What Dabo, Beamer think about Donald Trump attending USC-Clemson football game
Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney said he isn’t worried about who’s in the stands for Saturday’s rivalry game against South Carolina.
That includes former President Donald Trump.
Speaking at his weekly news conference Tuesday, Swinney said he had no reaction to the fact Trump, a 2024 Republican candidate for president, will attend the 120th Palmetto Bowl at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia.
Clemson (7-4, 4-4 ACC) is a 7.5-point road favorite against South Carolina (5-6, 3-5 SEC) in the annual rivalry game. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. on SEC Network.
“I don’t care who comes to the game,” Swinney said. “I just care about who’s playing in the game, unless Shane (Beamer’s) gonna put him in and throw him a halfback pass or something. I ain’t worried about who’s at the game. I just want to win it. Focused on who’s playing.”
After various news outlets reported Trump’s expected attendance over the past few weeks, the S.C. governor’s office confirmed the visit Tuesday to The State.
Trump is the current frontrunner to secure the 2024 Republican nomination for president and face President Joe Biden in next November’s general election after serving as the 45th president from 2016-20.
Beamer, also asked Tuesday about Trump’s expected visit for the game, said it was “neat that there’s that much attention on this game.”
“The fact that Donald Trump, Nikki Haley apparently, whoever else wants to come ... from a political realm,” Beamer said at his weekly press conference, “I think it’s a great statement that those people want to be at this game. There are a lot of eyes on this game.”
A longtime ally of S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster, Trump made a similar visit to a Sept. 9 Iowa-Iowa State football game, The State previously reported. Trump attended a tailgate at a fraternity, walked through the stadium concourse and watched the game in a sky box, though his schedule for the Clemson-USC game is TBD.
Trump’s visit could be seen as a dig at Haley, the former S.C. governor who’s also running for the 2024 Republican nomination. Haley is a Clemson alum and a current member of the university’s Board of Trustees.
Clemson football and Trump
Swinney and the Clemson program are familiar with Trump, as they made two visits to the White House in a three-year period after winning the college football national championships in 2016 and 2018. Those visits, which took place in June 2017 and January 2019, respectively, made headlines.
Clemson’s 2017 visit came during a stretch of notable sports teams, including the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, skipping the traditional White House trip in direct reaction to the Trump administration.
Amid a government shutdown, the Trump administration served Clemson a massive meal of fast food including McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and Domino’s in lieu of a formal meal on its 2019 visit, which drew criticism.
After the 2019 visit, Clemson football players also pushed back on a report published in The Root that inferred some Black players on the teams “felt their playing time and/or scholarships could be affected if they chose to decline the invitation,” according to a Post and Courier report.
Former Tigers linebacker Kendall Joseph told The State at the time that any attempt to put too much emphasis on politics as the reason 45 players opted not to go is misguided and that the Root report that said players were pressured to go by coach Dabo Swinney was “trash.”
“That’s so false,” he said. “Coach Swinney doesn’t operate that way. He asked us to go just for the full experience being able to celebrate going 15-0 and doing something that’s never been done. That was his main reason why he wanted us to go. Of course some people didn’t want to go because of the president, but that wasn’t his focus.”
