K.J. Henry reveals biggest lesson learned from Dabo Swinney

Defensive lineman KJ Henry has already logged four years in the Clemson football program and is entering his fifth as one of the stalwarts of the Tigers’ great defenses over recent years. Over that time, he’s gotten to know the head coach pretty well. And according to Henry himself, Dabo Swinney has taught him a lot about being a football player.

At ACC Media Days, Henry reflected on some of the lessons he took away from playing under Coach Swinney for nearly five years now. Here were some of his comments:

“I think the biggest lessons I have learned from Coach throughout my career is how he treats all of us. He tells us all the time he is not going to treat us equally, but he will treat us fairly.”

Not something you hear everyday. That a coach won’t treat players equally. But instead, fairly. Because the same style of coaching won’t work on every player. And the way the star player needs to be coached or pushed may be much different than the third-string safety who’s just a freshman.

According to Henry, “that’s just a testament of learning and getting to know each player, each staff member he has and doing the best he can to bring out the best in them.”

Henry came to learn that Swinney’s style of coaching every player in their own way is vital. That now as a leader of the team in the locker room, he has to take after his coach. Not every younger player can be led in the same way. Sometimes, you have to relate to different players in different ways to connect with them.

“That’s probably the biggest lesson I learned in trying to help lead the team. On this defense, you can’t really attack everybody the exact same way. People learn differently. People understand things differently, and I have to get to know my teammates and my coaches in order to get the best out of everybody, and that’s probably been the best thing I’ve learned from Coach Swinney over my time.”

KJ Henry returns in 2022 as one of the clear leaders of the locker room. And he learned how to lead directly from his head coach.