers Leonard, Robinson; D.J. Richardson, Peoria). He will continue to field a team that has tournament-talent year in and year out. Most importantly, he will be able to do it the right way.
Purnell, on the other hand, will be boxed into the city by the Illini's presence in the rest of the state. Have fun, Oliver.
Speaking of TDP and Brownell, the hiring gets high marks from college basketball czar Seth Davis.
Best process: Unlike Oregon, Clemson had no idea it was going to lose its coach when Oliver Purnell took the DePaul job on April 7. Also unlike Oregon, Clemson did not take two months to find a successor. Six days after Purnell's surprising departure, Clemson hired Wright State coach Brad Brownell. That name might not be recognizable to casual fans, but Brownell has built up a quality resume at UNC Wilmington and Wright State.
Awful, awful news up in Charlottesville.
This Big Ten blogger floats Boston College as a possibility with Big Ten expansion.
And N.C. State says see-ya to AD Lee Fowler.
His exit has been in the works since before Chancellor Randy Woodson joined the school in April from Purdue. By March 23, Woodson said, then interim Chancellor Jim Woodward had told Fowler that he needed to be looking for a job and that the university would help by not announcing his departure until May.
This was surely not what Woodson would have wanted as his first major act as chancellor. It is more turmoil at the top at an institution that in 2009 lost its trustees chairman, chancellor, provost and director of alumni affairs.
Now it must replace an athletics director who, while failing to keep pace with a fan base's expectations for on-the-field success, oversaw significant improvements to the university's infrastructure.
Wonder if Fowler regrets parting ways with Herb Sendek?
LW
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