Coaching is no walk in the park. Football coaches are often in the middle of a storm, juggling the demands of the management, the staff, and the pressure of shaping raw talent into something extraordinary, year after year. It’s a tough gig, and it only gets tougher as time goes on. A coach can only find some peace at home. For Clemson’s head coach Dabo Swinney, that home is his wife Kathleen. 

Kathleen, the First Lady of Clemson Football, has always been right there beside the head coach, both on and off the field. Whether he’s riding high or hitting rough patches, she’s been his rock. As the Clemson coach and his wife gears up for the fall season, here is what you should know about Kathleen: an educator, a philanthropist, a wife, and the mother of three.

From childhood sweethearts to lifetime partner

Dabo and Kathleen have known each other ever since they were kids. They even went to the same elementary school in Birmingham, Alabama. But love blossomed between the young couple when met again at Pelham High School, Alabama. “We always kind of liked each other and when I was old enough to date in high school, we did,” said Kathleen gushingly about her now husband Dabo. It wasn’t until seventh grade that little Dabo worked up the nerve to ask Kathleen out for the school dance. They danced, and more than 30 years later, here they are still going strong. The photo from their 1982 school dance has been framed by Kathleen. A time capsule, it is like a little treasure, frozen in time when they were just kids. Kathleen calls it “precious” and it is exactly how their relationship panned out. “Just exactly the way you see him today is exactly how he was back then. It’s not like he was a shy kid and evolved into this new man. He was just outgoing and very competitive,” said Kathleen, reminiscing about her partner’s personality. 

Life has not always been easy for the Clemson coach but Kathleen has always been there holding the light for him. Dabo’s father, Ervil, was an alcoholic and ran into debt before he left. Dabo was just a sophomore in high school then. The Swinney family fell apart when Ervil left. While Dabo and his mother initially rented an apartment, they couldn’t pay for it longer. However, that did not stop Kathleen from loving and supporting the coach, being there for him through what the coach now calls ” the pit of hell”. “She just loved me anyway. It didn’t matter I was living with a friend, sleeping on the floor, didn’t have a car,” said Dabo, who now lives in a grand house in Clemson, South Carolina with his wife and three kids. “She loved me for who I was, and I always tell everybody she had great patience, perseverance and vision. She saw something good in me.”

Life has not always been kind to the Swinneys. The family went through a tough period when Kathleen lost her sister Lisa Lamb to breast cancer. The Swinneys are still haunted by the grief and pain, even after all these years. Dabo says he still has a text message from his sister-in-law that he never deleted, as his way of keeping her in his memory. Kathleen herself is a carrier of a mutated gene linked with breast cancer. She got her mastectomy done when she was 34, to reduce the risk of breast cancer, and six years later also underwent a hysterectomy to cut down her chances of developing ovarian cancer. Kathleen and Dabo’s All In Team Foundation, which champions various causes, has brought in funding for breast cancer causes. Though Kathleen is now cancer-free, she’s nothing but thankful for her sister and their foundation. The Swinneys have also been named Honorary Clemson Alumni in 2017.

The proposal

It was the year 1993. Dabo and Kathleen were still pursuing their master’s at the University of Alabama. While Dabo was a walk-on to the football team, Kathleen studied to become a teacher. Kathleen would become a schoolteacher while Dabo continued at Alabama as a graduate assistant, making $498 a month. The young and broke couple in their early 20s, Dabo and Kathleen used to have “SpaghettiOs” for dinner almost every other night. But hey, that did not stop the young coach from using up a month’s salary plus a $2,400 insurance to buy a ring for Kathleen! Yes, he was gonna pop the question.

It was a fine evening on August 19, 1993, when Dabo asked Kathleen to meet him after practice for a casual sandwich and a walk around the yard. But he caught Kathleen on the hop, who was still in her workout clothes, by taking her to The Cypress Inn, a fancy restaurant in Alabama. Kathleen, not having a slightest clue, worried they were underdressed, but Dabo assured her they were just fine. 

During dinner, Dabo talked about wanting to earn a bowl bonus to buy her a ring, which Kathleen found amusingly out of place. Later, the couple visited Denny Chimes, where, as the chimes rang at 10 o’clock, Dabo dropped to one knee and proposed. “It was the sweetest thing,” Kathleen reminisced about that beautiful night. They tied the knot the next summer, and Dabo stayed with Alabama, becoming a full-time assistant in 1996. The couple is blessed with three kids, Will, Drew, and Clay.