O'NEIL: Clawson Brings Valuable Experience to Wake Forest
12/12/2013 12:00:00 AM | Football
Dec. 12, 2013
By Brad O'Neil, WakeForestSports.com
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - It's a good thing both sides were sold on each other pretty quickly. If either had required convincing, Ron Wellman might still be at Dave Clawson's kitchen table.
In 12 hours over two days, Wellman, Wake Forest's athletics director, and Clawson, then in the giddy aftermath of coaching Bowling Green to the Mid-American Conference championship, eschewed the formal job interview and talked turkey over a plate of lasagna. And they kept talking. The discussions over shared philosophies and visions led to a relatively speedy hire, and Clawson was introduced Tuesday to succeed Jim Grobe, who had retired eight days earlier.
"The second this job opened," Clawson said, "I was dreaming about being at a podium and speaking to all these reporters.
"This is a great place, and I think we can achieve great things. It's a place where there are high standards with everything we do. School is difficult and the work is hard, but the reward for doing it as great at the end."
Clawson knows of such things. He was a student-athlete at Williams College, one of the nation's elite liberal arts institutions, and has won conference titles at three stops: Fordham, Richmond and most recently Bowling Green. His background fit remarkably with the profile of the ideal candidate that Wellman and Dr. Nathan O. Hatch, the University's president, crafted.
And it resembled his immediate predecessor's resume. Grobe graduated from Virginia, which is tied with Wake Forest for 23rd on the most recent U.S. News list of Best National Universities. Both men came to BB&T Field after turning around programs struggling in the MAC. Grobe's reclamation project, Ohio University, had been in worse straits than Bowling Green.
Clawson hit all the right notes in his seven-minute introductory statement, in which he thanked the usual suspects (family, new bosses, former bosses, former players) and, perhaps aware of the ties, the previous occupant of his job.
But that's not to say this was a boilerplate hire. It most certainly was not.
Although only 46, Clawson has been the boss for 14 years and is one of the most seasoned coaches ever to take on an ACC gig. In fact, of all of the previous 82 hires ACC schools have made while members of the conference, only one delivered a leader with more college head coaching experience than this one. That would be Wake Forest's choice in 1987 of Bill Dooley, who had run the programs at North Carolina and Virginia Tech for 20 total years before coming to Winston-Salem.
Clawson, of course, got an early start in the profession as the son of a respected high school coach.
"I was 31 years old, and if it was possible, I made the situation worse," he said of 0-11 start of his tenure at Fordham in 1999. "I made a lot of mistakes."
Inauspicious to say the least, the beginning melted from memory as Clawson guided the Rams to a conference championship by his third season. Winners of 22 games in the 10 seasons before his arrival, the Rams won 26 times in his final three campaigns.
The job at Richmond wasn't as arduous, but Clawson did produce 10 more wins (29) in his four seasons than the Spiders had earned in the four years before hiring him.
A week ago, he coached the Falcons to the program's first MAC title in 21 years, a stunning, three-touchdown victory over previously unbeaten Northern Illinois.
In all, Clawson's the 11th coach to take an ACC job with a college conference title to his credit, but he's the only one with championships in multiple leagues.
When fans think about their favorite new team's new coach, they dream of luring a big name. The truth of the matter is that ACC football seldom produces hires that make an immediate national imprint.
In fact, only 36 of the 83 hires (43 percent) have any FBS head coaching experience when they make it to the ACC. Clawson has five years of such service.
Clawson also has the championship pedigree and a quick answer to opponents who may seek to portray the Demon Deacons as the least attractive option in the ACC's quartet of North Carolina schools.
"I see Wake Forest at the top of the four," he said. "And that's the vision we have for this program."