Two Artistic Soulmates Named David: Byrne and Clawson

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You may find yourself being the most fascinating, articulate, and overachieving coach in all of college football. And you may find yourself about to start your 10^th season bound to prove doubters wrong about you and your program once again. And you may find your critics stunned and surprised. And you may find yourself going to another bowl game – for the eighth straight season. And you may find yourself to be David Clawson. And you may find yourself reading about yourself and your love of David Byrne and the Talking Heads. And you may find yourself, and all your adoring fans, doing that right now.

“Once In Lifetime” – The Talking Heads

You may find yourself in another part of the world. And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

Delayed run-pass option mesh

When you watch the Wake Forest offensive scheme called delayed run-pass option mesh, you’re not quite sure what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. The only thing you’re sure of is it’s cerebral, original, and cryptic. You get these same feelings studying David Byrne of the Talking Heads walk around oddly in an oversized business suit on stage, and do music videos where he’s clearly made up his mind to do movements no one else has and sing songs that don’t sound like any other band with lyrics that are at once impenetrable and yet somehow cohesive in a way no other songs are.

This isn’t some flimsy analogy. David the coach has been open about his fascination with David the rare rock singer and his Talking Heads band that, attitudinally at least, burned down everybody’s houses in their hit tune “Burning Down the House.”

Why does Clawson dig The Talking Heads?

But what are we to make of this Clawson predilection for Byrne? Yesterday for hours and hours I went hunting for the answer. There are clues.

Bryne’s artistic inspiration and indelible imprint come from a place of thinking differently, trying things in ways no one else has, and trusting, sensing, that it will work out somehow. Sounds a lot like the Wake Forest offense.

The thinking behind Wake’s offense feels visually and strategically like some sort of chess move that is within the rules but also a way of making the game unfair to the opponent, football’s version of checkmate. Every Fall for the past several years college football coaches and analysts have been digging deep into this offense with wonder, bewilderment and, usually, coming up empty with solutions. This is why it’s so hard to stop. In a conceptually similar way, we watch and listen to David Byrne perform and we don’t quite know what to make of it other than it’s good and original.

Clawson’s canvas: the football field

Byrne is a serial experimenter. Among college football coaches, Clawson is a Williams-educated guy where deep thinking is the daily diet, where intellectuals marinate and solve thorny world problems and invent previously unthought-of offenses. He’s inventive.

David and David create elegant art with their spareness of extraneous details, elegant sophistication fused with simplicity, yet stuffed with rich content and sublime substance.

In the lyrics of several of Byrne’s songs, there are revelatory snippets that help explain Clawson’s Talking Heads fascination. The words to several songs conjure up the idea of being home, or coming home, or having fun, and being at peace with that; in short, enjoying life with others. Savor these words from “This Must Be the Place”:

Home is where I want to be. I guess I must be having fun. I love the passing of time. Never for money, always for love. Home is where I want to be. But I guess I’m already there.

Clawson’s home is Wake Forest

Coaching at Wake Forest these past 10 years, Clawson already feels at home at the university that aligns with his values and goals like Wake Forest and Wait Chapel, like liberal arts and lighting a lifetime of learning, like the delayed run-pass option mesh and Warren Ruggerio, the offensive coordinator.

“Heaven” by the Talking Heads captures the spirit Wake Forest fans feel when he’s coaching this team.

There is a party, everyone is there. Everyone will leave at exactly the same time. It’s hard to imagine that nothing at all. Could be so exciting, could be so much fun.

https://youtu.be/NFjWRsLl5QI

Coaching is about “moments and relationships”

Clawson says coaching is about “moments and relationships,” and after his team wins a big game he’s a big believer in making sure to savor that time, to let it flow through his players’ hearts and souls. Stay on the field, fellas, and enjoy this victory with your family, friends, and teammates. Stay all night.

Same as it ever was

The final thread linking the uncommonly creative minds of Clawson and Byrne also emerges in the song “Once in a Lifetime.” Everyone has heard this song or will go to YouTube after this out of curiosity.

Think about these lyrics and the peculiar repetitiveness of it all:

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.

It’s the repetition so many times of a statement that doesn’t quite make sense even after thinking about it for a while, and in my case never fully grasping the meaning. I don’t know what “was” refers to. Do you? What is Bryne trying to say? Artists often do this deliberately.

So does Clawson, working through his ideas and performing art on a different stage than the music studio. On the football field, his canvas and studio. Just as David Byrne repeats and repeats “same as it ever was” David Clawson repeats and repeats the delayed run-pass option mesh offense as if it’s the same as it ever was. The coach repeats his key values: We want guys who love football and go to class. Simple yet elegant.

He runs an offensive scheme that you stare at and watch YouTube documentaries about and realize no one knows what’s really going on. Why are they doing it? What’s the secret? Why did Byrne wear an enormous suit? Why the odd dancing? Byrne says he danced that way just so it would be different than how everyone else dances.

Which leads us to this postulation: David Clawson is the David Byrne of football coaches, a guy doing the unconventional and not really explaining how nor what it all means nor why it’s so powerful. He’s doing a different dance that no one’s seen before, and it’s captivating the football world.

Let’s keep that, and David Byrne’s music, the same as it ever was.