COLUMN: The hypocrisy of Dabo Swinney shouldn't be ignored

Before North Carolina football's upcoming game against Clemson, I would like to say a few words about Dabo Swinney. 

For those with the pleasure of never encountering his name, let me bring you up to speed. Swinney is the head coach of the Clemson football team, a two-time national champion and leader of the number one football program in the country right now. 

This past April, Swinney became the highest-paid coach in college football history after signing a 10-year, $93 million dollar contract. This is the same man who has threatened on multiple occasions to quit college football entirely if anyone deigned to try and compensate his athletes for their labor. 

If there's one thing good, ol' Dabo loves, it's getting rich off the backs of players who will never see a dime.

Just a little more than a month after signing his new contract, Swinney doubled down on his views on paying players in an interview with ESPN. 

"They may want to professionalize college athletics," he said. "Well, then, maybe I'll go to the pros. If I'm going to coach pro football, I might as well do that." 

Someone with a $93 million contract who doesn't believe that they are a part of a professional industry is either foolishly drinking the NCAA's amateurism Kool-Aid, or forwarding such shockingly bad-faith arguments that nothing they say should be taken seriously. 

Dabo's won a lot of games in his day, and I don't think he's stupid. So that leaves us with option two. 

It doesn't have to be this way, nor did it ever. The idea that a program's players were "student-athletes" and not employees was something the NCAA made up on the fly decades ago, to avoid paying worker's compensation for a football player named Ray Dennison who was accidentally killed during a game in 1955. 

I don't know if Dabo knows the history. I am sure he knows if one of his players has a career-ending injury, they won't see any money in their pocket, despite their livelihood being taken from them. Swinney, on the other hand, will continue to make his money, no matter how many of his players have their careers derailed. 

And with all this, he has the audacity to call this current generation entitled. He decries the transfer portal — one of the few opportunities players have to actually control their destiny. 

Athletes are entitled. They are, or should be, entitled to play for whatever program they want to. They should be paid for the work they do. 

Instead, Swinney reaps the benefits from the labor of a mostly Black team that plays at a university that was built on the grounds of a slave plantation. The universe was a little too on the nose with that last part. 

All this is to say one thing. Dabo, if you really mean what you say about keeping money out of college football, then give it up. 

Give up the $93 million. Give up the money you've earned through your labor that you feel you are entitled to, but your players are not. Coach for free. Maybe, if you're lucky, you could be compensated the cost of tuition at Clemson. 

If that's enough for your players, it should be enough for you, too. 

@bg_keyes

@DTHSports | sports@dailytarheel.com