Dabo Swinney reportedly traveled on private plane to vacation; gets ripped by fans on Twitter
This week, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney gave a rah-rah speech in which he said he has “zero doubt” the 2020 season will start on time with fans in the stands.
However, it appears Swinney isn’t exactly taking the social distancing guidelines seriously.
Per CBS Sports reporter Dennis Dodd, Swinney recently traveled by private plane to a vacation home in Florida. He also said he might travel for Easter:
Dabo has traveled by private plane to vacation in Florida. May travel next week for Easter. Says plane was sanitized. https://t.co/4cGEkUa9yH
— Dennis Dodd (@dennisdoddcbs) April 4, 2020
Here’s the paragraph in question from Dodd’s article:
The coach also noted that his family has traveled once to Florida via private plane for vacation and may do so next week for Easter. “The plane was sanitized,” he said. “We don’t have any concern.”
At the very least, this sort of attitude seems to be tone deaf in the midst of a pandemic. Plus, the plane may have been sanitized, but that means people had to put their health at risk to sanitize it.
Fans were quick to pounce on the Clemson coach for his cavalier attitude on Twitter:
Coach O doing PSAs and showing up to press conferences with the governor > Dabo vacationing and defying stay at home order. O is better on the field and off.
— Ric (@Ric_in_NO) April 4, 2020
Cool. Don't complain when your season is postponed.
— Travis Henry XVII (@XviiHenry) April 4, 2020
TIGERS FIGHT
This
Is
Gonna
End
Real
Soon(But)
First
I’m
Gonna
Hazardously
Travel— Chene Exotic (@CheneGizik) April 4, 2020
Well I’m glad he’s setting a good example with his private planes and vacations. 🙄
— Laura 🇺🇸🦅 (@LorieBama) April 4, 2020
Dabo Swinney having “no doubt there will be a college football season” while traveling on his private plane to vacation in Florida and then going to use it for Easter.
Lol.
All this is going to drag out so much longer because of this line of thinking.
— Kyle G (@TheRealCagey) April 4, 2020
The vast majority of college football coaches getting COVID-19 media coverage are out there trying to get people to follow instructions and hang in there. Meanwhile Dabo Swinney is out here putting himself and others at higher risk. https://t.co/zWgAJcHQmU
— StrawberryTea (@JawjaJenn) April 4, 2020
Giving a cutesy speech about how we’re gonna play football this year because MERICA, then going off and unnecessarily endangering lives. Just amazing work by Dabo Swinney https://t.co/PpUZaKG4g1
— Alex Kirshner (@alex_kirshner) April 4, 2020
When there is no college football in 2020, it will be in part because too many people acted like Dabo Swinney for too long and didn’t listen to experts. Remember that, not his lil speech about Normandy and iPhones
— Alex Kirshner (@alex_kirshner) April 4, 2020
Will Swinney come out and publicly say he won’t travel for Easter? We’ll see over the next few days.
Dabo is gonna Dabo. This man is an idiot.
South Carolina is the only state in the South not on lock down. He can go and do as he pleases. I wouldn’t think a Bama fan would be too educated about what is going on around him.
He flew to Florida, which is on lockdown.
“The plane was sanitized,” he said. “We don’t have any concern.”
Except that you could be a carrier and not know it and spread/endanger more lives.
Very irresponsible.
It’s almost like he just doesn’t get it …. until he gets it.
Why are LSU fans here touted Coach O about his PSA when his sorry ass just filed for divorce on his wife? Coach O is better on and off the field? I think you may need to re-think that statement.
Not sure what exactly you’re talking about, but no one is “touting” Coach O about anything here. Him getting divorced has nothing to do with Dabo being somewhat hypocritical in this situation. And to answer your question, Yes – Coach O was better than Dabo on the field this year, and from all appearances off the field as well.
Yeah, Coach O had a lot of touch on his throws this year. Really good instincts in the pocket.
How bout having some respect and showing a little compassion. Having no couth seems to be a consistent theme with some of y’all.
Divorce is a private matter and without knowing the facts, which are unique to each relationship and none of our business. We don’t have a clue why the Orgerons are getting divorced.
Dabo has been a goofball for as long as he’s been a head coach. That said, he’s become a really, really good program manager. And he’s probably the best salesman in all of college football.
But he’s a tone deaf, eccentric goofball.
NashvilleGator…you hit it. I lived in S.C. when datboi was named interim coach…He was given the opportunity because he was enthusiastic. He’s always been a very good cheerleader/motivator/underdog type. He told the A.D. “pay me what you want”, so he became interim coach. He was in Commercial Real Estate Sales(fairly successful) in Vegas prior to joining the Clempson program, as wide receiver coach. His great fortune at Clempson is the fact that he’s kept in place almost all of his coordinators/assistants & that continuity has enabled the stream of four stars to continue. And he does a good job selling college football…a salesman forever I guess.
I don’t understand why his private business was made public especially during times like these.
He is a Highly-Paid Major College Football Coach and he is a public person now. The same thing applies to Coach Orgeron and his divorce. Public people’s lives are not like ours…I agree that things like this should not be considered “news worthy”…but it is a media-driven, computer-speed world in which we live.
AFan I agree with you. Just sucks..
How can you criticize someone for getting a divorce without knowing all of the facts?
What a hateful post. You have no idea why he is getting a divorce and it isn’t any of our business. I think you may needed to re-think that statement.
Jeff, what about his filing for divorce makes him a “sorry @ss”?
Do you know something everyone else doesn’t? Was he abusive?
Maybe his wife f$cked the entire LSU defense. Or maybe they just don’t get along. Point is, getting a divorce is personal and says nothing about the character of a person. I’m glad you’re a perfect person and have never ever had a failed relationship, congrats. On the other hand, maybe you’re just a hypocritical douche.
First take their fake NC away for using PEDs.
After that, I can’t agree with the objections about travel. It’s not if you go somewhere, it’s how safely you go there, and once you get there, are you isolated? If someone can sanitize the plane. If the pilot can be isolated in the cockpit. If the airport personnel can be safe distanced, if the rented car can be sanitized? All these safe transactions need to keep going on to keep some cash flow happening in our economic system. In fact, what we should be doing is perfecting a lot of new procedures for safe commerce. And encouraging safe transactions. If doctors and nurses can go to work in hospitals full of COVID 19 then carefully designed business transactions should also be set up and monitored so that our economic system can recover once the virus. If grocery stores are staying open and safe to have everyone going in and out of then, the same procedures need to be applied to some other commerce activities…CERTAINLY NOT ALL COMMERCE CAN BE CONDUCTED AT A SAFE DISTANCE, but where it can be, it absolutely should go on. This may not be the worst virus outbreak of the decade, or century, and we need to learn from it, not hide from it.
As long as he sanitized his own plane, flew the plane to said location, sanitized a rental car if used, then that’s on. It’s irresponsible to send that mixed message. Just because he traveled and “may have escaped” contraction, doesn’t mean the person that will be just as lucky. That’s what people are upset about.
your point is a good one: “one safe experience doesn’t make all that appear the same to the public “ok”. At the same time I know you personally are engaging in risky activities like going out in your yard, opening your mail, maybe going into grocery stores. There is a question for science to answer every time a new public health threat breaks out. That question is ?”What’s safe” and ?What’s not safe”, How safe is it”?, ?”How to make it safer”. If we don’t move forward on public safety science, the threat’s to it will over-take us and reduce our quality of living. Some other examples “How unsafe is fracking”, “How unsafe is each kind radioactive waste product”, “How can we keep our “right to bear arms” while keeping guns out of the hands of nut-cases”. So it’s not irresponsible to travel, it irresponsible for the media not to describe in detail how MANY people are continuing to travel but using the state of the art skillls, techniques, and chemicals to be safe. It is also the job of the media to find those who are doing unsafe traveling, but the ethics of journalism require that they back up their aquisations and that is NOT happening here. Why was his trip unsafe?
Science is never exact, and is a learning process. Your point is valid that this is basically an experiment.
To answer your last question, the trip was unsafe because he or any member of his family could be an unsymptomatic carrier, exposing all they come into contact with thus becoming long-range vectors. Conversely, they could be unknowingly exposed in Florida, and bring it back to SC.
Everyone looking to be offended these days. Same folks would take advantage too if they had access to private jets and could get away.
That’s not necessarily true. None of the airports are closed. People are still free to travel. They just choose to make sounder decisions. If I were a parent, I would take that into consideration when he came to recruit my child. If the Head Coach doesn’t take this crisis serious, do I really wanna turn my child over to him and his staff? Don’t be surprised if that is used against him on the recruiting trail.
He said if they had access to private jets not commercial airliners… Most people do not own private jets.
The point isn’t that he’s privileged enough to get away on a private jet, but that he doesn’t understand that he’s potentially making the situation worse. It’s not about looking to be offended, but rather about being informed and responsible, and not being ignorant and selfish.
Dabo, like many coaches, has more than one home. I frankly don’t care if he travels on a private plane to his other house. NO law states which home you have to shelter in. As an alum I don’t care what SEC fans think of our coach on twitter. Before being called back to work, I considered sheltering at my family beach home.
Tiger92…What College Football fans, not merely SEC Fans do not like about your cheerleader/coach is the whining/poor lil ole clemson/no respect gig. it has gotten real old, really fast…even with national broadcasters. I understand that Clemson football is at an all-time high currently, but they sure got manhandled in the Natty by LSU, right. And your all-world QB looked like a scared little boy…that was fun to watch.
If it is his plane, his other home, and he does not have more than 10 people with him and he stays at least 6 feet away from other people, let him go. Good for him.
SDS has a love affair with klempson.
The NCAA does too.
Dude lives part time in Florida? If he was going to his home I don’t think its as bad as people are making this out to be. However the dozens of people that had to go to work to fuel, clean, fly and navigate his plane is troublesom. Regardless… Alex Krishner is a barely adequate writer for SB Nation, which doesn’t even cover CFB on their main page anymore.
WhoTF cares!!!!
Except for the jealous, poverty-minded haters.
Good for Dabo and his family.
I still don’t think a lot of you grasp the issue along with Dabo. Just because you have money and can afford a second home and a private jet, doesn’t mean you are not spreading the virus or putting others at risk. You still have to go to the store. You are still touching objects and possibly carrying the virus around whether you become sick or not. I live in vacation destination, and I hear the same excuses. I used my my own plane…it’s my second home. It’s not jealousy, it’s common sense. Just stay in place! Quit moving around.
I also have nothing bad to say about people that are in their second homes that arrived before this crap hit the fan. They should stay in their second homes instead of heading back up north for the time being.
You nailed it Weagle – asymptomatic spreaders are why we’re where we are in the first place. Why don’t people get this? Not to mention that it’s pretty bad optics to deliver the PSA, then disregard it.
This is non issue
Clemson fans are just mad he didn’t bring any recruits with him.