Celebrating the power of possibility.
Hi, I'm Clarence Waringen and I believe anything is possible.
Welcome to Anything is Possible.
These are great stories about great people whose lives prove that anything is possible.
And I've had the opportunity in my life to meet a lot of people.
One of the things that registers with me often is a person's spirit.
And today you're going to meet somebody that has one of those spirits.
This is Clarence Waringen. Thank you for being on the broadcast.
Bro, I got to tell you from the first time I met you, I just love your spirit.
I appreciate it, man. I appreciate that spirit.
I don't know, that spirit came from Big Mama.
Really?
Yeah, that was the Big Mama spirit.
Let's start there because you've got this great spirit.
I just enjoy being around you. So let's start with the origin of that.
Yeah, so my mom's mother, Dela May Avery from Mississippi,
just, I don't know, man, she just had this spirit about her.
She always laughed, always smiled, always, you know, regardless of the pain that she felt or went through,
she always had a smile on her face.
And she said that no matter what she was going through, that she was going to appreciate just life.
And so every day, that's how I think. I think, you know, I'm just so grateful.
You know, we just got to talking about earlier this morning about what are you grateful for.
I'm just grateful, like I was saying, I was grateful for my wife.
I'm grateful for, you know, the way my parents raised me.
They raised us up in the Lord, even though we deviated from it, you know, somewhere down the line.
But I always came back and I've always had a spirit of just being thankful and grateful for the good things that God has given me.
Well, let's dive in. Where'd you grow up?
So born in Chicago, raised in Memphis, Tennessee, from the parents of Catherine and Clarence, Swarajan, Sr.
Are they still alive today?
So Clarence, Swarajan, Sr. is, he's deceased. He died in 2007, January 4th, 2007.
And so, yeah, my mom is still in Memphis and she's doing well.
What were they like? What was it like growing up in Memphis?
So you have siblings?
Yes, I do. I have, let's see, I got two sisters there, one brother in Memphis.
And I got some half-sisters in Chicago.
So I got two half-sisters in Chicago, one in Phoenix.
And so, yeah, man. So my parents were, they were partiers.
They loved, they loved, they loved the party. They loved to entertain.
And I'm not going to say, you know, entertain not in a bad way, but we entertain in a good way.
They believe in like, I like people with my house. I like gatherings. I love to cook.
I love to, you know, play some dominoes and we play cars and we play space.
And so that's how my family was growing up. We were that type of family.
So everybody knew my mom and knew she could cook.
And my mom loved to be in the kitchen, man.
And so, I, yeah, I grew up, you know, doing the same thing.
I love to be in the kitchen myself now and I love to cook.
I think when I came to your house, you had made some Italian spaghetti for you.
Yeah.
And you said, try this. And I'm like, can this man really, and then I asked for seconds.
And that's what I knew.
So you're growing up in Memphis. Were you athletic as a kid?
Because you're tall.
I was, yeah.
Did you take to sports immediately?
I did, man. I played football, basketball and baseball in Iran track.
But I kind of navigated to basketball and baseball as I got into junior high school and high school.
Then basketball just took over as my sport.
My junior year is when Clarence Swaraj came out the back.
It's when people start to recognize, oh, this guy has some real skills.
Well, I mean, what did they recognize?
Well, they recognized that I was super fast, super quick. I could jump. I can defend.
I get to the basket. I could pass.
And college just started to recognize like he has an opportunity to be a Division I basketball player.
And so I came out my senior year, made all state, under prevention, all American,
and just had a wonderful season and had a lot of all schools all over the world looking at.
Who were coming at you?
Who was coming at you?
We had Arkansas, Memphis, Tennessee, Murray State, Georgia, Alabama, Providence.
But then something happened.
What happened?
I didn't have the grades.
I didn't have the grades, man.
And I was upset. I was pointing a finger at my high school coach and saying,
why did you let me fail?
I blamed it on him for years and years and years.
And one day I sit down and thought about it.
I said, you know what? That wasn't his fault. That was your fault because you should have taken care of your business.
I signed with Murray State University coming out of high school at that time.
And got to signing date and didn't realize that I didn't have the grades to go to the university.
And so I went to junior college.
And so I was there for two years at Connor State College in Warner, Oklahoma.
Took me way from Memphis to Oklahoma.
But it was a great experience because I had a chance now to kind of just redo it all over again.
And so I worked my tail off every day in the gym.
What did the work look like in the gym?
Man, we had 500 shots, 1,000 shots a day, sprints, lifting weights, yoga, stretching, you know, defensive slides every day.
I did it every day. And then at the end of my career there, I had more schools come to me than I had when I started in the 12th grade.
Really?
So I had Alabama, Providence, Tennessee, Georgia, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Arkansas.
And so I brought it down between Tennessee and Providence.
At that time, Rick Petino was the head coach at Providence.
And Don DeVoe was here in Tennessee.
How did you make that decision, that choice?
It was a tough one because I felt like if I went to Providence, I was going to be a pro.
But I wanted my parents to be able to see me play.
And so if I go to Providence, that's a long drive and a long, you know, my parents couldn't afford it.
My mom worked at Stroh's Brewery Company and my dad was a postman, you know.
And so they were making ends meet, but to put them in a situation where they had to go to Providence, Rhode Island to watch me play, that would have been tough.
So I decided that, you know what, I want my mommy to be able to watch me on TV.
So I decided to come to the University of Tennessee.
And I'm glad I did, man, because there's been nothing but love and Knoxville for me and my family.
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Talk about your career at UT.
Had a great year. So my first year, 1987, man, that was, we came in and I was a little bit skeptical about, like, coming from a junior college.
They told me at the beginning, like, when you come here, we're not bringing you here to come off the bench.
We're bringing you here to start and I need you to make sure.
So we played Marquette our first game and they had this little guard that I think his name was Marvin Sims, whatever.
He was about five, nine, I mean, big guy, short and just stout.
And he stole my ball on the first play of the game.
Like, oh, God, I'm like, this guy, I was thinking.
So I'm nervous and I'm nervous.
And they scored the first two points on us.
And then we came back down the next play and Elvin Brown got a steal, passed it to me, and I boom, jammed it.
First two points in Thompson Bowl Arena in 1987.
It's a dunk. It's a dunk by Clarence Orange.
Yeah, man. So, yeah.
And then, you know, of course, you know, we've had some, I had some good years, had a couple of good years there.
Yeah, man, all SEC played well, had an opportunity to go to the Denver Nuggets after we left,
after I left the university, had a brief stay with the Denver Nuggets, and then got cut when I got cut in 1989.
I went to Europe.
And what was it like playing in Europe?
Man, a wonderful man. I was on a European Cup team.
So we played all throughout Europe.
Germany was beautiful.
Austria was beautiful.
Yeah, had a chance to meet a lot of good people, man, and see a lot of countries.
I mean, from Spain to Italy, France, Belgium, man, we traveled all throughout Europe.
And I loved it because it was only two Americans on the team.
You know, at that time, they only allowed two Americans on the team, and you played with all European players.
And so, man, had an opportunity to experience and meet some wonderful people.
Man, had a great career there.
What did you think your life was going to become?
You're playing in Europe. Had you found your sense of purpose in your life, or were you just following where your athletic ability was taking?
I think I was following my athletic ability.
Yeah, at that time, you know, just, you know, where, what was the next job going to be, you know?
How can I make sure that I, you know, save up enough money so when I finished playing and come back to the United States,
I had enough money to go back to college and finish my degree.
That was my, that was my goal, you know, my goal was to make sure that, you know, I got my degree because my parents always talked about, you know,
we want you to be the first in our family to get your degree.
And so, I promised my mom with two things.
I said, Mom, you're not going to, you're not going to pay for college because I'm going to work my butt off to get a scholarship.
And I said, and you're not going to pay for my degree because I'm going to finish that degree.
And so after my career was over with, that was in 1997, I came back to UT, I got my, finished up my bachelor's.
I think I needed 30-some hours.
I finished up my bachelor's and Jerry Green at that time was the, was the head coach.
And he said, Clarence, I, you know, I was still playing ball and I was still in shape.
He's like, I want you to stay here for another year, work out with our kids and just make them better.
And I'll pay for your master's.
Shoot, yeah, or not.
And so that's what I did.
I stayed, I stayed here in 1997, 1998 and got my master's degree from the University of Tennessee.
And I can remember some of the, you know, the older people that worked there and said,
you're going to make sure you get all your juice at your orange.
And I said, you're exactly right.
That's what you're supposed to do.
I mean, you guys have, you know, you made plenty of money on our athletes.
So why not, why not take advantage of that opportunity?
So, yeah, I got my master's and then I left in 1998 and I took a job as an academic advisor at Ohio State University.
And, and I love that experience too.
And that was a great experience to go to Columbus, Ohio.
At that time, my cousin was the head of the African American Studies Department, Dr. William Nelson.
And so, yeah, he brought me in, did that for a year.
And I just never was like, that was never really what I wanted to do.
I wanted to get back into basketball.
I wanted to coach.
And so I ended up taking a job with the University of Memphis with Tick Price as a director of basketball operation.
And then that's when my career rolled from there.
Talk about your coaching career.
Yeah.
So coach that University of Memphis under Tick Price.
And then I did Melrose High School for two years.
I was there head basketball coach and athletic director for two years.
And then I had a nephew who you might know, Scooter McFadden, who played here at the University of Tennessee.
He was with John Calipari at Memphis.
And Buzz Peterson called and said, hey, I got a job for you.
I was like, what you got?
He said, I got an athletic coordinator position here.
And I said, well, recruit me. Would you be interested in?
I said, yeah.
He said, I think you can bring Scooter with you.
We can work that out because Scooter wanted to leave.
He wanted to leave the University of Memphis under John Calipari.
And he was like, I really want to go work with Buzz.
I said, well, we might have an opportunity.
So hey, that's how it worked out.
We were able to come back to the University and I coached there with Buzz for two years.
We had a pretty good team.
We went bad.
But then they fired us in 2005.
And that's when Bruce Pearl came in and took over.
I thought he was going to keep me.
I was like, I know he's going to keep me.
I'm a Tennessee boy.
I can help him.
But he ended up bringing in his own staff.
And then that's when I got into what I do now.
And that's when I got into teaching and education.
What did you feel like to be fired?
Oh man.
At that time, the crazy part about it, at that time, I was just, well, I think my dad was dying.
I went through a divorce and I just met my college sweetheart, my wife, today.
Kind of all at the same time.
So this is big transition.
It's a huge transition, man.
This is the real story right here, you know, from losing your father.
Well, I knew he was dying because you can see it.
And then I went through a divorce and that's like that.
That was tough.
And then I met my wife to be at the same kind of same time.
So it kind of was a curse and a blessing because I got a chance to have that person who I felt like was a friend.
Like, you know, I didn't marry my first wife.
It wasn't my friend.
Like, I married my friend because we knew each other from 1987.
And so that transition was really, really helpful for me because, you know, you know my dark time.
And I think I told you, you know, I almost lost my life because of drugs and alcohol and that, that same.
That was doing all that.
You know, it was like a ticking time bomb.
I want to talk to you about it.
I want to explore that.
Let's back up a little bit though because this corridor of your life, the first thing I thought about is the 23rd Psalm.
Yay, though, I walked through the valley of the shadow of death.
Like, all of us will have a valley we've got to walk.
The question is, can you find the strength to keep walking?
You're right.
Your dad, were you with him when he passed away?
Yes, I was.
I was in the hospital when he took his last breath.
Yeah, I was, yeah, that was a tough one, man, because we were.
Talk to me about that relationship and what that transition, just that transition, did to you and for you.
Well, I was, first of all, I was named after him and he wasn't really my biological father.
Wow.
That was, that was a tough thing about it.
My mom and him was married and they separated and then she met my biological father and then they got back together.
And he named me after him.
That's that, to me, that's a strong man.
I mean, to me, that's what a father, you know, I didn't really know my biological father like that.
I mean, we eventually became a little closer as he got a little older.
But if I had to say my father, my father was Clarence Swaraj and senior.
That's the guy who raised me my whole life.
And when he died, that was, that was tough on me.
Because like I said, that was during the time when I was going through.
You were spiraling.
I was going through, I mean, I was going through that whole spiral and I was like, you know what, just, I'm going through this divorce.
I just lost my dad.
I'm about to start another relationship with a, you know, with a young lady that I've been doing for a long time.
Yeah, man, that was a, that was some tough time.
What did he tell you?
In those closing months or weeks or days, those conversations, this man, I've heard some people say,
I've heard some people describe it like this.
You can have a biological parent, but when you have an adoptive parent, there's some, there's a, there's a deep feeling to someone choosing you.
Like, I didn't just have you.
I choose you.
Oh yeah.
You know, so I wonder if you guys had conversations.
Yeah, we did.
We had a couple of conversations about it.
He just said, you know what, I'm here to be the father that you need.
Like, I named you after me because I care so much about your mom.
All right.
And he was just an amazing person, right.
Just like a caregiver, you know, he took care of the bills.
My mom was, my mom was a very beautiful lady.
She still is right now today.
She was a very beautiful lady.
And yeah, she was, she was sexy too.
Like, you know, so she had a lot of, you know, she had a lot of hair.
Like, you know, it was coming, coming, coming for, you know.
And, man, he just was a, that's a good father, man.
He took care of the house, you know, never missed a meal.
You know, I'd never seen him put his hands on my mom, you know, never seen him.
You know, he was just one of those fathers that I try to model my marriage after, you know, right now today.
I try to be, you know, praying, praying husband.
I try to be an example for my son.
And I try to be a great husband for my wife, you know, 20 years in the game.
And, you know, never, never, never, never, ever even had any thought of messing that up.
I wouldn't, I wouldn't take a chance.
I wouldn't dare.
She can be Beyonce and I'm sorry, but I love this woman.
And it's not, it's not worth it.
You know, I want to, I want my son to see, like, this is, this is how you're supposed to live your life.
This is how we continue to get the blessings and the favor from God by doing the things that are pleasing in his eyes.
Like, that's where that spirit comes from, you know, that you talk about.
That's, that's just, it's a God thing, man.
And that's hard to explain, but I don't ever want it to leave.
Let's take a, let's take a break.
We've got to, we've got to do your story in two parts.
So let's cap part one.
My guest is Clarence Swerinchen, part two next time.