SC’s Lineman of the Year almost stopped playing football. Then Clemson called.
“Coach Swinney, can I talk to you for a second?”
The head football coach at Clemson, Dabo Swinney, who a few weeks later would play for a second consecutive national championship, turned around. He recognized Will Boggs’ soft-spoken Southern twang.
The senior from York Comprehensive High School had tears welling in his eyes. His voice shook. Boggs, a day after the 2019 Shrine Bowl in Spartanburg and less than a month after he was named South Carolina’s Lineman of the Year, was stepping into a moment he’d wanted since he was little but never truly visualized until Swinney flashed his charming, welcoming smile earlier that day.
“We hope you’ll be a Tiger,” Swinney had said. “The door’s wide open. All you gotta do is step through it.”
But before he committed to Swinney and the Clemson football team as a preferred walk-on — which he did officially on Monday afternoon in York’s media center, in front of teammates, coaches and his Clemson-orange-wearing family — Boggs had to catch his breath.
Leading up to that Shrine Bowl weekend, after all, Boggs didn’t know where he was going to land. He’d received interest and took unofficial visits to some in-state colleges. He received offers from Davidson, Newberry and Presbyterian College. He’d even been emailing and Twitter direct messaging a few Clemson coaches. But he hadn’t committed anywhere.
Boggs, who had earned as many accolades as one could after his special senior season, said he considered not playing football in college at all and just being a regular student.
But then, on the Sunday of the weekend before Christmas, a picture-perfect option presented itself without much warning — well after his season was over.
“It’s crazy how the whole thing just came together,” John Boggs, Will’s father and position coach, told The Herald on Monday.
“It really kind of happened the Shrine Bowl weekend.”
Always a Clemson Tiger
Saying Boggs grew up a Clemson fan is an understatement.
“Our family has had orange blood since way back,” Boggs’ father said. “Will had grown up a Clemson fan and in a Clemson family. And of course, I’m a Clemson graduate. My brother is a Clemson graduate. I have uncles that are Clemson graduates.”
Boggs remembers hearing the stories his father used to tell him about his great grandpa — who grew up in Pickens, S.C., and loved Clemson so much that he and his friends would camp out on a hill that overlooked the stadium when they couldn’t afford tickets. He remembers attending football camps with offensive coach Robbie Caldwell back when he was 8 years old. His Twitter profile picture is the Clemson logo.
The fact that Clemson was the perfect fit academically for Boggs, too — because of his interest in civil engineering — only furthered his fandom.
“All of my roads, wherever I went, they went back to Clemson for the major that I wanted,” Boggs said. “If I would’ve ended up at Furman or Wofford or Newberry or somewhere like that, I would have done a bridge program, majored in physics for two years or so, and from there I’d finish off my degree at Clemson.”
Boggs would’ve fit in as a student at Clemson, even if he wasn’t playing football. After all, he split time at the South Carolina Governor’s School of Science and Mathematics and York Comprehensive High, and he had a 5.2 GPA by the end of his first semester of his senior year, per York football head coach Dean Boyd.
Boyd said that since Boggs couldn’t take a weightlifting class because of his rigorous course load, Boggs would arrive at school at 6 a.m. and lift with his dad every day before school.
“That’s the kind of dedication and the type of person he is,” Boyd said. “So you know he’s going to succeed no matter what.”
But Boggs still wanted to play football. That was in his blood as much as the Clemson orange was.
So when he and his father one afternoon during the Shrine Bowl week talked with Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables — whose son also played in the Shrine Bowl — they felt as if their stars were aligning.
“I told him, I said, ‘Well Coach, I’m going to be honest with you, I really think he’s leaning toward trying to walk on,’” John recalled. “And Coach Venables said, ‘Well, Coach, if he wants to do that, you know we got a spot for him. You still have my number?’”
‘All paths led to Clemson’
Boggs’ talk with Coach Venables culminated into that particular moment on Sunday — when Boggs asked if Coach Swinney “had a second” to talk.
“(Will and I) kind of talked that morning that if you already decided where you’re going to commit, and you had the opportunity to tell somebody face to face rather than through a text or phone call or email, that’s always better,” John said.
And that’s what Will did.
“I’m all in,” Boggs told Swinney. The coach then hugged Boggs’ neck in excitement.
Boggs took an official visit to Clemson on Jan. 18, and he said the more he saw, the more he felt at home.
Boggs said he expects to be given the opportunity to contribute for Clemson at some point in his career. And Boyd agrees.
“The good thing about a lineman, when he gets a preferred walk-on spot, a lot of times those guys end up getting to play because they don’t have that many lineman signees anyway,” Boyd said. “He’s excited about it. Good things happen to good people.”
In York’s media center on Monday, Boggs looked as if he didn’t want the day to end. His family — John; Sherry, his mother; Neely, his sister; and Ty, his brother — were with him. He smiled for picture after picture after signing to his dream school to play for his dream team.
“All paths led to Clemson,” Boggs said on Monday.
Even the ones he didn’t know he could take.
Other York signing day news
Brannon “Boogie” Burns signed to Catawba College to run cross country: “There were a lot of times where I had to run by myself. It was just me and God out there. At the end of the day, if I wanted it bad enough, I was going to have to put in the work. I had all the support from everybody.”
Keirsten McFadden signed to Elizabeth City University volleyball: “It’s exciting. If I could use one word to describe today, I would definitely say ‘grateful.’ It was a tough, tough season. So getting to this point, I wasn’t sure if it was going to happen, but it happened.”
Colby Clayton signed to St. Andrews University football (QB): “I never really played quarterback before (this year). It was a real learning step. It wasn’t easy at first. But as the season went on, I got better at it… Today is a little more emotional than I thought it would be. I don’t know. It’s just that all your dreams are coming true. As a little kid, you always wanted to play football in college, and now it’s finally happening.”
Khalil Ellis signed South Carolina State football (TE): “Today, I mean, you get butterflies in your stomach signing to a school I never thought I could go to… I went up there, and the defensive coach was joking about putting me at defensive end. So who knows? I might or might not. If I had my choice, I’d play tight end, but I’ll play anything that they ask me to play.”
York strength coach receives ultimate honor
On Tuesday, the National High School Strength Coaches Association announced that York’s Mark Hoover was named one of eight 2020 Regional Strength Coaches of the Year.
The NHSSCA is a professional organization with the primary goal of educating, equipping and empowering coaches to make positive impacts in the lives of athletes.
This story was originally published February 16, 2020 at 7:09 AM.
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