Dan Radakovich talks rising vaccination rates, new alliance impacts on Clemson, more
The 2020-21 athletics season was an unprecedented one, with some lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic spilling over into the new year. For Clemson, there’s much happening between new sports being added and the ACC joining an alliance with the Big Ten and Pac-12.
The State spoke with Tigers athletic director Dan Radakovich on Wednesday to address a few of these topics.
NOTE: Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Alexis Cubit: Let’s start with the alliance, so talk to me about your role in that, what the conversations were like that you were involved in and then what those implications are or how it’s going to affect Clemson.
Dan Radakovich: This is a good question because I was — am — part of our four-person team that includes athletics directors Carla Williams (Virginia), John Wildhack (Syracuse) and Bubba Cunningham (North Carolina). We’ve had some calls with athletic directors from the Big Ten and the Pac-12. They’ve been really good. Again, they are really at a high level at this point, much like what the commissioners talked about (Tuesday): the governance piece, the like-minded schools, the student-athlete first, the broad-based programs, all of those pieces are part and parcel to it, including scheduling opportunities for football, but also for men’s and women’s basketball and some of our other Olympic sports.
So this is evolving and I think that we are all, as athletic directors, very confident in the engagement and leadership of Jim (Phillips) to help guide this process. Like I said, I’m just really happy to be part of a group representing it. There’s really no end line here. It’s going to continue to evolve over time, so we’ll just see where it takes us.
AC: Then as far as scheduling goes, you mentioned football, a lot of those future nonconference games are already set, so what does that look like? How soon do you think you can get some of those Pac-12 and Big Ten schools on the schedule?
DR: Well, it won’t be for a while. I’ll probably be pulling up to the stadium in a Winnebago when that happens. We’re scheduled with a lot of our Power Five opponents through 2036, so unless there are alterations in the schedule as we see it sit today, I think we’re very comfortable with our two Power Five games each year: one against South Carolina, one against another opponent. We have Georgia. We have LSU. We have Oklahoma. We have Notre Dame filling that role over the next 10 to 15 years, so we’re pretty comfortable with that.
AC: With that collaborative effort and talking to some of those ADs and the commissioners with the two other conferences, is there anything that you’ve seen the other schools and other conferences do that you’d like Clemson and/or the ACC to implement? What are those collaborative ideas right now?
DR: Actually, we’ve only met a couple of times so I think it’s what you just mentioned could be a byproduct of future meetings, but at this early juncture, that just hasn’t occurred.
AC: Switching over to COVID-19, some schools are requiring vaccines, some aren’t. The 85% threshold is what most are targeting. As far as the athletic department as a whole, what’s the percentage of student-athletes that are currently vaccinated?
DR: Department-wide, I think we’re about at 83% that have initiated or completed the vaccination. Of course, our student-athletes have only been back for about a week of classes, so there were a number of the programs, larger programs that were just away for the whole summer, so we’re starting to get some of those student-athletes to get vaccinated now that they’re back on campus.
From the football perspective, more than 85% have initiated or completed the vaccination, so we feel really good there. Based on the timing, we’ll get more into the fully vaccinated category as the next couple of weeks roll in. Department-wide, as a staff, about 93% have initiated or completed the vaccination protocol.
AC: LSU is making proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 tests mandatory for their fans to come into the stadium. Where is Clemson in terms of, obviously wanting to be in accordance with the state law, but what are COVID-19 restrictions or regulations that will be in place at Memorial Stadium this season?
DR: First of all, we’re going to comply with the state law. That’s first and foremost. We want our fans to have a safe experience visiting our venues, so we’re going to encourage masks if that’s what people feel like they want to do. We’re not at the point where we’re requiring that at this time.
We also follow a lot of the guidance from our campus. Right now, internal spaces — classrooms, laboratories, academic buildings — inside, masks are required. Outside, they’re not. So, obviously the football stadium is outside. The tailgating area is outside, but we do have some spots in the stadium that are inside. Currently, that three-week indoor mask policy that the campus has will expire on Sept. 8, so if it’s extended we’ll continue to comply with our university processes and policies, but if it doesn’t, individuals will be able to make their own determination as to wearing a mask.
AC: The video board will be coming next year, but are there any amenities or structural changes to the stadium this season?
DR: New grass field, the field’s brand new. That was put in this spring, but really, nothing major. That’s kind of followed our cadence as we’ve had a large project whether that was the south club or redoing the suites, it’s usually preceded by a year where there’s not a whole lot of change as we ready for that bigger bill.
AC: Moving forward to women’s lacrosse and gymnastics, you have your women’s lacrosse coach. What are some more things that have been done on that end and are you still on target for those 2023, 2024 competition inaugural seasons?
DR: We are. Obviously, lacrosse will start first in the spring of ‘23, so we’ve hired coach Allison Kwolek and she’s in the midst now of rounding out her staff and beginning to look at recruiting opportunities this fall.
We decided we would wait until the end of the gymnastics competition season. We got a little bit too close to the start of the school year when we really engaged in the gymnastics coach’s search. We think that while we talked to a few really outstanding candidates, we decided that we would wait until March when their competition season in gymnastics is completed, for the most part, and then look to hire the coach then and have them have about two years to get ready for competition.
We’re still working right now to look at the site studies where we would place maybe an operations building for lacrosse and their practice area as well as a practice facility for gymnastics. So, those are things that are hot on the burner right now for us to be able to continue to look at and bring some alternatives to not only our internal staff, our coaches and then the university in general.
AC: Overall, there’s a lot of excitement with football this season. It was huge to get Will Taylor for both football and baseball. There’s a lot of excitement around softball’s second full season, basketball, soccer, just a lot going on. Soccer’s already started, but what’s the feeling right now going into this athletic year? What are your expectations for all of the sports?
DR: Where we are right now is, we’re really optimistic. We think we have some outstanding teams, certainly a lot of outstanding individual student-athletes in all the sports that you had just mentioned. We’ve had some recent past success in many of those — certainly football has been carrying the flag for the last few years with six ACC championships and CFP appearances, so optimism is incredibly high there — but also in our soccer programs and the others that you mentioned.
I think that the work that has been done over the past few years related to facility upgrades and continued enhancement of the student-athlete experience here makes Clemson just an incredible place to come. We want to continue the positive momentum that we have right now.
This story was originally published August 26, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
