Thinking about The Fridge

By: Will Vandervort

I’m sure some of you have already heard this news, but former Clemson standout William “The Refrigerator” Perry is in serious condition at a hospital at the Aiken Regional Medical Center.

Perry, who was a freshman defensive tackle on the national championship team in 1981, was hospitalized with complications from Guillain-Barre Syndrome, according to the Associated Press. Guillain-Barre syndrome is an uncommon inflammatory disorder in which your body's immune system attacks your nerves, typically causing severe weakness and numbness that usually starts in your extremities and quickly worsens.

According to the MayoClinic.com Web site, eventually your whole body can become paralyzed, even the muscles used for breathing. The exact cause of Guillain-Barre syndrome is unknown, but it sometimes is triggered by a respiratory infection or the stomach flu. It can lead to death.

Members of Perry’s family have reportedly said the former football star is doing better after being admitted to the hospital more than a week ago.

Perry, now 46, became known around the country when former Chicago Bears head coach Mike Ditka used him as a short yardage fullback on a Monday night home game against the Green Bay Packers during his rookie season in 1985.

The 6-foot-3, 340-pound defensive tackle barreled through the Packers front-seven for an easy touchdown and so began “The Refrigerator” craze. Perry went on to score several more touchdowns that year, including a touchdown pass later that season at Green Bay and then a one-yard plunge into the end zone in Super Bowl XX.

But what a lot of people don’t know is that Perry got his nickname the “The Refrigerator” or “The Fridge” while at Clemson. I remember as a kid seeing a big promotional poster with Perry standing alongside a refrigerator while wearing his No. 66 jersey. I believe that was a poster for his All-American, Lombardi and Outland Trophy campaigns in 1984.

In talking with Clemson Sports Information Director Tim Bourret, former Clemson teammate Ray Brown is really the guy that is credited with giving Perry his nickname.

During Perry’s freshman year, he, Brown and a couple of other players were at a hotel and were waiting for an elevator. Perry was standing in front of the elevator and was blocking the entire entrance to the door. That’s when Brown, who could not see the elevator open up, told Perry he was as big as a refrigerator.

The team actually started calling Perry GE (General Electric) after that. However, the school went with the more conventional name of “The Refrigerator” when they started promoting Perry because of copyright laws and those sorts of the things.

I remember Perry being the first of his kind when he started playing at Clemson. Back then a 300-pound man was uncommon in football, and secondly, a 300-pound man did not move the way Perry did. It’s not uncommon now to see a guy of Perry’s size and athletic ability move the way he did, but at the time, no one was like him in college or in the NFL.

Case in point, Pittsburgh’s Mean Joe Greene, who played the nose in the Steelers’ 4-3 scheme, was considered the best defensive tackle in the NFL when Perry was growing up, but Mean Joe never weighed more than 260 pounds during his playing days with the Steelers.

A member of the Clemson Hall of Fame, Perry was an All-American at Clemson in 1982, `83, and '84 —the first three-time All-American in Clemson history. The three-time All-ACC middle guard led the nation in tackles for loss in 1984 with 27 and was named ACC Player of the Year.

For his accomplishments in the 1984 season, Perry was a Lombardi Award finalist and an Outland Trophy finalist.

Hearing the news on Perry this morning, kind of brought back some of those memories I had as a kid watching him play or in most cases listening to Jim Phillips describe him on the radio. I know the World will be watching his bout with Guillain-Barre syndrome unfold because of his playing days with the Bears.

As for me, I will be watching and praying for him as the football hero I remember from his playing days at Clemson.

Good week for Olympic sports

By: Will Vandervort

Olympic sport champions wear Clemson orange

First of all congratulations to the Clemson rowing team - 2009 ACC
Champions. That's a great accomplishment for those young ladies. A lot of
people don't realize how much time and energy they put into that and it's
always great to see a group come together and win a championship.

The Tigers won their first ACC Championship by knocking off nine-time
defending champion Virginia. Second-year head coach Richard Ruggieri was
also named the ACC Coach of the Year.

The rowing team's ACC Championship Monday capped off a pretty good week
for Clemson's Olympic sports programs, which usually get lost in the glow
of the big three - football, basketball and baseball. Besides the rowing
team's success, the golf team, led by David May's record round of 66,
rallied to finish second in the ACC Golf Tournament.

May's 66 allowed him to win co-medalist honors with N.C. State's Matt Hill
and it was the best final round by an individual at the ACC Tournament in
Clemson golf history. The previous best was a 67 by Stephen Poole at The
Old North State Club in 2006.

The Clemson senior made up four shots in the final round with his
six-under-par 66, his top round of the year and his best round since he
had a 65 in the second round of the ACC Tournament at The Old North State
Club on April 22, 2006.

May's round on Sunday included eight birdies and two bogeys. He had seven
birdies in an eight-hole stretch between the fourth and 11th holes to get
to seven under par for the day and 11 under par for the tournament. He hit
a wedge to within a foot on the par-five 11th hole to give him his eighth
birdie of the day.

Though they could not repeat the magic that won them an ACC Championship a
year ago, the Clemson women's tennis team did earn a couple of individual
honors. Ani Mijacika was named the 2009 ACC Player of the Year, as voted
on by the league's 12 head coaches.

This is the second major ACC honor for Mijacika, who was named Freshman of
the Year in 2007. She has earned player of the week honors three times
this season and is a seven-time recipient over her career.

Mijacika, a junior, was joined on the all-conference team by rookie Josipa
Bek as the two give Clemson a powerful combination at the top of the
line-up. Mijacika stands at 28-7 overall in singles play, including a 7-3
mark against ACC foes, and is currently ranked number three in the
Campbell/ITA Tennis singles poll.

The native of Makarska, Croatia has also spent six weeks as the nation's
top-ranked player this season. Mijacika is the ninth player in Clemson
women's history to earn to the league's top honor and is the Tigers' first
three-time All-ACC selection since Julie Coin from 2002-05.

Coin won ACC Player of the Year honors in 2004.

Not be forgotten of course is two-sport star Jacoby Ford, who won his
first ACC outdoor championship in the 100-meter dash Saturday.

Ford, who was second on the Clemson football team in receiving yards and
receptions last year, became the sixth different Clemson sprinter to win
both the indoor 60-meter and outdoor 100-meter in the same season. Shawn
Crawford (1998) was the first to accomplish the feat.

The double was also previously accomplished by Jacey Harper (2001), Dwight
Thomas (2002), Tye Hill (2004), and Travis Padgett (2008).

It marked the fourth straight year a Clemson athlete has claimed the 100,
and ninth time in the last 12 years of the event. Padgett won the crown
each of the last three seasons.

Ford led a 1-2-3 sweep of the men's 100. It marked the first sweep of the
three spots in that event since Clemson did it 2001 with Jacey Harper,
Larry Griffin, and Sultan Tucker.

Ford, the NCAA indoor champion in the 60-meter dash posted a time of 10.28
to run away with the ACC crown. His football teammate and good friend,
C.J. Spiller, was runner-up after posting a regional-qualifying time of
10.49. It was Spiller's second All-ACC honor in the 100.

Trenton Guy also claimed his first individual all-conference accolade by
virtue of his third-place showing (10.51).

Ford continued his outstanding meet with a runner-up finish in the
200-meter. He turned in a season-best time of 20.88 to lead Clemson. Guy
was sixth (21.18), while Spiller came across seventh (21.56) in the event.

My fantasy camp experience

By: Will Vandervort

I have covered a lot of things in my 12 years as a sportswriter and have seen the best of the best athletes play at the highest level all the way down through the prep and recreation ranks.

From covering and experiencing the difference between an NFL regular season game and a playoff game, to covering the NCAA basketball tournament, to covering the College World Series and experiencing everything Rosenblatt Stadium and its atmosphere has to offer, I have experienced a lot and I have a lot of good memories to go with them. Now I have one more.

On Sunday, I was Dabo Swinney’s lone guest from the media to experience his Fantasy Camp at Clemson. I don’t mean the game he had for them on Frank Howard Field. I’m talking everything from the time they arrived at the stadium at 10 a.m. through the post-game interviews.

If you get the opportunity to do this next year, you have to do it. In all, 13 men from as far away as New Jersey came and spent the weekend at Clemson to see what it was like to be a Clemson football player on game weekends.



“It was a great weekend. Our objective was to make it all about these guys that are really passionate about Clemson,” Swinney said. “We wanted to make it to where we gave them as much insight as we could possibly give them in a weekend and have a lot of fun at the same time.”

Mission accomplished.

I have only seen locker rooms that have won some sort of a championship happier than what I saw Sunday afternoon. Swinney and his coaching staff did a marvelous job reenacting everything that goes on during game days.

After a team breakfast, the new batch of Tigers, which Swinney referred to as true freshmen, arrived at the stadium at 10 a.m. on the nose and got dressed in full gear. Each participant was given his own locker which had full equipment in it from the helmet to the shoes.

I later found out that every player was allowed to keep his jersey and some of his equipment as well as his practice gear from Friday and Saturday. I will have more on the full weekend in stories to come.

At about 10:30, Swinney came into the locker room and gave the guys some instruction as if he was about to lead the real Tigers out onto the field for pregame warm ups. He told them what he expected from each one of them and then he turned things over to strength and conditioning coach Joey Batson, who went over some final instructions and then lined the players up just as he does on Saturdays in the fall.

He lined the entire team up and checked to make sure everyone’s equipment was in working order and safe before releasing them. Batson said to the fantasy campers that on real game days, this is the part when the team starts to get jacked up and knows that it is almost time to play.

He said every time he opens the door to release a group, you can hear the band playing or the crowd cheering.



After going through warm-ups and being introduced over the PA system on the Jumbotron, the team returned to the locker room. This is where Swinney went out of his way Sunday to make sure the experience was as real as it could get.

After the team got some water and gathered at the Tiger Paw at the center of the room, which is what the real team does, Swinney made sure he left them alone to gather their thoughts for about five minutes or so. These men, most of whom were engineers or business men of some sort, just sat there on one knee in the middle of that room and thought to themselves quietly. You could hear a pin drop it got so quiet at one point. Strength coach Larry Greenlee told me it was just like game day.

Swinney then entered the room and demanded all the players’ attention and at that point he gave a pre-game talk just as he would to his real team. After that, Batson did a countdown and everyone exited the locker room and headed up the ramp where they loaded the bus and were given a police escort.

On the ride around the stadium, some of the guys were standing up, like Dan Jones of Easley, and encouraging the others to live the moment. A few just sat back and enjoyed the ride, while others led the 1-2-3-4 chant. It was a pretty exciting couple of minutes to say the least.

When the bus stopped and the doors opened, a few of the guys jumped off the bus as if they were going to tackle someone. After pictures with Swinney at Howard’s Rock, all 13 players gathered at the top of the hill with Swinney and the coaches, with Frank Howard telling them “to give it 110 percent or keep their filthy hands off his rock” on the Jumbotron. After the video, Tiger Rag cranked up, the Tiger Cub fired the cannon and led the team down the hill on an orange Clemson carpet.

“To rub that rock, I have had the privilege of having my picture taken with it in the past, but to actually rub it and run down the hill, it was a phenomenal experience,” Jones said.



Afterwards, Jones led a late second half rally as he caught a one-yard touchdown pass on the last play of a seven-on-seven game called Swinney Ball to force overtime. His team eventually lost in overtime, but nonetheless it was an experience he will always cherish.

After that, players got to experience the part most athletes dread after games and practices – the post game interviews with the media. But as Floyd Elliott of Spartanburg told me “that wasn’t as bad as I had heard it was.”

And it wasn’t. There was nothing bad about Dabo Swinney’s Fantasy Camp. In fact, it was a pretty fun day, including for this sportswriter.