I've shared this before but it really speaks to the kind of man Dave Clawson is- in 2016, my dad (a '65 Wake grad) had been feeling sick most of the summer. We realized that he was really feeling bad when he decided not to go to the Wake-Tulane season opener. He ended up in the ER on Labor Day and was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. He went downhill rapidly over the next few weeks. Not only that but I was going through a job change and my family was moving. The only thing that was a distraction from it all was Wake football. My 10 year old and I went to all the games, sitting in my dad's seats that he bought before he got sick. My dad died on October 27. I went to the Wake-Army game that weekend. It was rough but I knew that my dad would have wanted me to go. The fight song started playing before kickoff and I'm sitting there just crying. Anyway, after the great ending to the season, winning the Military Bowl, I wrote Clawson a letter, telling him about my dad and thanking him for the football season and how much it meant to me. This was in January of 2017. I didn't really expect to hear anything back from him.
But one day last fall, my cell phone rang and since it was a WS number, I answered it. And it was Clawson. He called to tell me how much he appreciated my letter and that he had been waiting until that week to call because it was the 1 year anniversary of my dad's death and he knew it would be a tough week for me. And he offered me tickets to the Wake-Louisville game.
Dave Clawson is a great football coach and an even better human being.