Why former Clemson coach Danny Ford had a change of heart about hating Gamecocks

Danny Ford might have come to a 3:30 game in Williams-Brice Stadium on Saturday, but there’s no way he’s coming to see South Carolina and Clemson play in a 7:30 p.m. kickoff.

“There will be all kinds of fussing and fighting,” the former Tigers coach said. “They have too long to think about what’s going to happen at 7:30, and they get mad at each other more.”

Ford, who coached the Tigers from 1978 through 1989 and won the 1981 national championship at Clemson, remembers those days, when he seethed at the sight of garnet and black just because it was garnet and black.

“To the Clemson people and the Carolina people, it’s a season-ending grudge battle. I’ve gotten over that part about it now,” Ford told The State. “I’m for Clemson, of course. I hope Clemson wins, but I’ve got a lot of friends I never thought I would have who are Carolina people. That’s the only change that I see. I still want to beat them, but I do have some very close friends who are Gamecocks, and I would have never, ever thought I would be friends with when I was coaching.”

At 69 years old, distance has given Ford the ability to appreciate the rivalry without being consumed by it.

“It’s not near to me now what it is these people who are involved with it,” he said. “That’s their living, and they have to be that way.”

That’s the way Ford and former South Carolina coach Jim Carlen were when they faced each other from 1978 through 1981.

“I never cared for Jim Carlen much when we were playing them,” Ford said. “I never knew him, but he was on the opposite side.”

Once the rivalry was removed from their relationship, though, the two became friends and remained so until Carlen’s death in 2012.

“Once we were both out of coaching, he was a tremendous fellow and every time a job would come open he would call me and try to help me get the job,” Ford said. “That might have been a bad sign because I never did get one, but he was always on my side. He was willing to help, and I never would have thought that.”

Ford will watch Saturday’s game on television and be back in the stands at Memorial Stadium when the game returns to Clemson, and he’ll be rooting for the Tigers but not hating the Gamecocks anymore.

This story was originally published November 20, 2017 at 11:24 AM with the headline "Why former Clemson coach Danny Ford had a change of heart about hating Gamecocks."