There was a time, when the University of South Carolina first stepped into the bracing waters of Southeastern Conference membership, that fans fretted about the Gamecocks’ perceived lack of history. It was a shared sense that maybe Carolina didn’t quite measure up to the storied programs like Alabama, LSU, and Tennessee, among others. Perhaps, we thought to ourselves in moments of quiet reflection, or in confessional tones whispered to fellow fans, we were just lucky to be there. We were in the throes of “new guy syndrome,” adjusting to our newfound identity after twenty years of independent status, a winless bowl record, and a conspicuously lonely trophy case.

As Carolina charted its course through the choppy waters of those early SEC years, insecurities abounded. But thirty-five years into our alliance with the greatest conference in the land, Gamecock fans can gaze into the middle distance through eyes of chipped granite and proclaim with a confident sniff, “Damn right we belong here!”

Admittedly, the University of South Carolina took an unorthodox and often rocky path to this point. A founding member of the ACC, Carolina left that conference in a huff in 1971, arguably the greatest self-inflicted setback in the history of Division I sports. While the ACC thrived thanks to lucrative television deals during a golden age of men’s basketball, the period is mostly remembered by Gamecock fans as “The Wilderness.” Those decades of the 1970’s and 80’s were a struggle on many fronts, though the period was not without highlights and fun times, as detailed in my own 2023 book, A Gamecock Odyssey.

But beyond the Wilderness years, the history of USC sports is deep and rich, and finely detailed in a growing list books that should be required reading for any serious Gamecock fan. What follows is a list of ten additional histories, that shed light on a broad swath of programs, coaches, players, and eras across more than a century of Carolina athletics. There are many more volumes out there than appear on this list, and at the end I’ll include a couple of supplemental reads, as well as a couple of forthcoming books I think you’ll be excited about.

So, grab your readers, settle into your favorite chair, and let’s dive in:

• The Carolina-Clemson Game - 1896-1966, Don Barton (The State Printing Company, Columbia, 1967) - A 1949 USC graduate, Barton served as Sports Information Director at Carolina from 1950 to 1959, and even doubled as Gamecock tennis coach in 1954 and 1955. Barton published a number of books on Carolina sports, including “They Wore Garnet & Black” and “Frank McGuire: The Life and Times of a Basketball Legend” (both highlighted below). His first volume, covering the Carolina-Clemson rivalry, is a tough find, but a delight if you can get your hands on a copy. It details every game in the legendary series, from the inaugural contest in 1896 through Paul Dietzel’s first season in 1966. Detailed with fast-paced narratives from all seventy games, the summaries of each contest include full rosters and box scores. Barton’s compelling prose and wry humor bring the legendary clashes of the bygone Big Thursday era to life. This book is a treasure for anyone interested in the history of this great rivalry and fans of both programs.

• The Cadillac, Mike Chibbaro (Thirty-Seven Publishing, 2014) - Chibbaro cut his teeth in the publishing world as sports editor of The Gamecock student newspaper during his time at USC. A 1981 Carolina grad, Chibbaro went on to a successful business career before retiring in 2012. Since, he has devoted his time to leadership development consulting and, fortunately for Gamecock fans, chronicling the exploits of USC football legend Steve “The Cadillac” Wadiak. The gold standard of Gamecock rushers before a guy named George Rogers arrived on campus in the late ‘70’s, Wadiak starred for Carolina from 1948-1951, and still holds the program record for longest run from scrimmage (96 yards vs George Washington on October 27, 1950). The Chicago-born son of Ukrainian immigrants still ranks fourth on the all-time rushing list at USC with 2,878 career yards. Wadiak tragically died in an automobile accident shortly after his senior season. His #37 was the first number or jersey retired by USC in any sport. Wadiak was elected to the USC Athletics Hall of Fame as a member of the inaugural class in 1967.

• Roundball Culture, Dan Klores (A.M. Press, 1980) - Another hard-to-find volume (a paperback version currently lists on Amazon for $2,999, though eBay has offerings in the $100 to $200 range), Klores’ Roundball Culture documents Frank McGuire’s iconic sixteen year run as head men’s basketball coach at the University of South Carolina between 1964 and 1980. This book has developed somewhat of a cult following among Gamecock fans of a certain age, and provides an insider’s perspective on the program from someone who cultivated close friendships with many players and coaches of that era. A Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker, Klores attended USC during McGuire’s heyday in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. The New York City-based Klores is a guy who knew where the bodies were buried during that era of Gamecock hoops, and he wrote this book with trademark wit and uncompromising honesty. For anyone who remembers those halcyon days, or is curious to learn more about this drama-filled era when USC men’s basketball was the hottest ticket around, this book is indispensable.

• Frank McGuire: The Life and Times of a Basketball Legend, Don Barton and Bob Fulton (Summerhouse Press, 1995) - Before Dawn Staley and Ray Tanner brought multiple national championships to Columbia for their respective programs, the dominant figure in the history of Gamecock athletics was Frank J. McGuire. Close to half-a-century has passed now since the always immaculate Irishman sat straightening his tie and adjusting his cufflinks as pressure mounted across sixteen seasons of South Carolina basketball. For those who did not live through it, its hard to conjure the extent to which McGuire altered the culture and landscape of Gamecock athletics, and for a fleeting time, made men’s basketball the dominant sport in the football-crazed Palmetto State. Both Barton, USC’s former SID, and Fulton, radio voice of the Gamecocks for forty-three years, were close friends of McGuire’s. Their book provides an intimate portrait of one of the most remarkable careers and colorful characters in the history of college basketball.

• They Wore Garnet & Black, Don Barton (Spur Publishers, 1985) - Another classic by Barton, this one is subtitled “Inside Carolina’s Quest for Gridiron Glory,” and profiles sixteen former players across half-a-century of Gamecock football. Most of the familiar names are highlighted, from King Dixon and Alex Hawkins, to Dan Reeves, Bobby Bryant, Jeff Grantz, and George Rogers, among others. But the book also captures lesser known standouts from earlier times, like Larry Craig, from the small town of Ninety Six, South Carolina, who starred at USC from 1935-38. Craig was selected in the eighth-round of the 1938 NFL draft by the Green Bay Packers, thanks to USC coach Rex Enright’s relationship with Packers’ legend Curly Lambeau (they were teammates at Notre Dame). In 1973, Craig was enshrined in the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame, commemorating his Pro Bowl career spanning eleven seasons, all with the Packers. Barton’s entire body of work is indispensable for Gamecock history buffs, and this volume is no exception.

• The ‘84 Gamecocks: Fire Ants and Black Magic, Tom Price (USC Press, 1985) - More legend and lore has accumulated around USC’s magical 1984 squad than any single team or season in the history of Gamecock football. Tom Price, who served as USC’s Sports Information Director for thirty years, from 1962 to 1992, and remained at Carolina in an emeritus role through 2008, captures that wild ride of a season from an insider’s perspective. Like Barton, Price authored several books on Gamecock sports, and was the preeminent historical authority on Carolina athletics of his time. This book takes fans on a game-by-game reminiscence of that iconic season, during which the Gamecocks, under Coach Joe Morrison, bolted out of the blue to a 9-0 start and #2 national ranking - still the high-water mark for national rankings in program history. Carolina only needed to take care of business at lowly 3-5-1 Navy to secure a #1 ranking (prior #1 Nebraska lost that day) and a birth in that season’s national championship game…

• The Gamecocks: South Carolina Football, Jim Hunter (Strode Publishers, 1975) - This volume, written. by former Gamecock half-back Jim Hunter, appeared as part of a series of anthologies highlighting various programs across the country, produced in the mid-1970’s by Strode Publishers of Huntsville, Alabama. Much like Barton’s “They Wore Garnet & Black,” this work captures decades of Gamecock football stories, but goes even further to the very origins of the program in the 1890s. From the 1902 Carolina-Clemson game, and the resulting near riot at the USC Horseshoe, to USC’s first bowl game, up through the Dietzel and Carlen eras, Hunter’s entertaining prose and a collection of vintage photos capture the spirited characters who have defined South Carolina football.

• A History of the University of South Carolina: 1940-2000, Henry Lesesne (USC Press, 2001) - Released for USC’s bicentennial celebration in 2001, Lesesne’s important work is not a sports-specific book, but a broader history of the university. However, the details of Carolina’s athletics administration woven throughout the book shed light and perspective on the major players and events that shaped Gamecock fortunes during the latter half of the 20th Century. From co-founding (and later, leaving) the ACC, to joining the SEC, to the interplay between titanic personalities like Frank McGuire, Paul Dietzel, and Jim Carlen and their contemporary USC presidents and boards of trustees - this academic history provides important context around decades of Gamecock athletics.

• ACC Basketball: The Story of the Rivalries, Traditions, and Scandals of the First Two Decades of the Atlantic Coast Conference, J. Samuel Walker (UNC Press, 2011) - Walker’s deeply-researched and well-written history of the ACC’s first twenty years is a treasure that sheds light on USC’s leading role in the founding of the conference, and its impetuous decision to leave it. At one time, most original member schools of the SEC and the ACC were members of the Southern Conference, which by 1932 had grown to an unwieldy twenty-three members. In 1933, thirteen members separated to form the SEC. Over the following few years, the Southern added new member schools to round out the conference, including the likes of William and Mary, George Washington, Furman, The Citadel, Davidson, and Richmond, and, by 1951, had ballooned again to seventeen member schools. Remaining original members, mostly larger institutions with well-funded athletics programs, chafed under Southern Conference leadership, which had imposed bowl bans on member schools to address a number of academic and point-shaving scandals across college sports. By the spring of 1953, USC, along with Clemson, UNC, Duke, Wake Forest, NC State, and Maryland determined to separate from the Southern to form a new governing body - the Atlantic Coast Conference. On the morning of May 8, 1953, USC faculty chairman James T. Penney announced to the executive committee of the Southern Conference that the seven member institutions were departing (Virginia, an independent at the time, joined later in 1953). Aside from Penney, USC president Donald Russell and athletics director/head football coach Rex Enright, played leading roles in forming the new conference.

• The Encyclopedia of Gamecock Football - 1892-1994, John Chandler Griffin (Palmetto Press, 1995) - Chandler’s well-researched chronicle is a season-by-season summary of the first century of Gamecock football. Griffen, a former literature professor at USC-Lancaster, renowned sports historian, and Gamecock fan to his bones, writes with passion as only a lifelong fan could. His work is an important addition for any Gamecock history buff. Maybe my favorite part of the book is a poem Chandler reprinted from the 1903 Garnet & Black by Carolina student W.W. Stephens:

The gridirons are deserted now, and gone the season’s strife, But the game for us has just begun on the football field of life; Never an intermission there the weary ones shall know, Nor a time out call for the men that fall, nor the blessed whistle blow; Never a sub can take your place, and never a man must yield, For the game is o’re for evermore for the men who leave the field; Perhaps the world shall see you win, and the pennants wave for you, And your feet will tear the trampled turf as you drive the touchdowns through; Or perhaps upon your very goal the plunging bodies meet, And the dusty lime of the last white line is crushed beneath your feet; Perhaps the twilight wind is cold and the goalpost shadows long, And the victors swarm upon the field to chant their triumph song; But if you play the losing game as but a hero can, The men that buck your line will know the played against a MAN.

Two upcoming works to keep an eye on:

• The Spurrier Effect: How One Coach Transformed Gamecock Football, Brent Silvia and Kevin Miller (USC Press, 2026) - Silvia and Miller’s exciting book is set for an August 18 release, and has created significant buzz in the Gamecock community. Written with the blessing and full cooperation of Spurrier himself, the book is a one-of-a-kind glimpse into Steve Spurrier’s iconic decade-plus at the University of South Carolina, and how the Head Ball Coach transformed Gamecock football into a leading SEC contender during the early 2010’s. Look for Silvia and Miller’s official book launch at Columbia’s All Good Books on August 22nd!

• It Could Have Been Worse: A Twenty-One Game Losing Streak and the Battle For the Soul of Gamecock Football, Evan Faulkenbury and Alan Piercy (USC Press, tentatively 2028) - I have enjoyed the privilege of collaborating with Faulkenbury, USC’s official historian, on this look at Carolina’s difficult 1998 and 1999 seasons (the 1-21 years), along with the great turnaround under Lou Holtz in 2000 and 2001, as USC approached its bicentennial. It's a story of loss, resilience, and redemption, and how Gamecock fans forged an identity across college athletics for undying loyalty.

It’s impossible to include all of the important works out there in a list of ten. Important to note as well that the above is not a “top ten” list, but a collection of books that have been significant resources to me in researching and writing about Gamecock history over the years. There are so many other works out there, notably Gamecock Glory, by Travis Haney, which chronicles USC’s thrilling 2010 national championship baseball team, and Here We Go! - David Cloninger’s look at Dawn Staley’s women’s basketball program and its first national championship team in 2017, (as well as Coach Staley’s own recent book, Uncommon Favor). There are many other worthy reads, and more on the way.

Though the championship banners have not materialized, perhaps, at the clip Gamecock fans would have liked over the years, the accumulation of stories and characters documented in these volumes take a back seat to no school.

A Gamecock Odyssey - now in paperback!

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(For Part I, which covered Melton and Davis Fields, USC’s former on-campus football and baseball facilities, please click here)

A small column titled “Additional Land to Be Purchased,” appeared in the April 24, 1953 edition of The Gamecock, USC’s student newspaper. The column appeared below the fold, lost amid more pressing news and campus briefs. A committee of Columbia civic leaders, the column explained, was to be appointed to advise the administration on the purchase of additional land for athletic fields, enabling the University to repurpose Davis and Melton Fields for building purposes, according to then University President, Donald S. Russell.

The General Assembly had recently appropriated $800,000 for the purchase of additional land for the University - property the school sorely needed in the enrollment boom years following World War II. “It is generally understood,” the article concluded, “that the two present athletic fields will be covered by a student union and an auditorium.”

Though the second of those two concepts evolved into a new undergraduate library rather than an auditorium, the column reveals that University leaders understood the need for an upgraded basketball facility some twenty-six years after the construction of 3,200-seat Carolina Fieldhouse, and a full decade-and-a-half before Carolina Coliseum would eventually open.

Already a crowded campus before the rush of post-war enrollment, the University of South Carolina found itself bursting at the seems by the late 1940’s, when returning servicemen flocked to USC as part of a nationwide trend, powered by a government program known as the GI Bill.1 By 1947, total enrollment reached 5,413, up from 2,004 at the start of that decade, a sixty-three percent increase. Though enrollment would dip to 3,192 by 1951 as WW II vets completed their degrees, it climbed again over the coming years as Korean War vets came home, and the number of female enrollees grew to historic levels.2 That trend would continue steadily. By 1970, enrollment at USC’s Columbia campus would rise to 14,484.

To replace Davis and Melton Fields, the University purchased twenty-one acres from the McCreery Land and Investment Company in 1953, bounded by Rosewood Drive to the south, South Marion Street to the east, Heyward Street to the north and the Southern Railway line to the west. Set in a transitional area between turn-of-the-century bungalows in the Hollywood-Rose Hill neighborhood and the industrial corridor of lower Assembly Street, the tract lay about a mile-and-a-half from campus.

By September, 1956, athletic personnel moved into a new 29,000 square foot administration building. “The Roundhouse” as it became known, given its unique circular design, sat on a bluff on the south end of the 21-acre property, overlooking Rosewood Drive.

Engineered by the Lockwood-Greene firm of Spartanburg, and built at a cost of $250,000 (about $3M adjusted), the building was classic Mid-century design, reminiscent of a flying disc, oddly set down on the outskirts of a Southern capital.

The facility included a ground-floor lecture room in the center, with adjacent offices for coaches and administrators, and smaller meeting rooms on the same floor. The second floor included space for training and equipment rooms, along with shower and locker facilities. An adjacent dorm-style building provided accommodations for visiting teams.

Additional plans for the tract included development of football practice fields, a track & field facility, and a baseball diamond. The first baseball game played on what would eventually be dedicated as Sarge Frye Field took place on March 20, 1959, when the Gamecocks opened that season with a 13-1 win over Erskine.3

By December 1959, thanks in large part to a push by the student body, USCs Board of Trustees christened the “Roundhouse” building “Rex Enright Athletic Center.” Enright, USC’s longtime athletics director and former head football coach, served in the dual role from 1938 to 1942, and again from 1946 to 1956.4 Enright relinquished his football duties, hiring Warren Giese to lead the program beginning in 1957, while remaining as athletics director until his death in 1960. So beloved was Enright in the Carolina community, the student body lobbied officials to rename Carolina Stadium after the coach. The Board ultimately determined naming the athletics administration building was a more fitting tribute given the scope of his impact at USC.

Enright said of the honor, “Words could never express the deep feeling of gratitude that I have in my heart after what you have done. The privilege of working for such a wonderful administration and my association with the people of South Carolina, the students, and the faculty, have been adequate reward for me. However it is with great pride that I tell you how much I appreciate what you have done, and will do everything within my power to deserve it.”

1969: Upgraded facilities at “The Roost”

While the basketball Gamecocks lavished in their posh new arena at the corner of Blossom and Assembly, construction crews were busy across other parts of campus, including at the Enright Athletics property. A five-unit dormitory, dining, and lounge complex at the corner of Heyward and South Marion Streets opened in the spring of 1969. The facility upgrades included new tennis courts and a revamped baseball complex, featuring a two-thousand-seat concrete stadium - a massive upgrade from the bleacher-style seating previously at the site.

In 1970, the George Terry Spring Sports Complex opened, adjacent to The Roost dining facility, which housed coaches offices and locker room space, among other amenities. Terry, who died in 1969, had been an assistant director of athletics, who Dietzel described as “my right arm,” and who had served with Dietzel going back to his LSU days. Terry had been integral in spearheading efforts around the design and construction of The Roost and the subsequent complex was named in his honor.

The home of Gamecock men’s tennis for decades - Sam Daniel Tennis Center - was positioned in the northwest corner of the property, named for a former Gamecock tennis coach and letterman, who never lost a singles or doubles match during his three varsity seasons with Carolina in the 1930s. Women’s tennis, meanwhile, played their home matches at Maxy Gregg Tennis Center off Blossom Street, from the start of that program in 1974, through 2010. Beginning with the 2012 season, both men’s and women’s programs moved to updated courts at the Carolina Tennis Center on the former site of Sarge Frye Field.

Chipping and putting greens were shoehorned behind the centerfield wall of Sarge Frye Field, as well, every inch of space along the twenty-one acres occupied by one sport or the other.

The track and field facility on this site was named for long time coach Weems Baskin, who directed the Gamecock program between 1948 and 1969. That facility was later upgraded and renamed for donors Sheila and Morris Cregger, though Baskin’s name lives on through the Weems Baskin Invitational, hosted by USC each spring.

In the years following the passage of Title IX legislation of 1972, USC added a number of varsity women’s sports, including softball. A softball diamond was added to the Enright facility grounds between the left field fence of the baseball stadium and the track & field facility. In the spring of 2013, a revamped facility - Carolina Softball Stadium at Beckham Field opened on the same site.

Football moves to the Proving Grounds, Sarge Frye takes a bow

From the Warren Giese-led teams of the late 1950’s through the Brad Scott era of the 1990’s, Gamecock football coaches and players battled each other, the relentless Columbia heat, and themselves through forty years of drills and scrimmages, four decades of spring practices and the dogs breath humidity of pre-season two-a-days that followed. In 1996, USC leased property for revamped practice fields from the South Carolina Army National Guard on the west side of Bluff Road, in the shadows of Williams-Brice Stadium. Those fields, rechristened “The Gamecock Proving Grounds” during the Lou Holtz era, served USC football for twenty years, until the opening of the Jerri and Steve Spurrier Indoor Practice Facility in 2015.

The Enright baseball diamond, meanwhile, played host to one of the greatest programs in the land, beginning with the appointment of former New York Yankee legend and Sumter native Bobby Richardson to the head coaching job in 1970, through two decades of June Raines-led teams, and the first twelve years of the Ray Tanner era. During that time, Gamecock baseball appeared in 24 NCAA tournaments, with 12 regional championships, and eight College World Series appearances, finishing national runner-up three times (1975, 1977, 2002), securing two SEC regular season championships (2000, 2002), and an SEC Tournament championship (2004).

In 1980, University officials honored longtime groundskeeper Sarge Frye, renaming the venue Weldon B “Sarge” Frye Field, commemorating Frye’s twenty-seven years of service to the university. Through the tenures of Richardson, Raines, and Tanner, “The Sarge” became one of the true gems in the college game, with its excellent teams and rabid fans, exemplified by the legendary Third Base Hecklers. The balls and strikes and steady rhythm of innings were animated by the lonesome clang and whistle of trains making their languid transit through the Capital City on the Southern Railway line, like some Hank Williams lyric set to motion, and close enough it seemed the engineer could snag a Landon Powell home run.

As the Tanner era picked up steam, expansions and updates boosted capacity to 6,000, though demand for tickets far outpaced availability. On May 17, 2008, the Gamecocks concluded their final season at the beloved venue with a thrilling 10-8 win over SEC rival Tennessee. In 2009, South Carolina opened play at 8,200-seat Carolina Stadium, later renamed Founders Park. There they became the undisputed greatest program in the land for a few golden years, securing back-to-back national championships in 2010 and 2011 along with the program’s fourth national runner-up finish in 2012.

A legacy endures

Baseball is gone now, moved across town to the Congaree Vista, with football gone before that. The Roundhouse - that beating heart of Gamecock athletics for so many decades - met the wrecking ball in 2013. The Roost athletic dorms and dining hall too succumbed to obsolescence and the relentless passage of time. In their places stand the Dodie Anderson Academic Enrichment Center (2009), the Rice Athletic Offices (2012), and gleaming new facilities for tennis, softball and track. And since 2019, the old Enright property has boasted Wheeler Beach, home to the University’s newest varsity sport, sand volleyball.

Since 1953, that twenty-one acres off Rosewood Drive has seen legends and championships and characters by the dozen. Heisman Trophy winner George Rogers roamed its practice fields, as did the likes of NFL Hall-of-Famer Sterling Sharpe, “Deacon” Dan Reeves, Steve Taneyhill, Alex Hawkins, King Dixon, and Bobby Bryant among so many others. Legendary hurlers like Earl Bass and Kip Bouknight complimented the kingly exploits of sluggers like Hank Small and Justin Smoak.

Coaching legends too stalked the grounds, like 80’s icon Joe Morrison, who puffed Winstons while directing his charges with a steely gaze behind trademark aviator sunglasses. Bobby Richardson hosted the Yankees and Mets on the old diamond one magical spring evening in 1974, drawing seven thousand fans who fell in love with Gamecock baseball and never stopped coming. The 2002 women’s outdoor track team brought the University its coveted first-ever team national championship. The stories go on.

Seven decades of Gamecock athletes have shed sweat and blood in rivulets and bucketfuls on those fields, the grass growing with it like some odd salt born variety under the watchful eye of an old Army sergeant turned Carolina legend.

If only those long demolished Roundhouse walls could talk, witnessing as they did the captains of Gamecock industry - from Enright to Giese, to Bass, McGuire and Dietzel; Carlen and Marcum and McGee and Hyman - the cults of personality that animated a number of their tenures, their staffs and coaches and day to day deals, and rivalries; their squabbles and private conversations, from leaving the ACC to courting the SEC to everything in between. It all happened on those twenty-one acres.

My goodness, the stories they could tell.

4

During the interim between Enright’s two stints at South Carolina (1943-1945), he completed wartime service in the Navy. Stationed at Jacksonville Naval Air Station in 1945, Enright leveraged his deep connections in the college football world, lobbying officials who were planning the inaugural Gator Bowl on the Gamecocks behalf. It is a testament to Enright’s charm and powers of persuasion that bowl officials awarded South Carolina a bid, despite a 2-3-3 regular season record (0-2-2 SoCon) and a tenth-place finish in that season’s Southern Conference Standings. The Gamecocks faced Southern Conference foe Wake Forest in that first Gator Bowl, losing 24-16 to the Deacons (the two teams had battled to a 13-13 tie during the regular season in a neutral-site game at American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte). The most memorable play from that losing effort was a 90-yard interception return for a touchdown by USC’s Dutch Breams - a Gator Bowl record until Gamecock safety O’Donnell Fortune returned an interception 100-yards versus Notre Dame (Enright’s alma mater) in the 2022 Gator Bowl. Enright’s 64 wins made him the winningest coach in program history, until he was passed by Steve Spurrier in 2011.

Sources:

• Lesense, Henry H, A History of the University of South Carolina 1940-2000, (USC Press, Columbia, SC, 2001)

• “Additional land to be purchased,” The Gamecock, April 24, 1953.

• McGuire, Jerry, “Coaches and athletes move into new home,” The Gamecock, September 21, 1956.

• Bradley, Charles, “Gamecocks defeat Fleet in exhibition,” The Gamecock, March 26, 1959.

• “USC Athletic center named after Enright,” The State, December 16. 1959.

• White, Elizabeth, “Gamecock Roost is the new home of USC athletes,” The State, April 17, 1969.

• Huguley, Dick, “USC dedicates Terry Spring Sports Complex, Columbia Record, November 13, 1970.

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(For Part II, which covers USC’s purchase and development of land off Rosewood Drive - the Rex Enright Athletic Center - please click here)

To walk through the iron gates of Greene Street past the familiar landmarks of the Russell House Student Union and Thomas Cooper Library, one would never suspect that crowds once cheered Gamecock football and baseball teams from early stadiums in those locations. Actually, “stadium” might be a touch grandiose, but there were in fact, grandstands accommodating thousands of fans, providing access for viewing the exploits of Gamecock gridiron and diamond teams at those early, on-campus facilities.

The very first known baseball game played in the City of Columbia took place in the same location, Monday, September 9, 1867. The city was still struggling to recover from the great fires of February, 1865, set during General William T. Sherman’s Carolinas Campaign in the desperate, waning days of the Civil War.

The Phil Sheridan Club, made up of soldiers from the 5th United States Artillery, played a local nine, known as the Chicora Club. “The game was commenced at 2:15 pm and ended at 6:15 pm on the ground of the College Green,” noted an article from from the September 10, 1867 edition of the Daily Phoenix, an early Columbia newspaper.

The locals scored an admirable 20 runs, but unfortunately gave up an inconceivable 89, losing thanks in large part to 20 passed balls by the Chicora catcher, Carrington, God bless him. There was presumably no backstop installed on that rudimentary diamond, resulting in much scrambling and an undoubtably frustrating afternoon for poor Carringon. One can imagine the Victorian-era curses he might have uttered in chasing yet another wild pitch from the mound, perhaps, “Dash it all, that gibface zounderkite!”

Unfortunately for the locals, the mercy rule was a concept still well off into the future, but despite the lopsided result, baseball had arrived in Columbia. And it did so on what would become USC’s Davis Field.

The Daily Phoenix described the game in the jaunty prose of the day:

“The game passed off in a very friendly and agreeable manner, and much to the interest and gratification of a large concourse of spectators. Three cheers were given for the “Phil Sheridans,” by the vanquished, when they, in return, gave three for the Chicora’s, and three more were heartily given by the clubs conjointly.”

Davis Field

Davis Field formerly known as “College Park,” or the “College Green,” also sometimes called the “Green Street Grounds,” was renamed in 1904 following the death of longtime faculty member, Robert Means Davis, a professor of history, political economy, and law, who passed away in March, of that year.1 Davis College (1909) was later named for him as well.

During and shortly after the Reconstruction era, the Federal government paid rent ($55 per month in 1877), for the use of the Green Street Grounds, using it as a camp and parade ground. The grounds also served for a time in the early 1880’s as a college farm during the institution’s brief flirtation with a catalogue of agricultural instruction.

A 1956 history of the University written by historian Daniel Walker Hollis notes that prior to 1898, Carolina football games were played at the fairgrounds or at Shandon Park.2 In that year, an area along Green Street, near College Hall (long since known as Longstreet Theater), was enclosed with a fence and adorned with a grandstand to become a home for contests, except those with Clemson, which were always played during State Fair week at the fairgrounds field. “The view from the stands must have been unsatisfactory, because seats were only twenty-five cents, compared to fifty cents for admission to the sidelines,” Hollis wrote.

It appears the whole area now occupied by the Thomas Cooper Library reflecting pool and the Russell House - some twenty acres - made up the entirety of the College Green area, known after 1904 as Davis Field.

Carolina football and baseball teams played their home games at that location through 1933 for football, and for baseball, until the development of newly purchased land for athletic fields off Rosewood Drive in the mid-1950’s.3

Melton Field

In 1926, the area of Davis Field dedicated for football received facility upgrades, including the installation of additional wooden bleachers, boosting seating to 8,000. These upgrades were the work of Branch Bocock, who coached the Gamecocks in football (1925 and 1926) and basketball (1924-25 through 1926-27).

As head football coach, Bocock compiled a 13-7 record, and his .650 winning percentage still ranks among the best in program history. Perhaps most notable of Bocock’s gridiron successes was a 2-0 record over archival Clemson in which the Gamecocks whipped the Tigers by a combined tally of 57-0.

Bocock was a winner on the basketball court too, compiling a three-year record of 33-16 (.673) as cage coach. Nearly a century after he coached his final game at Carolina he still holds a baker’s dozen of superlatives in the USC record book for winning percentage in various categories, (home, away, conference, etc). He continued his bedevilment of Clemson on the court, winning five of six in that series. Most significantly, he led the Gamecocks to their first-ever conference championship in his third and final season.

Bocock’s achievements as an administrator rivaled his coaching exploits as he oversaw a fiscal rehabilitation of the athletics department. He inherited a department some thirteen thousand dollars in the red - a lot of money in those days - and by late 1926 engineered the erasure of that debt, even building a modest surplus.

He elevated facilities, overseeing the completion of a new athletics field, which became the home of Gamecock football between 1926 and the completion of Columbia Municipal Stadium in 1934. Melton Field, as it became known in honor of the late university president William Davis Melton, was located approximately where the Russell House Student Union sits now.4

Melton, a Charleston native, graduate of the University of Virginia, and the University of South Carolina School of Law, served as president of USC between 1921 and his death in 1926. Melton was a popular figure on campus, noted for attending every football game, and developing personal relationships with students and players alike. It was shortly after the Carolina-Clemson game of 1925 (a resounding 33-0 Gamecock victory) that Melton became ill, and ultimately passed in early 1926. Students petitioned the Board of Trustees to name the new football field after their beloved president, which the trustees approved just before the start of the season.

Carolina opened the 1926 slate on the new field September 25, a 41-0 win over Erskine. But the season began in earnest the following week with Southern Conference foe Maryland traveling to Columbia for game two, in what would be the first-ever meeting between the two programs.5

Prior to the 3pm kickoff, the University hosted a dedication ceremony, with Governor Thomas McLeod giving remarks, along with president of the Southern Conference, S.V. Sanford, of the University of Georgia, and L.T. Baker, acting president of the University of South Carolina. The USC band led the delegation to the southern end of the field where a garnet and black sign with the inscription “Melton Field” was revealed, after which the band played the alma mater, “We Hail The Carolina.”

Carolina scored a 12-0 win over Maryland, capping a banner day for the Gamecocks.

Davis Field Revival

In the post-World War II years, enrollment boomed at USC, straining the University’s resources and necessitating expansion. According to Lydia Mattice Brandt, professor at USC’s College of Arts and Sciences, this caused problems at a time when the school lacked the resources to purchase large quantities of land. “They had to use the land they already had,” Brandt commented in an interview with USC’s Craig Brandhorst and Chris Horn, “and that’s how they ended up building on the ball field.”

Yielding to the inevitable march of progress in the 1950’s, Melton Field disappeared, replaced by the Russell House Student Union. Davis Field followed during the second phase of the Thomas Cooper Library development, in favor of the large reflecting pool between the library and Greene Street. On either side of the reflecting pool, metered parking lots were added, which existed well into the 1990’s, when yours truly accumulated a collection of parking tickets in those spaces as a USC student.

Following national trends toward the greening and beautification of campuses, USC removed the parking lots a couple of decades ago, in favor of reviving portions of Davis Field on either side of the reflecting pool - a massive aesthetic upgrade in this writer’s assessment.

“It’s crazy to think of all those cars on what is now green space,” Brandt said, “but cars as an eyesore on campus is a very recent concept.” The cars, notes Brandt, were a point of pride in the post-war years, and for decades after. “It showed that the university was modern, that there was an opportunity for parking.”

So Davis is back, and the Melton name never really went away, as Melton Observatory, directly across from the Russell House, was also dedicated to the memory of the former USC President in the late 1920’s.

To green spaces and athletic fields past and renewed, “Here’s a health, Carolina, forever to Thee!”

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Coming soon in Part II: Carolina purchases land for an athletics administration building and new athletic fields in the 1950’s off Rosewood Drive

Sources:

• Horn, Chris (Host), and West, Elizabeth, (August 23, 2021), Episode 30: “If it ain’t swaying, we ain’t playing,” Remembering the Days Podcast. https://sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2021/08/remembering_the_days_if_aint_swaying_episode_30.php

• Hollis, Daniel Walker, University of South Carolina - College to University - Volume II, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, South Carolina, 1956, (p. 92).

5

USC was a member of the Southern Conference from 1922 until 1953, when it became a founding member of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

From the archives: A nearly unbelievable tale of narrowly-averted armed conflict that occurred between Clemson cadets and a ragtag band of USC students, hastily convened to defend the gates of the Horseshoe following the annual Carolina-Clemson game in 1902.

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Take a toxic history between two state colleges, the stimulating elements of a violent game, and a resounding upset leading to unbridled jubilation on one side, and four hundred armed and angry cadets on the other. Mix in youthful indiscretion and perhaps some illicit sipping of contraband hootch amid the garish spectacle of a carnival atmosphere. Downtown Columbia was an oxygen-rich environment following the Carolina-Clemson football game of 1902. A simple spark would set it all off.

The spark came in the form of a drawing by F. Horton Colcock, a professor at the University of South Carolina, which at the time was chartered as South Carolina College. The large drawing, which papers described as a “transparency,” hung in the window of a Main Street tobacco merchant, depicting a bedraggled tiger prostrate beneath a crowing gamecock. Innocuous under normal circumstances, the transparency set off a chain of events in that charged atmosphere which led to the brink of an armed battle at the gates of USC’s normally tranquil Horseshoe.

A rivalry born of bitter political feuds

The Carolina and Clemson football teams first met on November 12, 1896, in the troubled political times of post-Reconstruction South Carolina. Clemson College had been largely the creation of former Governor Benjamin Tillman, the agrarian populist from Edgefield County. He called the meager agricultural offerings at USC, “pitiful, deplorable,” and demanded a separate agricultural institution for the state.

Tillman’s vision became a reality when Thomas Green Clemson, the son-in-law of former Vice President, U.S. Senator, and vocal proponent of Southern succession, John C. Calhoun, died in 1888. Clemson bequeathed the Calhoun estate and a significant cash donation for the founding of a new agriculture college. Named for Clemson, the college opened one year later, in 1889.

Tillman harbored naked antipathy toward the state’s establishment “Bourbon” Democrats and the institution he viewed as their avatar, the University of South Carolina, calling it the “seedbed of aristocracy.” Tillman won election to Governor in 1890 with an openly-expressed agenda of shutting down the University. Doing Tillman’s bidding, the Legislature in short order reallocated substantial funds from USC to Clemson College. The University was rechartered as the South Carolina College the same year, and by 1894 had dwindled to 64 active students. Clemson’s enrollment meanwhile grew to several times that.

Football comes South

Around this time, as former Gamecock historian Don Barton noted in his 1967 history of the rivalry, The Carolina-Clemson Game, the South had reluctantly accepted the spread of a Yankee-conceived sport which was a spin-off of English soccer and rugby. The first college football contest occurred on November 6, 1869, between Princeton and Rutgers in New Brunswick, New Jersey (Rutgers won, 6-4).

From the beginning, football aroused the passions of onlookers, though what passed for heckling in the highly decorous Victorian era was mild by today’s standards. According to Politico Magazine’s David Dayus, during that first game a Rutgers professor, perhaps indignant over a rough tackle, chided a Princeton player with shaking fists, “You will come to no Christian end!”

Indeed, the attitudes of administrators toward the new game largely ranged from indifference to hostility. Cornell President Andrew D. White, responding to a proposed football contest between Michigan and Cornell in 1873 said, “I will not permit thirty men to travel four hundred miles merely to agitate a bag of wind.”

But enthusiasm around the game grew rapidly, and by the turn of the century, football had taken hold down South and across America.

The University of South Carolina first took to the gridiron in 1892. That original team traveled without the permission of school officials to Charleston on Christmas Eve, where they met the Greenville-based Furman Purple Hurricanes, as they were known early on. Furman had begun its program several years prior, playing Wofford in the state’s first intercollegiate football game in 1889. By the time the Hurricanes met South Carolina, they had built a powerful program.

Furman rolled, 44-0 in that first game against a outmatched Carolina team. Despite the loss, college football had arrived, albeit surreptitiously, at the University of South Carolina.

Though the University did not field a team in 1893, football returned to Carolina in 1894, albiet with no greater success. That team was the first to endure heartbreak against Georgia, losing 40-0, and suffered the ignominy of a 16-4 loss to a team from the Augusta YMCA at a time when contests versus non-collegiate organizations were commonplace.

Carolina first tasted victory in 1895, with a 20-0 win over the Columbia Athletic Association, and its first win in a collegiate contest, a redemptive 14-10 win over Furman, followed by a 10-0 shutout loss at the hands of Winthrop.

The inaugural matchup with Clemson provided a lone bright spot for Carolina in 1896. The State called the matchup “one of the best attractions of fair week.” It was essentially a side-show, a minor attraction amid the highly anticipated State Fair festivities which attracted citizens in droves from across the Palmetto State to Columbia each fall.

Carolina and Clemson met that year as the Jaguars (or “College Boys” - accounts vary), and the Ploughboys respectively. It would be a few years before the Gamecock and Tiger nicknames took hold.

Despite the threat of rain, around 2,000 spectators plunked down a quarter apiece for a seat in the rickety wooden grandstands at the old state fairgrounds off Elmwood Avenue. Clemson took the field in orange sweaters with orange and blue stockings, while Carolina entered in garnet sweaters trimmed in black. Carolina partisans greeted the team with “the sound of horns and cheers,” according to Barton.

South Carolina scored a 12-6 win in that first game of the series, its only win of that season against three losses. Clemson dominated the next four contests from 1897-1900 by a combined score of 129-6, including three straight shutouts between 1898-00.

Mercifully, the two teams did not meet in 1901.

1902

By 1902, the Clemson program was rolling under the tutelage of none other than John Heisman, for whom the Heisman Memorial Trophy would be named following his death in 1936. Heisman was an early innovator of the game, and had enjoyed great success at Auburn before coming to Clemson. He coached four seasons for the Tigers, which they were by then known. He coached baseball as well, and still holds the highest winning percentage at Clemson for both programs.

Carolina meanwhile turned its coaching reigns over to a 25-year-old former star player at Virginia, Charles Robert (Bob) Williams. He was a coaching novice, looking to make a winner in South Carolina against all odds. Assisting Williams was Christie Benet, who starred as a player at South Carolina before transferring to Virginia where he played alongside Williams.

1902 marked a new era of Carolina football beyond the coaching change. “Jaguars” and “College Boys” had lost traction by this time, in favor of “Gamecocks.” It was likely a nod to Revolutionary War hero Thomas Sumter of South Carolina, known as the “Fighting Gamecock,” for the ferocity of his fighting style against British forces. Newspaper coverage of earlier Carolina football victories had also described the team’s efforts as “like that of fighting game cocks.”

Williams proved a resounding upgrade as coach, leading the Gamecocks to the program’s first 3-0 record to start the season. The Gamecocks outscored their first three opponents, tiny Guilford College, North Carolina Military Academy, and Bingham by a combined 98-0 ahead of the annual matchup with Clemson on Thursday, October 30.

Despite South Carolina’s insurgent campaign, few thought the Gamecocks stood a chance versus a Tiger program Heisman had built into a juggernaut. Clemson had gone undefeated in 1900, and lost just one game in 1901. In the opening game of that season, the powerful Tigers trounced hapless Guilford 122-0.

Clemson matched Carolina’s 3-0 start in 1902, rolling over N.C. State (then known as North Carolina A&M), Georgia Tech, and Furman by a combined score of 83-10, setting the stage for a matchup of unbeaten squads in Columbia during State Fair week.

Despite dim prognostications, a highly vocal crowd of 3,000 mostly Gamecock partisans jammed into the State Fair grandstands, and were treated to perhaps the most memorable afternoon in the brief but spirited history of the budding rivalry.

The game

Despite cool temperatures overnight, the mercury climbed to a balmy 60 by kickoff at 11 am on Thursday, October 30. It was “Big Thursday,” as promoters and fans had taken to calling the Carolina-Clemson contest. By 1902 the game was no longer a side-show, but one of the premier features of State Fair week, and the most anticipated game of each season for both teams. The State proclaimed in the next day’s edition that Thursday’s crowd was the largest ever assembled in state history.

The fair lent a carnival atmosphere to the game each year, adding a kaleidoscope of color and supporting characters. Newspaper reports noted the abundance of vibrant ribbons worn by young attendees, not only Carolina’s garnet and black, and Clemson’s orange and purple, but the colors of local high schools and other colleges from all corners of the state were represented as well.

In attendance were former coaches Walter Riggs for Clemson and “Dixie” Whaley for Carolina, who were each in command of their respective clubs during the inaugural game in 1896. As the 11am kickoff approached, reports noted the appearance on the field of “two open carriages filled with beautiful young ladies,” one sporting orange, the other garnet.

Fans of both schools traded cheers, and Carolina supporters sang a good-natured taunt, “we’ll twist the tiger’s tail,” in the jaunty, sing-song style of the day. Four hundred Clemson cadets in their military finery were assembled in one section, lending a vaguely warlike element to the proceedings. A ragtime band played Dixie, as the sweet aromas of tobacco smoke and the latticed fruit pies of State Fair baking contests perfumed the autumn air.

Clemson kicked off to start the game, and Carolina’s Guy Gunter fielded at the Gamecock ten, returning it ten yards to the twenty. From there, the Gamecocks employed a grinding run game, highlighted by the “Yale tackle-back formation,” picking up chunks of yardage with each play from scrimmage. Fullback Gunter rumbled in from the four-yard-line and Johnnie Withers kicked the point-after for a surprising 6-0 Gamecock lead with six minutes gone, (touchdowns were worth five points at the time).

Clemson couldn’t move the ball on their ensuing possession, and Carolina’s Sidney Smith broke through the line for a blocked punt, which Ralph Foster recovered for the Gamecocks at the Tiger twenty yard-line. Gunter traded carries with Eugene Oliver to push the ball to Clemson’s four-yard-line, and Gunter again carried it in to push the Gamecock lead to 12-0 before halftime.

Despite missed opportunities to add to their lead in the second half, the Gamecock defense held Clemson to six points, which the Tigers scored on a thrilling 60-yard gallop by their left-end Sitton, and a point after by Maxwell.

Carolina held on and surprised all with the 12-6 victory, the same score as their only other win versus Clemson in 1896.

Clemson’s Heisman spoke graciously of the outcome, “Carolina simply outplayed us. She has a hell of a right to feel proud of her magnificent team, and the great game they put up,” adding it was his belief that Carolina had a team equal to any in the South.

Barton notes in his The Carolina-Clemson Game, the 1902 contest was memorialized in the Garnet & Black yearbook with a student-penned poem, the last verse of which read:

“Carolina won, old Clemson fell, In future years, our kids shall tell,

For we did give those tigers, hell, Three cheers for Carolina!”

Jubilant Carolina students and fans spilled out of the old grandstands and headed across Elmwood to Main Street, where celebrations continued well into the evening.

Amid the celebrations, a group of students “borrowed” a transparency featuring a crowing gamecock standing over a supine tiger from a tobacco merchant’s window. The students paraded it jubilantly over several blocks, before being confronted by a group of Clemson cadets, taking exception to the unflattering depiction. The confrontation grew heated and a scuffle ensued, cadet’s swords were drawn, and two Carolina students were slightly wounded before the parties were separated and went their separate ways.

The stage was set for trouble during the next day’s annual parade, in which both Carolina students and Clemson cadets would participate. All during the day on Friday, Clemson men boasted they would not allow the transparency to be carried through the parade. They were boasts which only emboldened the Carolina boys who were flush with victory and eager to continue the celebration.

The Battle of Horseshoe Gate

The pinnacle of State Fair week in those days was the annual Elks parade on Friday afternoon. Newspaper reports gushed over the success that year’s fair had enjoyed, noting with unbridled exuberance, “this has been the greatest carnival of pleasure in the history of Columbia.”

Carrie Nation, a noted celebrity and barnstorming temperance movement activist, made an appearance, delivering speeches outside Clemson’s weekend headquarters on Main Street. Known as “Hatchet Granny,” the diminutive but spunky Nation did not dabble in subtlety, noted as she was for attacking taverns with a hatchet. She described herself as “a bulldog running along the feet of Jesus, barking at what he doesn’t like.” Newspapers reported Nation did a “rushing business” selling tiny souvenir hatchets to the crowd, claiming the proceeds were for building a home for drunkard’s wives in Kansas.

Nation was not alone in her hucksterism, as side shows drew the curious and gullible with elements of the surreal. Boko the snake-eater, a two-headed calf, and one unfortunate soul known only as the “Victim of Mont Pelee” provided ample opportunity for gawking. Reports noted carnival barkers “reaped in the golden harvest with eager hands.”

As time for the parade approached, Gamecock assistant coach Benet, who was overseeing the Carolina contingent, received word from an orderly that Columbia Chief of Police Daly wished to see him. When Benet approached Daly, Colonel Sirmyer, the Commandant of Clemson’s corps of cadets was with him, both men mounted on horseback. Sirmyer, resplendent in his military regalia, sternly warned Benet against allowing Carolina’s students to carry the transparency into the parade, saying it would be an insult to his cadets.

At this point, Benet briefed Chief Daly on the incident of Thursday evening, in which two Carolina students had been injured by in the brief scuffle. Benet, finding Sirmyer’s request unwarranted, flatly refused. Clemson cadets, after all, had in previous years marched in the Friday parade with their shoes wrapped in garnet and black cloth, symbolically and literally grinding the Garnet & Black into the dust. It was Carolina’s time to crow now, and Benet advised the transparency would indeed be carried into the parade.

At this, Sirmyer stated to Chief Daly that if the transparency were carried, he would not be responsible for the actions of the men under his command. At that point, according to a summary of events provided to The State by Benet, a cadet approached Sirmyer and said at a performative volume, “We will get it if they take it in,” to which Sirmyer turned in his saddle and replied, “I know you will.”

Chief Daly and Columbia Police Captain Gonzales rode to the Carolina student formation where they saw the transparency and said they saw nothing objectionable about it, but asked the students, for the sake of peace, to go into the parade without it. But just then the time came for the Carolina students to enter the parade, and band music likely prevented most students from hearing the plea.

The Carolina students completed their march from north to south along Main Street in the direction of the Capitol. It went off mostly without incident, save for a stone, reportedly thrown from the crowd, striking the car which carried the transparency as it passed Clemson’s headquarters in the old agricultural hall. “We cheered the Clemson corps as we passed them in the parade,” Benet said, “and they returned the salute.”

After completing the parade route, students made their way back to campus, where Benet gave a short speech, saying, “Carolina had carried her point,” urging them to be careful to avoid any trouble that evening, at which he left them, walking north from the Horseshoe along Sumter Street back toward Main.

As he approached the intersection of Pendleton Street, Benet was stopped by a group of straggling students who told him the Clemson corps were just a block behind, coming in force toward the campus gates. At this, Benet hurried back to campus where he joined about thirty students behind a low wall at the gates of the Horseshoe. The group hastily took position and prepared to defend the campus.

“We had scarcely taken our position when the cadets were right in front of us,” Benet wrote, adding, “…they were very angry. They advanced toward the campus. We ordered them to halt, and I recognized Major Wiley of the Clemson battalion, and told him that should his men come on the sidewalk, the trouble would start.”

The cadets stopped at the edge of the sidewalk, drawn up into close formation parallel to the wall. They numbered around four hundred, all with sidearms and sabers. Carolina students meanwhile armed themselves as best they could with a few pistols, knives, and rocks - anything that might be of use in the impending conflict.

J. Rion McKissick, who was among the Carolina students at the wall, and who would later become president of the University, was asked by a comrade, “McKissick, are you armed?” After McKissick produced a revolver of “questionable virility,” his companion exclaimed, “McKissick, make every shot count!”

Benet recounted climbing atop the campus wall between the two crowds, saying of his suddenly elevated view, “I could see the true situation.” By this time around thirty additional Carolina students had joined, as the ragtag assembly prepared to defend the campus against the greatest of odds.

Hoping to prevent a bloody riot, Benet shouted a proposal above the din of taunts and jeers, offering to fight any two Clemson men willing to represent their side of the question. After the proposal went unanswered, Benet repeated it, as an awkward quiet descended. “There was still no acceptance,” Benet wrote of the moment, “and seeing that the men were still in a riotous mood, I proposed that we arbitrate the matter.” Benet suggested that a committee of three students from each side be appointed and that the action of the committee be final and accepted by both student bodies.

By this time, Chief Daly and a squad of policemen arrived and worked to calm the corps. Through quick thinking and bold action, Benet bought just enough time to avert what would have surely been a bloody and perhaps deadly confrontation.

The committee agreed that the transparency should be burned, and that “the burning of the transparency should be a pledge on the part of each student body that all trouble and animosity would be burned with it.” Benet urged the Carolina students to accept the compromise, which they reluctantly did, realizing they were honor-bound to do so.

Each of the six committee members lit a match, and quickly the flames ate their way into the painted cloth. Dancing embers glowed against the gathering darkness of an early evening sky as the Clemson corps gave three cheer for Carolina, which were returned in kind.

After the negotiated ceremony ended and the last smoldering shreds of the transparency fell to the ground, the cadets dispersed and silence replaced what had only minutes before been the cacophony of battle cries and rattling sabers. Acting University President Benjamin Sloan made a short speech to his students, imploring them to be generous to a fallen foe and citing the example of all truly great conquerors.

“With that,” Benet closed his narrative, “the incident was thus happily closed.”

Afterward

Following the incident, USC officials suspended the Carolina-Clemson series for a period of six years, until 1909. Clemson won that game 6-0. The teams would meet every season from that point forward in a series which became the longest-running rivalry in the South until the COVID-shortened season of 2020, during which Carolina of the SEC and Clemson of the ACC played only in-conference games.

Coach Bob Williams led the Gamecocks for two seasons, compiling a 14-3 record, before moving onto successful stints at Davidson, Clemson, Virginia Tech, and ultimately a return to Clemson to end his coaching career. Later Williams returned to his native Virginia, where he practiced law and served for a time as the mayor of Roanoke.

Benet succeeded Williams as the Gamecocks’ head coach, leading the program in 1904 and ’05, and again in 1908 and ’09. He later practiced law in Columbia. Following the death of U.S. Senator Ben Tillman in July, 1916, South Carolina Governor Richard Manning appointed Benet to complete Tillman’s term. When Benet failed to win a full term on his own in the 1916 Senatorial election, he returned to private practice in Columbia.

John Heisman coached Clemson for one more season, in 1903. After the Tigers walloped Georgia Tech 73-0 during that campaign, Tech lured Heisman to Atlanta to revive the Yellow Jackets’ floundering program. He remained at Tech for sixteen seasons, the longest tenure of his long, illustrious coaching career. Heisman enjoyed three undefeated seasons at Tech, and at one point oversaw a 32-game winning streak. He never suffered a losing season in Atlanta. The trophy named in his honor is the most coveted and prestigious individual award in all of American sports.

J. Rion McKissick served as President of the University of South Carolina between 1936-1944. The McKissick Museum on USC’s Horseshoe is named for him. The building opened in 1940 as McKissick Library, replacing USC’s original South Caroliniana Library as the main undergraduate library facility. It served in that capacity into the 1970’s.

In an editorial several days after the incident, The State’s N.G. Gonzales placed blame for the near riot squarely on the shoulders Commandant Sirmyer. “One judges a tree by its fruit,” Gonzales opined, “and the fruits of Lt. Sirmyer’s actions have been lawlessness and provocation of domestic war.” He added that Sirmyer’s release of the cadets at the end of the parade signaled his tacit encouragement of their plans to storm the USC campus. A mere two and a half months later, on January 15, 1903, Gonzales was gunned down by the nephew of Ben Tillman, Lieutenant Governor James Tillman.

The State Fair moved from its Elmwood Avenue location to a new parcel of land south of town, on Rosewood Drive in 1903, where it remains today. During the depths of the Great Depression in 1934, the Works Progress Administration built Columbia Municipal Stadium adjacent to the fairgrounds. The city deeded the stadium to the University a short time later, and it was rechristened Carolina Stadium Over time that little stadium grew in fits and starts, and was renamed Williams-Brice Stadium in 1971.

The Big Thursday Carolina-Clemson matchup continued during State Fair week through 1959. Beginning in 1960, the programs agreed to an alternating home and home format, and the game moved to the end of the regular season.

The students, cadets and spectators who attended that long ago State Fair are all long passed away now. Some of the buildings along Columbia’s Main Street remain, along with the bricks of that old campus wall which bore silent witness to the excitement of Halloween night, 1902.

But if you visit Carolina’s historic Horseshoe on a quiet evening, pause and allow the stillness to gather around. You might still hear the faint clatter of sabers and exclamations of, “McKissick, make every shot count!”

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Sources:

• Don Barton, The Carolina-Clemson Game (1896-1966), Columbia, S.C., The State Printing Company, 1967.

• David Dayen, “How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football,” Politico Magazine, September 20, 2014.

• Bryan Barley, The Transparency Incident. of 1902 - A Poetic and Incongruent Symbol is Born, bryanbarley.wordpress.com, December 13, 2007.

• John Nauright, The South Carolina-Clemson Football War of 1902.

• “The Trouble Over the Transparency,” The State, November 1, 1902.

• “They’ve buried the hatchet,” The State, November 1, 1902.

• “Carrie Nation takes the town,” The State, November 1, 1902.

It didn’t end the way anyone anticipated. Watching the Women’s NCAA Tournament finale this past Sunday between South Carolina and UCLA, most of us didn’t even recognize the team in black. There were no heroics this time around. The Gamecocks were massively out-rebounded and out-scored, and more surprisingly, out-hustled and out-willed. It was baffling and disheartening and entirely foreign.

Following the drama of defeating UConn in Friday’s Final Four, including the attendant sideshow of Geno Auriemma’s unsavory meltdown, most of us assumed a fourth championship was in the bag. Somehow, we looked past a wildly-talented 36-1 UCLA team that had systematically dismantled an excellent Texas team in the other Final Four game. Such was our confidence in this program, in those players, in our coach.

The confidence proved to be folly, of course. Nothing is a given at that level of competition, and after five dominant performances during the tournament during which the Gamecocks outscored opponents 438-263, this team appears to have simply run out of gas and magic against an elite team who played near flawless basketball.

But the almost casual confidence Gamecock fans felt before tipoff Sunday begs reflection. How did we - the University of South Carolina - get to a place where Final Four appearances are taken for granted, and left in a state of stunned bewilderment when national titles don’t materialize?

Such is the level of excellence Dawn Staley has steadily built in Columbia over the last 18 years.

Consider the Gamecocks third-straight national title game appearance. They lost this time to the Bruins, to nemesis UConn in 2025, and won it all in 2024 versus Iowa and superstar Caitlin Clark, capturing the program’s third title. Only three programs across college basketball history - women’s or men’s - have reached three-straight NCAA championship games - John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins on the men’s side, Auriemma’s UConn women’s program, and now Staley’s Gamecocks. That’s it, and that’s all.

Gamecock Central’s Scott Davis, in his weekly Friday column on April 3, noted as well the rare feat of South Carolina’s six-straight Final Four appearances, writing,

“After all, six Final Four appearances in a row takes you into the highest echelon of the sport’s history. Just a single men’s team has achieved that number or higher, with John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty making it to seven Final Fours in a row and no one else ever notching more than five. Mike Krzyzewski’s Duke teams never went to more than five Final Fours consecutively. Kentucky has never been to more than four in a row. Kansas? North Carolina? No and nope.”

Indeed, Staley keeps the rarest of company as she moves toward her 19th season in Columbia. Think Tennessee’s Pat Summit (eight NCAA titles in 36 seasons). Think Duke’s Krzyzewski (five titles in 42 seasons). Perhaps only UCLA’s Wooden (10 titles in 27 seasons) and UConn’s Auriemma himself (12 titles in 41 seasons and counting) seem plausibly out of reach for the 55-year-old Staley. But only a fool would doubt the Philly native’s ability to achieve even those lofty goals should she stay in the game long enough.

Whether she ever achieves a fourth title or many more beyond that, Staley has earned a place among the most elite coaches in the history of the college game. This, of course, is in addition to her iconic stature as a women’s player. She is enshrined in the Virginia Athletics Hall of Fame for her stellar career with the Cavaliers. She was a six-time WNBA all-star, and a two-time American Basketball League (ABL) all-star. As an Olympian she was a starting point guard and vocal leader on three gold medal-winning teams, in Atlanta (1996), Sydney (2000), and Athens (2004).1 That kind of playing career provided Staley gravitas and unquestionable credibility from the moment she donned a coaches whistle.

In her introductory press conference on May 10, 2008, already a household name at 38 for her WNBA and Olympic exploits, Staley charmed the room. She was a bonafide star in the game and made for a splashy hire by then athletics director, Eric Hyman.

“Eric Hyman said it is going to take a little bit of time,” Staley told gathered press after pulling on a Gamecock cap. “I’m patient, but not that patient,” she said, bringing a laugh from those in attendance. “My vision is to bring a national prominence to the University of South Carolina,” Staley continued. “I think we can get it done - I think we can fill our [18,000-seat Colonial Life] arena up just from the people here in Columbia. If we can just get a snippet of who shows up for football games, that wouldn’t be a problem,” she said with a grin.

She even invoked the ultimate goal - a national championship, which seemed wildly audacious at the time. It was one of those things newly appointed coaches tend to say. But her presentation spoke of sincerity, not lip service.

It was a feel-good moment. Gamecock fans knew they had a star. They knew it would be an entertaining ride. But on May 10, 2008, what would eventually unfold was beyond the wildest imagination of anybody in the room. Except, perhaps, Dawn Staley.

A once-proud program turned also-ran

Gamecock women’s basketball was an early power in the women’s game under former coach Pam Parsons, who took the program to its first 30-win season and Final Four finish during the 1979-80 season, back when women’s collegiate sports were governed by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). The Gamecocks narrowly missed on a national title game appearance after a narrow loss to Tennessee in the semifinal. Two years later, Parsons was gone in a cloud of controversy and scandal, her program left in shambles.

A few years later Nancy Wilson arrived from the College of Charleston to revive the program, bringing sorely-needed stability and reviving the program’s reputation with grace and outstanding teams during the Metro Conference years. Wilson’s program largely owned the Metro, winning five out of six regular-season conference championships between 1986 and 1991. The Lady Gamecocks, as they were known at the time, added three consecutive Metro Tournament championships between 1986 and 1989.2

Wilson’s teams struggled after South Carolina moved to the Southeastern Conference, beginning with the 1991-92 season. The SEC was, and remains, the most powerful conference in the women’s game, and Wilson could never recreate her Metro magic in the Gamecocks’ new conference home. She finished as the program’s winningest coach (241-139), but after a 13-54 SEC record over six seasons in the league, then athletics director Mike McGee sought new direction for the program.

Susan Walvius left West Virginia to replace Wilson in 1997, and found similar struggles early on, though her program broke through during the 2001-02 season with a 25-7 (10-4) record and an Elite Eight finish in the NCAA tournament. She followed that with an another solid campaign in 2002-03, making it to a second-straight NCAA tournament, ultimately losing in the second round. The two-year run was the high-water mark under Walvius, who finished as a marginal winner, 165-160 overall, but a disappointing 50-103 in SEC play over 11 seasons.

Enter Staley

The program Staley inherited was far removed from Parsons’ high-octane teams, or Wilson’s dominant Metro squads, or even Walvius’ excellent Elite Eight team. She often tells the story of being able to hear - word for word - the cellphone conversations of fans in the largely empty Colonial Life Arena during her first season.

She built her program methodically, elevating recruiting and weathering a few setbacks along the way, including losing records in her first two seasons and the transfer of her highest-profile recruit in those early years, Kelsey Bone, to Texas A&M in 2010.

By the 2011-12 season, Staley’s fourth at South Carolina, the Gamecocks went 25-10 (10-6) and surged to a Sweet Sixteen finish in the program’s first NCAA tournament appearance in a decade. Staley’s teams have since become the class of the SEC, compiling 11 regular-season titles and 10 SEC tournament titles between 2014 and 2026.

In 2016-17, the Gamecocks broke through with the program’s first national championship, led by all-America junior forward and Columbia native A’ja Wilson.3 The program went 32-1 during 2019-20, including a perfect 16-0 in SEC play, capturing the regular-season and tournament championships. That squad was the #1 overall seed and odds-on favorite to capture the program’s second national championship before the tournament was cancelled amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Staley coached the Gamecocks to their elusive second title in 2022, led by the consensus national player of the year, six-five forward Aliyah Boston. Making it even sweeter, South Carolina defeated old nemesis UConn in the championship game. It was a contest that seemed at the time to mark a passing of the torch from UConn’s Auriemma, the undisputed greatest coach of the post-Pat Summit era, to Staley.

The Gamecocks added a third national championship two years later, in 2004, led by six-seven center Kamila Cardoso, transfer sharp-shooter Tahina Pao Pao, and emerging point guard Raven Johnson, compiling the first undefeated season in program history (38-0). That, despite losing all five starters from the prior season - a testament to the resilience of Staley’s program. Carolina also gained a measure of revenge in the title game, defeating Iowa and Caitlin Clark, after the Hawkeyes bounced the Gamecocks from the Final Four during the 2023 tournament.

Through it all, Staley has compiled an astounding 511 wins in her 625 games at South Carolina (.819). By comparison, John Wooden at UCLA, the greatest head coach in the history of the men’s game, compiled a .808 winning percentage. Mike Krzyzewski at Duke won at a .707 clip.4 There are different levels of parity between the men’s and women’s games, and the three coaches represent different eras to be certain, but what inarguably emerges from the numbers is a story of sustained greatness the likes of which the game of basketball has rarely seen at any level.

An ambassador for the game, a university, a city and a state

Always one of the game’s shining stars as a player, Staley left the comforts of her first coaching stop at Temple University in her native Philadelphia to accept a larger role on a grander stage.5 She embraced her new home in Columbia from the start, often appearing at games in support of her peer coaches, taking evident pleasure in lavishing her support on other Gamecock programs. She appeared in Omaha during the baseball Gamecocks’ run to their first title in the 2010 College World Series, and has frequently appeared at softball games, particularly in support of her close friend and former head coach Beverly Smith. Staley famously appeared at a USC football spring game during the Spurrier era, catching a touchdown pass from former Gamecock quarterback Dylan Thompson during a fun break in the action.

Staley has been conspicuous in her support of other coaches across the country as well. Following the Gamecocks 2017 title, Staley mailed pieces from her championship net to every Black female coach in the women’s game. It was her way of paying forward a similar gesture by former Purdue coach Carolyn Peck, who in 2015 mailed Staley a piece of her own championship net won with the Boilermakers in 1999. Peck was the first Black female coach to win an NCAA title in the sport. Staley adopted and expanded the practice to provide a tangible symbol of what is possible for those following in her path.

Her program has led the nation in attendance for 12 consecutive years, beginning with the 2014-15 season. The crowds are a result of the winning, to be sure, but also a testament to Staley’s careful cultivation of her program’s fanbase. She takes time to sign autographs and take photographs alongside fans in the arena long after the final whistle. She warmly refers to her program’s backers as “Fams,” and her teams frequently play before sellout crowds in the 18,000-seat Colonial Life Arena.

She is a seven-time SEC Coach of the Year, a two-time National Coach of the Year, and in 2013 was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Her achievements are dizzying to consider.

The positive publicity and economic impact on the Capital City from Staley’s program is enormous, as Columbia has frequently played host to opening rounds of the women’s NCAA tournament thanks to the Gamecocks’ success, not to mention the many sell-out regular season crowds each year. Those fans patronize local restaurants, stay in hotels, purchase merchandise, and bolster Columbia’s emerging tourism economy.

After 18 years at Carolina, it seems Staley has done nearly everything that can be done. But like her 38-year-old self in 2008, she is patient, but not that patient. She presses on, relentless on the recruiting trail, working the transfer portal, compiling SEC championships and Final Four appearances in bulk. Staley continues to build her program player by player, game by game and season by season - a master at her craft.

Instead of surprise and elation following a deep NCAA tournament run, (i.e. the 2002 squad), Gamecock fans of the last decade-plus expect championships. Every. Single. Year.

That’s a heavy burden for any coach, for any program. But Dawn Staley wouldn’t have it any other way.

One day this will all end. Staley will hang up her coaches’ whistle, and perhaps retire to the television booth. She would, of course, be a star there as well. When that day comes, Gamecock fans will look back in bewildered awe at what we had, of the ride she took us on. Perhaps the program will go on to more success under a young Staley mentee - perhaps even a Gamecock letter winner.

But there will never be another Dawn Staley.

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5

Staley crafted a phenomenal run in her first coaching stop at Temple, compiling a 172-80 record over eight seasons, with six NCAA Tournament appearances and four Atlantic 10 Titles. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn_Staley)

It’s mid-February, a transitional month - more so even than March in these Southern climes. True to form in 2026 like most years, its in like a lion and out like a lamb for the shortest month of the year. A rare snowfall and deep freeze early in the month liberated seldom-used sleds from the dark recesses of attics and the cobwebbed corners of garages throughout the Carolinas. By next weekend, the mercury will climb to the mid-70’s in Columbia.

February too, ushers in a preview of spring with its promise of sun-splashed days on manicured diamonds and the old familiar rhythm of that time-honored game, with its balls and strikes and steady progression of innings, the loamy aroma of grass and soil, and the pop of a ball into oiled leather.

Indeed, it’s opening weekend at Founders Park as the Gamecocks take on Northern Kentucky in a three-game set to begin year two under Coach Paul Mainieri.

That got me to thinking about the decline of Gamecock baseball over the last decade-and-a-half. That, in turn, got me to thinking about the much longer decline of Gamecock men’s basketball, as we stagger zombie-like toward the end of yet another unsatisfying and eminently forgettable season.

These programs were, each for a time, the pride of Gamecock Nation. They held an entire state spellbound by the kingly exploits of legendary players. They were the envy of their respective conference foes, and there were not more fearsome places for opponents in all of college sports than Carolina Coliseum and Founders Park.

Those programs are shadows of their previous selves now. We can point to two dates and drop a plumb line from each, straight to the regrettable station each program finds themselves inhabiting.

June 30, 1971

We’re 55 years past that ill-fated, football-driven decision to bolt the Atlantic Coast Conference, effective the final day of June, 1971. I won’t go into granular (or even breezy) detail about how all of that played out here (though I’ll humbly recommend a copy of A Gamecock Odyssey for all the gory details).

Whatever your thoughts about the factors that led the University of South Carolina to bolt the conference it helped found in 1953, the decision and its resultant bloodletting by a thousand cuts unquestionably decimated its once powerful men’s basketball program. Despite a handful of bright spots scattered like rare jewels over a mostly bleak half century, the program has become an afterthought on campus, and something even less on the national stage.1

At the moment of that fateful exit, South Carolina boasted consecutive ACC championships (1970 regular season; 1971 tournament), and sat atop that league with the conference’s greatest coach, a gleaming three-year-old Carolina Coliseum, and no reason to believe its future in the sport wouldn’t be as bright as UNC’s or Duke’s would ultimately prove to be.

As South Carolina left behind the security of a conference home filled with natural rivalries among institutions with deep geographical and historical ties, it could only sit and watch during the 1970’s and 80’s as its former ACC brethren embarked upon a golden age of basketball dominance and lucrative television broadcasting agreements.2 It was a golden age in which Frank McGuire’s basketball program would have been (should have been) poised to thrive. Instead, USC’s most successful program entered a decades-long decline from which it still has not recovered.

Strikingly, South Carolina’s former conference rival, Duke, is on just their second head coach since Bill Foster left the Blue Devils to replace Frank McGuire at USC in the spring of 1980. During that same span, South Carolina has hired and subsequently fired seven head coaches, with an eighth almost certain to follow in just a few weeks.

July 13, 2012

On July 13, 2012, the University of South Carolina lost the nation’s greatest baseball coach and hired a first-time athletics director. They were, of course, the same man - former head coach-turned-rookie AD, Ray Tanner.

At the moment Tanner traded his #1 jersey for an administrator’s coat and tie, his Gamecock program was the winningest in all of Division I baseball for a period of 13 seasons. It boasted six College World Series (CWS) appearances between 2002 and 2012, with four CWS championship game or series appearances (2002, 2010, 2011, 2012), and back-to-back national championships in 2010 and 2011. To that, the Gamecocks added three SEC regular-season championships (2000, 2002, 2011) and an SEC tournament championship in 2004. Simply put, there was not a better program in all of college baseball between 2000 and 2012. Tanner himself won three national and three SEC coach of the year awards during that span.

On June 29, 2012, USC athletics director Eric Hyman resigned his post to accept the same position at Texas A&M University, then on the verge of its entrance into the SEC. Tanner had long hinted at the desire to transition into administration, and had worked alongside Hyman (and Hyman’s predecessor, Mike McGee) on various administrative tasks during his tenure as baseball coach.

The timing of Hyman’s departure, along with the end of the 2012 baseball season in Omaha just days earlier, concluding with a third-straight championship series appearance by the Gamecocks, opened a door for the immensely popular Tanner. Riding a waive of good feelings in the gauzy afterglow of Omaha, Tanner parlayed his baseball success into the athletic director’s role at the University of South Carolina.

There was no national search and no interviews of other qualified candidates. Tanner, who had never worked in any official capacity in athletics administration, was simply promoted to athletics director of an SEC institution and handed the keys to a department generating nearly $100 million in revenue during that fiscal year.

Learning on the job for much of his early tenure, Tanner served in that capacity for 13 years, until being replaced by Jeremiah Donati in December, 2024.

Gamecock baseball, meanwhile, has struggled under three coaches - all Tanner hires. Included among those, former Tanner assistant Chad Holbrook, who led the Gamecocks from 2013-17; former South Florida head coach Mark Kingston (2018-2024), and Kingston’s replacement, the former national championship coach at LSU, Mainieri.

Though the Gamecocks have qualified for seven NCAA tournaments during this stretch, they have only reached the Super Regional round (equivalent to basketball’s Sweet Sixteen) three times (2016, 2018, 2023), and have yet to return to the College World Series. An equivalent run by Gamecock men’s basketball would be viewed as a wild success. Set against the (perhaps unrealistic) standards set by Tanner however, these results have proven unsatisfactory to fans and administrators.

It is premature to cast judgment upon the Tanner athletics directorship just yet. Several of his hires, most notably football coach Shane Beamer and baseball coach Mainieri are still in the midst of their tenures, so the story has not been fully told. There is hope, and some level of optimism, that Beamer will bring sustained success to long-suffering Gamecock fans in much the same way his father, Frank Beamer, brought those results to Virginia Tech a generation ago, though the game has vastly changed since that time.

Given Mainieri’s age, 68, along with the poor results of his initial season in Columbia (a 28-29 finish - only the third losing season for Gamecock baseball since 1970), there is somewhat less optimism he is the long-term, or perhaps even the short-term solution for renewed relevancy. Time will tell, but 2026 has make-or-break vibes for Mainieri’s brief regime.

Two days in the grand scheme of things

Both days in question led to the precipitous decline of by far the greatest athletics programs on campus in their respective eras. The first of those days is some 55 years past, and it remains to be seen if South Carolina will ever regain any level of sustained success in men’s basketball. Dawn Staley’s monumental achievements of the last 17 years with the women’s basketball program, and the men’s program’s own halcyon days under McGuire, prove it can be done. The last 55 years prove it is extraordinarily difficult.

The Gamecock baseball program is comparatively much closer to its glory years - less than 14 years since Tanner's final game in the 2012 CWS championship series. Back then there was reason to believe more championships would come South Carolina’s way. We know how things have played out since.

Here’s hoping the 2026 baseball season shows substantial progress, and that USC’s new athletics director can steer the ghost ship of Gamecock men’s basketball to friendlier ports in the years ahead.

It’s been a long time out at sea.

2

From the perspective of 2026, South Carolina is certainly better off in the SEC. Just ask Clemson and Florida State where they would prefer to be. But from the perspective of the 1970’s and 80’s, it was a colossal error for South Carolina to depart the ACC in a fit of pique with no plan for rapprochement. Certainly it was a mistake for its men’s basketball program, but also from the perspective of overall stability, brand strength, and opportunities lost across all sports for conference championships, conference player-of-the-year recognitions, and the enhanced opportunity for NCAA tournament bids. It could be argued that SEC membership would never have come to pass had USC not departed the ACC in 1971. I would argue otherwise, but that’s a discussion for another piece.

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Updated author’s note: At the time of this writing in late January, 2026, reports surfaced that legendary football coach Lou Holtz had entered hospice care in the midst of a years-long battle with prostate cancer. The Holtz family announced that the legendary coach died on Wednesday, March 4, at the age of 89. The following is a look back at Holtz’s early tenure at South Carolina and the profound impact he had on Gamecock Nation.

Godspeed, Coach.

It's hard to overstate just how surreal the Lou Holtz hire was in December, 1998. Seemingly fantastical rumors of the potential hire had been swirling for almost two weeks. Gamecock football was a lost and floundering program, bottoming out with a 1-10 season in 1998, and still unsure if it really belonged in the mighty Southeastern Conference after seven years of competition.1

Athletics Director Mike McGee shocked the nation with his rabbit-out-of-a-hat hiring of Holtz. Miracle hires are an indelible part of McGee’s legacy at USC, but the Holtz hire was, in my estimation, the most magical of all.2 I remember well the sheer joy of Holtz’s introductory press conference.

I was 26 years old, living in Greenville at the time, a young claims adjuster with State Farm Insurance Company, just 15 months into a 29-year career (and counting). Reports of the hire began trickling out through traditional media, and the new medium of on-line message boards early that cold December day. Too addled by the news to concentrate, I walked out to my car in the back of the claims office parking lot on Congaree Road and sat listening to developments on my car radio, set to WYRD-AM 1330. Listening along with a work buddy and fellow Carolina alum, we couldn’t believe it was actually happening.

Down in Columbia, a crowd of 4,000 people and throngs of local and national media hastily assembled along the lower west stands of Williams-Brice Stadium, waiting for the man of the hour. When he strolled onto the field to the strains of “2001,” casually carrying a Diet Coke and sporting a dark blazer and garnet tie, bedlam ensued. Holtz’s initial twenty-minute speech crescendoed with the declaration, “Our goal is to win a national championship.” People hooped, people hollered, people threw babies in the air. To borrow a phrase from the late comedian Jerry Clower, “people wallered on the floor.”

Back in Greenville, my buddy and I sat transfixed, unable to stop smiling. It really was happening. State Farm probably didn’t get their money’s worth out of me that day, though I’ve tried to make up for it since.

Holtz was a bonafide celebrity and, after a little arm twisting from McGee, he chose to come to South Carolina. It was unbelievable at the time, and the joy of the moment is hard to fully capture if you weren't there.

It was actually a return to Columbia for then 61-year-old Holtz, who served as a Gamecock assistant under Coach Paul Dietzel during the 1966 and 1967 seasons.3 Holtz moved onto Ohio State as an assistant under iconic coach Woody Hayes, before taking his first head coaching job at William & Mary in 1969. Stops at NC State followed (1972-75), then Arkansas (1977-83), following an unhappy one-season experiment with the NFL’s New York Jets in 1976.

Holtz left Fayetteville for a two-year stint at Minnesota (1984-85) before landing his dream job at Notre Dame (1986-96), where he won 100 games, then good for second-best in program history after Knute Rockne’s 105 wins. Holtz led his 1988 team to a 12-0 record and that season’s national championship, followed by a 12-1 season in 1989.

Often rumored as a candidate for head coaching vacancies at South Carolina - first following Dietzel’s resignation in 1974, then following Jim Carlen’s dismissal in 1981 - the stars never aligned early on.

By the time Holtz left Notre Dame following the 1996 season, he had compiled a 216-95-7 (.691) record over 27 seasons at five different schools - then one of only 15 coaches in NCAA history to surpass the 200-win mark. He was a towering figure in the American sports landscape of the time.

Beyond his coaching career, Holtz was in demand throughout the world as a motivational speaker. He was a best-selling author, and an occasional late-night talk show guest, where he would charm crowds and perform magic tricks, such as in this 1978 appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Holtz further burnished his celebrity as an analyst for CBS college football broadcasts during the 1997 and 1998 seasons.

The man elevated the stature of South Carolina football by simple association long before the wins started coming. His decision to don the Garnet & Black was one of the watershed moments in the history of Gamecock athletics.

Holtz was pure magic as a speaker. I remember attending a Gamecock Club event at Seawell’s, just across from the State Fairgrounds and Williams-Brice Stadium, before the 2000 season. It was early in his tenure, and despite the 0-11 campaign of 1999, there was great optimism for the 2000 season. People were still awed by his celebrity and charmed by his humor. There must have been close to a thousand people in the expansive ballroom, and he held them in the palm of his hand. Holtz kidded track coach Curtis Frye (who would win USC's first team national championship a couple of years later), saying, "I don't know what's so hard about coaching track... you tell them to turn left and get back here as fast as you can!" The big room convulsed with laughter.

A legendary storyteller and humorist, Holtz was a veritable quote machine during his time in Columbia. Upon taking the South Carolina job, he was asked how he felt about the prospect of playing the likes of Georgia, Alabama, LSU, and Florida every year, to which Holtz quipped, “I sleep like a baby,” continuing with a grin, “I wake up every two hours crying.” Of the challenge of building the South Carolina program, Holtz said, “Everybody says Rome wasn’t built in a day. Well, that’s because I wasn’t the foreman!”

Asked to explain the Gamecocks’ passing troubles following a game during the winless 1999 season, Holtz deadpanned, “You can’t throw from the supine position.” Dismissing the fabled Chicken Curse, Holtz joked, “The Chicken Curse affects us most when we don’t block or tackle.” Of the litter along Palmetto State highways, Holtz once wise-cracked, “South Carolinians must have the cleanest cars in the country.”

Holtz’s first game at Carolina was a rain-soaked 10-0 loss against a program he once led, NC State. So eager were we to witness the beginning of the Holtz era, my Dad and I, along with family friend, Lee Pitts, and thousands of Gamecock fans sat through the remnants of Hurricane Dennis during a long night in Raleigh, the deluge coming so hard at times it was difficult to see the opposite stands. It was an opening loss in what proved to be an 0-11 season, pushing Carolina’s losing streak to an unbelievable 21-straight games. But 1999 felt markedly different than ‘98. The disappointment of losing was leavened by spirited defensive play, and while Holtz buoyed Gamecock fans with his trademark humor, an uptick in recruiting promised better days ahead.

The 2000 and 2001 seasons were two of the best in program history, certainly in the pre-Spurrier era. The Gamecocks won eight and nine games, respectively, during those two seasons, and defeated traditional power Ohio State in consecutive Outback Bowl games. His team’s eight-game season-over-season improvement in 2000 is still tied for second-best in NCAA history.

When I remember Coach Holtz’s time at Carolina, I don't think about the 2002-2004 years, when highlights were few and the magic had dimmed. I think instead of the joy he brought to a hurting fanbase, the pride we all felt at seeing him stalk the sideline in his old-school CAROLINA FOOTBALL cap, the feeling that things were going to be okay, and that we could hold our heads high once again.

Just as the University of South Carolina approached its bicentennial celebration, Holtz brought joie de vivre to a beleaguered fanbase, and made us believe we could win once again. For that, Gamecock Nation will forever owe Lou Holtz a debt of gratitude.

3

Holtz was hired by Coach Marvin Bass following the 1965 season, and remained on staff after Bass’ departure as a secondary coach under Dietzel.

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Talk of the Chicken Curse was endemic in the fall of 1992. As USC entered its inaugural season in the mighty Southeastern Conference, fans were ready to put the dreaded curse behind them, so much so that prominent booster Floyd Bowie, Jr organized an actual exorcism in the parking lot of Williams-Brice Stadium the Friday before USC’s opener versus Georgia. The dark arts ceremony, conducted by an honest-to-God witch doctor from Blythewood named Archibald Thibeaux, may have been tongue-in-cheek on some level, but then again, why not try it?

Five weeks into the season, however, the Gamecocks stood at 0-5.

Entering an open date, which the understated Gamecock head coach Sparky Woods called “much needed,” Carolina found its season at a crossroads. The Gamecocks, who were marking their 100th season of football, were not only winless, but also owned Division I football’s longest losing streak at nine games going back to November of 1991. They were the only team in the league without a win by mid-October and found themselves last in nearly every statistical category, having been outscored by opponents 154-47. Adding to that, Jackie Sherrill’s 15th-ranked Mississippi State squad was slated to travel to Columbia for an October 17 matchup on the other side of the open date.

Following the open date weekend, things took a turn for the surreal. In a players-only meeting on Monday, October 12, the team reportedly voted 62 to 24 to ask Woods to resign. Woods, reached that evening for comment by Columbia television station WOLO-TV said he had no intention of resigning.

“No. I came here and worked very hard. Our staff’s worked very hard,” Woods said. “We’re working as a team. A team does everything together. We’re not 0-5 because of any individual’s fault. It’s all our problems, and we’ve all got to be a solution to the problem.”

Athletics director King Dixon declined comment, deferring to Woods, and adding, “that’s a football matter… I just don’t think it would be appropriate as athletics director to comment on that at this particular time.”

By Tuesday afternoon, Woods had engineered an uneasy truce with his team and had them back on the practice field. This followed a vote of confidence from Dixon, who by Tuesday morning voiced support for his head coach. A pre-practice locker room visit by USC President John Palms further solidified Woods’ standing.

There even seemed to be some question as to the extent of the revolt. Senior linebacker Ben Hogan told David Newton of The State that the player’s only meeting was called by “a few guys who had complaints… guys who thought they should be playing more, guys who had been moved from first team to second team.” Hogan elaborated, “Most of us didn’t even know we were having a meeting. There was no organization to it. I was standing in the locker room in my jock strap and somebody called a team meeting out. I thought Coach Woods might have called it.”

Newton spoke with senior offensive guard Antoine Rivens who said the issue had been quashed Monday evening when Woods told the team to report for a regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday morning or have their lockers cleared. “He put his foot down and told us what was going to be done and how it was going to be done,” Rivens told Newton. “That was the proper way to do it. That is what we needed,” adding, “He’s the coach of our team. When we signed our scholarships, we did not sign to be on the board of trustees… Our job is to play and his job is to coach.”

The insurrection quelled, Woods’ Gamecocks worked to salvage a season on the brink, and all efforts turned toward a Mississippi State game just days away. Tailback Brandon Bennet told Newton the offense had worked hard during the open date to correct the mental errors which had plagued them during the first five games. He predicted better times ahead. “I hate to lose,” Bennett said, “I’m ready to start winning some games.”

Enter Taneyhill

Steve Taneyhill is a Gamecock legend now. He is a two time vanquisher of Clemson at Death Valley, the first quarterback to lead USC to a bowl victory, and still the holder of USC’s all-time passing touchdowns and completions records (62 and 753 respectively). His 8,782 career passing yards is second in program history behind only Todd Ellis. His name is bronze-cast in the minds of Gamecock fans, and there is a strong argument for the retirement of his number 18 jersey.

But in October of 1992, he was a relatively untested, yet nonetheless brash true freshman from Altoona, Pennsylvania. His arrival in Columbia caused a stir from the beginning, arriving as he did with long hair, festooned no less with an earring stud - quite a look in a sleepy Southern college town in those days. He exuded confidence, boasting to reporters during spring practice that he would be the starting quarterback by mid-season. That boast, and his cocky persona did little to endear him to teammates early on.

Still, Woods was ready to try his hand with a new quarterback. It represented a fresh start, and an injection of confidence was exactly what his team needed. And so, when the Gamecocks took the field to the strains of “2001” on that gorgeous October afternoon against the 15th ranked Mississippi State Bulldogs, they did so with their third starting quarterback in six games, and a true freshman at that.

The 19-year-old Taneyhill enjoyed one of the most Taneyhill of days that Saturday, completing 7 of 14 passes for 183 yards and two touchdowns, while guiding the Gamecocks to a season-best 505 total yards and an unlikely 21-6 upset win over a top-15 conference team. Beyond the stats though, he injected a desperately needed element of swagger to a previously beleaguered Gamecock team.

The State’s Bob Gillespie wrote of Taneyhill’s antics,

Before 55,102 fans, the smallest home crowd of the season, a legend was born. Had Taneyhill faded into oblivion after that game (as if he were ever capable of such a thing), he would still be revered at Carolina for the excitement and joy he brought to Gamecock Nation that fall afternoon in the unlikeliest of scenarios. He would still enjoy legend status for snapping the nation’s longest losing streak, for securing the program’s first SEC win, for enabling smiles to once again enliven the faces of players and coaches and fans alike.

But of course, he was not done. Behind Taneyhill’s heroics, Carolina surged to five victories in their final six games, defeating Vanderbilt, a ranked Tennessee team, Louisiana Tech, and winning at Clemson for the first time since 1984 in a season finale worthy of a chef’s kiss. In their one late season loss, a 14-9 setback against SEC-East winning Florida in Gainesville, the Gamecocks played valiantly, coming oh so close to six-straight wins and bowl eligibility. After the 0-5 start, it was an astounding turnaround, and one of the feel-good stories of the 1992 college football season.

Anyone who witnessed that rollercoaster of a season recalls it vividly. The anticipation of SEC membership, the anguish of early season drubbings, the players’ revolt, the unbridled joy of a second half turnaround, and the injection of confidence and joy that young quarterback provided everyone.

Of his much talked about long hair and earring, Taneyhill told reporters after the MSU game, “All this stuff about my looks… I’m just a person. It’s a big issue down here. I don’t understand. Back home, all the guys and girls have earrings. This is just me. I’m not changing me.” Told of Taneyhill’s comments, wide receiver Asim Penney quipped, “He can wear a dress for all I care.”

The real curse breaker as it turned out, was not a Blythewood witch doctor, but a long-haired 19-year-old quarterback from Altoona, Pennsylvania.

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Author’s note: The Gamecocks are 3-7 at this stage in the season, which is not what anybody expected. The games that were going our way last season are going the other way this go-round. Muscling two top-five teams onto the ropes, only to suffer spectacular late collapses certainly adds salt to the wound. The nature of the A&M loss, in particular, was surreal and demoralizing. Thoughts of what could have been will linger well into the long, cold, bowl-less winter. Frankly, we can all use a feel good story right about now, and nothing feels quite so good to Gamecock people as a big win over Clemson. This is a story about the biggest one ever. It’s also a reminder that there’s still something left to play for this season. Spurs (and chin) up, Gamecocks!

A few things stand out watching a recently digitized film perspective of the 1975 Gamecock football season. The film begins with the team’s entrance for the season opener in head coach Jim Carlen’s first game at Carolina against Georgia Tech, Carlen’s alma mater, where he played for the great Bobby Dodd.

It was eight years before the theme from “2001 - A Space Odyssey” was first employed during the Joe Morrison era, and decades before “Sandstorm,” and all those white towels. It was before Carolina Band became known as “The Mighty Sound of the Southeast,” upon joining the SEC, and before their pregame show ended by forming a human tunnel for the team entrance.

The 1975 Gamecocks simply ran onto the field from that familiar southwest corner in a spirited, if unceremonious, scuttle to the west sideline. Aside from newly revamped uniforms, featuring the now iconic “Block C” logo for the first time on those instantly classic Carlen-era threads, the entrance was devoid of spectacle.

You’re struck as well by the spartan environs of Williams-Brice Stadium. The old Astroturf field stretched taut and rough-as-a-cob over a thin layer of foam padding covering sixty-thousand tons of gravel and asphalt - essentially 120 yards of roadbed inside the stadium. The end zones were plain Jane, unpainted and unadorned by the now familiar red tip shrubs. Only an industrial run of metal railing separated the stands from the playing field.

An aerial shot of the stadium at the 19 minute mark of the film reveals an asymmetrical Williams-Brice Stadium before the matching east upper deck balanced the venue in 1982. The single upper deck stadium, as it appeared between 1971 and 1981, brings to mind a body builder who habitually skips leg day.

Springs-Brooks Plaza, which softened the stadium’s exterior with over three-hundred trees, brick columns, and decorative ironwork reminiscent of the University’s verdant Horseshoe, lay forty years into the future. Surrounding the stadium in those days was a stark asphalt apron and parking for hundreds of cars - a pedestrian’s nightmare. It was before an all-everything tailback with a winning smile from Duluth, Georgia thrilled fans and captured the Heisman some years later, when George Rogers Boulevard was simply known as Stadium Road.

There was a long-abandoned spur of track where the Cockaboose Railroad would one day assemble. Across Bluff Road, no leafy, manicured Gamecock Park, but a heat-blasted farmers market of low-slung warehouses where overall-clad vegetable vendors hawked their wares over the drone of industrial fans.

By distance, the area is two miles removed from the leafy heart of campus, but in those days it was light years apart by look and feel. It was a hardscrabble industrial corridor, dotted by working machine shops, dusty parking lots, and corrugated metal lean-to’s. There was, in fact, nothing remotely organic in sight.

The memories are cumulative reminders, particularly to anyone who experienced them, of just how far Williams-Brice Stadium has come in terms of tradition and aesthetics.

Grantz takes center stage

Watching the film, you’re also reminded of just how good an offensive football team that 1975 squad was. This was a day when 300-pound players were a rarity. In fact, offensive linemen Al Tandy (259), Jack Brinker (258), and Steve Courson (250) were the only three Gamecocks who topped 250 pounds on that roster. But what this team lacked in size, it made up for in senior leadership and seasoned talent, particularly at the skill positions.

Leading the offense was a senior signal caller from Bel Air, Maryland, Jeff Grantz. A two-sport star at Carolina, Grantz excelled as a short stop for Bobby Richardson’s baseball Gamecocks, and was part of the 1975 squad that went 51-6-1, with a championship game appearance at the College World Series. A dual threat quarterback, Grantz was one of only three players in program history to amass over 5,000 total yards at the time of his induction into the USC Athletics Hall of Fame in 1985.1

Complementing Grantz was an elite tailback duo that provided not one, but two thousand-yard rushers on the season in juniors Kevin Long and Clarence Williams, two Palmetto State products from Clinton and Oakley, respectively. Consider that prior to 1975 the Gamecocks had never produced a thousand-yard rusher - the previous single-season record belonged to the great Steve Wadiak, who compiled 998 yards during the 1950 season.2

But the Gamecocks’ secret sauce in 1975 really revolved around player leadership. Grantz recalls how the team gelled following Paul Dietzel’s resignation and a 4-7 finish to the 1974 season:

“In ‘75, the seniors got together and said this is not gonna happen anymore. This is our last year. We’re gonna get this right, and we did. It all came down to leadership. Coach Carlen was the catalyst. He got us together and said, ‘Guys, this is your team.’”

Carlen, a self-styled straight shooter, told Grantz, “Jeff, the only thing I know about you is that you’re a really good shortstop, and you can turn a double play, but you and Ron Bass are gonna compete [for starting quarterback].”

Carlen had seen Bass run the offense during spring practice while Grantz played baseball, so it was a fair statement. Grantz, who considered Bass a good quarterback and friend, told Carlen that if he lost the starting job, he just wanted to play somewhere. “I didn’t care if it was receiver, or returning kicks, or whatever. I needed to be on that field. I didn’t care where I played - I wanted to contribute and be a winner in my last year there.”

Fate intervened as Bass ultimately suffered an injury during the first preseason scrimmage and took a redshirt year in ‘75, clearing the way for Grantz to take the reins.

The Gamecocks bolted to a 5-1 record over the first six games, their only loss coming to old border state nemesis Georgia of the SEC. Wins included a 24-13 defeat of #18-ranked Baylor at home, and a road win versus future SEC rival Ole Miss.3

Carolina appeared at #20 in the AP poll ahead of a road matchup versus another SEC foe, LSU in week seven. The ranking was short-lived, as the Gamecocks lost 24-6 on the bayou. A seven-point loss in Raleigh to a Lou Holtz-coached N.C. State team followed, and the losing streak stretched to three following a surprising 39-34 shootout loss at home to a strong Appalachian State squad.

A home win over Wake Forest put Carolina back in the win column, setting up the regular-season finale versus Clemson in Columbia.

Flirting with perfection

The Tigers, under third-year head coach Red Parker, arrived in Columbia for the final game of what had been a difficult season. Clemson was a preseason favorite to compete for the ACC crown in ‘75 after a 7-4 campaign (4-2 ACC) in 1974, but entered the season finale at 2-8, and in obvious disarray. Press reports hinted at dissension in the locker room, which Parker denied.

Saturday, November 22 dawned cool, with overnight lows in the thirties. Early tailgaters in the dusty State Fair parking lots warmed themselves with thermoses of steaming coffee, or sipped stronger options from Solo cups. The mercury steadily climbed into the fifties by midday as fans clad in cords and sweaters and garnet windbreakers began to file into the stadium. As the 1:30 kickoff approached, a beyond-capacity crowd of 57,197 assembled under cloudless skies.

A brilliant fall sun glinted off the chromed sousaphones and trumpets of the Carolina Band as they performed their ritual pregame set - the Old Fight Song, Go Carolina, and Step to the Rear. Old Glory fluttered behind the north end zone from an occasional northerly breeze. The sweet aroma of tobacco smoke wafted about in an era when smoking was still in vogue, permitted inside the stadium, and even sold by the pack at concession stands.

It was a picture perfect day for football in Columbia.

The Gamecocks entered their final regular-season game looking to secure a bid to the Tangerine Bowl, then one of only eleven post-season bowl games in the offering. A ten-win Miami of Ohio squad, champions of the Mid-America Conference, had already secured their bid. Carolina, along with eight-win Virginia Tech, and nine-win San Jose State were under consideration for the opposing slot. The South Carolina program could only claim two previous bowl appearances across eighty years of football - the 1946 Gator Bowl, and the 1969 Peach Bowl. By any measure, an invitation would be a significant achievement for first-year coach Carlen.

But more urgent business lay at hand that afternoon. Clemson and Carolina had played even football for the prior decade, each school winning five-of-ten since 1965. Clemson still held a comfortable overall advantage in the series, 48 wins to Carolina’s 27, with three ties in a lively series dating back to 1896.

The Gamecocks entered the contest second in the country in total offense, averaging over 400 yards per game. Grantz remembers offensive backfield coach, Bob Gatling, as “a magnificent creative coach.” Working alongside offensive coordinator, Jack Fligg, Gatling devised a deceptive attack relying on sprint draws and the dual threat mobility of Grantz, which kept defenses off balance. Ahead of the Clemson game, Gatling prepared something new for an already potent attack.

“He put in a little wrinkle where he put one of our backs in motion, and that confused them defensively because we hadn’t done it all year. ‘You read this guy, you read the strong safety, then you look at the corner and there’s gonna be somebody open each time,’” Gatling told Grantz. “And they [Clemson] never adjusted the entire game.”

The State’s Herman Helms, writing of the game for Sunday’s edition, described the Gamecock offensive attack as “violent,” and indeed, violence was visited upon the beleaguered Clemson Tigers that afternoon.

Carolina struck early on a 36-yard touchdown gallop by Clarence Williams, capping a 66-yard drive over seven plays in the first three-and-a-half minutes of the game. From there the rout was on as the Gamecocks surged to an insurmountable 35-6 halftime lead. When the clock struck zeroes, a weakening late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the field from the distinctive west-upper deck light stanchions. Gamecock players and coaches celebrated midfield, smiles all around, as Clemson players filed sullenly into the visiting locker room.

The Gamecocks had added another three touchdowns in the second half for an emphatic 56-20 final score. It was, at the time, the greatest margin of victory and the most points scored by either team in the long, storied history of the rivalry. Carolina fans lingered in the stadium, savoring the moment long after the final whistle.

Over four quarters on that brilliant November afternoon, Jeff Grantz carved his name forever in the record books and hearts of Carolina faithful. He completed six-of-twelve passes for 158 yards and five passing touchdowns - tying a program record set by Tommy Suggs in 1968. He added 122 rushing yards and ran for another touchdown, setting what was then a program standard for total yards in a game with 280.

Carolina punters needed not even dress out that afternoon, as the Gamecocks scored touchdowns on eight-of-nine possessions, with place kicker Bobby Marino adding eight PATs. An offensive interference penalty on tight end Brian Nemeth negated what would have been Grantz’ sixth touchdown pass late in the game. Had that play stood, it would have secured a new program record that would have remained unsurpassed all these years later, something Grantz has kidded Nemeth about good-naturedly over the years.

Perhaps more significantly to Grantz and the team, tailback Clarence Williams powered his way to 160 rushing yards on a workmanlike 23 carries, becoming the second Gamecock back on the season (and in program history) to top the 1,000-yard mark. Kevin Long added 77 yards on 17 carries to extend his season total to 1,114. The Gamecocks cumulatively rushed for 458 yards and racked up 616 yards of total offense, while dominating time of possession.

Given how the afternoon unfolded, Clemson coach Red Parker took none-to-kindly to a late touchdown pass from Grantz to Stevie Stevens with under a minute left to play and the Gamecocks already up by 29. “I took it as an insult,” Parker huffed to reporters after the game. “Jim [Carlen] runs his team and I run mine. If that’s what he wanted to do, that’s his prerogative,” adding, “Everybody has to live with what they do and what they think.”

Observers have often pointed to the 1975 game as a turning point for Clemson football, with administrators vowing that such an embarrassment would never be allowed to happen again. Within six years, the Tigers would capture their first national championship under a young head coach named Danny Ford. That title carries an asterisk in the minds of many due to recruiting improprieties by the Tigers which led to a three-year post-season ban. Still, Clemson would go on to defeat the Gamecocks in eight of the next ten matchups.

But November 22, 1975 belonged to the Gamecocks, its pugnacious first-year head coach, and its senior quarterback, who attained legend status that sunny afternoon in Williams-Brice Stadium.

Fifty years gone by

As the 1975 team prepares to assemble for a 50th anniversary reunion this weekend, Grantz talked about what that Clemson game means to him. Like most successful quarterbacks, he’s quick to credit his offensive line.

“Oh, it’s just everything. You know, this weekend is gonna be so special, with all these guys coming back. My offensive line, they were so good. Mike McCabe, my center, was a Jacob’s Blocking Trophy winner, Steve Courson, our right guard, played for the [Pittsburgh] Steelers, and Jerome Province was our right tackle. Superior. There was Brad Klein on my weak side, and E.Z. Smith… And they just didn’t ever make a mistake, knew who to block - those guys were all so intelligent.”

It was an emphatic end to one of the truly great careers in the history of Gamecock football. Remember too that Grantz was Bobby Richardson’s starting shortstop on the first Gamecock baseball team to go to the College World Series just five months earlier, when Carolina finished second in the nation behind Texas. It was quite a run for the two-sport star from Bel Air, Maryland. For his exploits, Grantz was inducted into the USC Athletics Hall of Fame in 1985. He continues to follow the program closely to this day.

Of the upcoming reunion, Grantz anticipates a good time with 50 to 60 former teammates expected, along with a smattering of coaches, managers, and trainers.

“I guilt them [his former teammates] into coming. I told them, you better get back here, this is probably the last time we’re all gonna be together, so you better not miss it,” he says, laughing. “They say, ‘Man, who do you have to put it like that?’” After a moment’s reflection he answers, “I’m honest, like Coach Carlen told me to be.”

All these years later, Jeff Grantz continues to lead his team.

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At the 5:40 mark of the 1975 Gamecock Football highlights film, note the live black bear Baylor brought with them to Williams-Brice Stadium! A trainer struggles to keep it under control - on a leash - as if it's a thirty-pound cocker spaniel. At the 9:53 mark, the scene from Ole Miss reveals a sea of Confederate flags - jarring from today’s perspective. Things were just different in the 1970’s.

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Many thanks to Jeff Grantz for speaking with me for this piece.

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A Gamecock Odyssey now in Paperback!

Forty-one years later, the magic still lingers. Certainly, for those who experienced the 1984 Gamecock football season, the memories will never fade. But even for those who weren’t there - even for a Millennial from Reno, Nevada - the allure of 1984 is compelling. The stories, the characters, and the vibrancy of that special team all come alive through Brent Kirkland’s work in Black Magic - The Story of the 1984 Gamecocks.

Kirkland is the 36-year-old creative director at Gamecocks Plus, a premium digital platform featuring long and short-form documentary works, the popular podcast “Tailgate Talks,” featuring Gamecock football legends Patrick DiMarco and Stephen Garcia, as well as a treasure trove of archival footage presented in collaboration with USC’s Moving Image Research Center (MIRC). A subscription to the site is complimentary to Gamecock Club members and available through to anyone through yearly or monthly plans. The site is a goldmine for Gamecock fans.1

In just a few short years, Kirkland alongside his General Manager, Dakota Watson, have produced an impressive array of content, highlighted by his Emmy Award-winning short film, Small Town, Big Dreams, the story of former Gamecock cornerback Darius Rush and his journey from small-town Kingstree, South Carolina to the NFL. The Story is an ongoing series following the Gamecock football team throughout each season, reminiscent of HBO’s Hard Knocks. Similarly, The Follow, is an all-access docuseries which goes behind the scenes providing coverage on various teams, most recently the thrilling 2025 softball team, which exceeded all expectations under first-year head coach and Gamecock letterman Ashley Chastain Woodard.

Kirkland’s latest effort is Black Magic - the four-part documentary series chronicling the iconic 1984 Gamecock football team. Part one is out now, with subsequent releases scheduled for later this fall. Kirkland’s work is impressive, and brings to mind ESPN’s heralded 30-for-30 series with its production value and storytelling. The accompanying background music, vintage 80’s techno pop set against grainy archival footage from four decades ago, bring fans right back to the greatest Gamecock season that ever was prior to Steve Spurrier’s run of success in the 2010’s.

The footage of former head coach Joe Morrison alone makes the film worth watching. He stalks the sidelines and practice fields donned in his trademark black clothing, expressionless behind ever-present Aviator sunglasses and an OG script Carolina hat while furtively puffing Marlboros, looking every bit like the old-school icon he was.

Kirkland managed to catch up with a number of Gamecock lettermen from that team, including wide receiver Eric Poole, defensive end Carl Hill, and cornerback Otis Morris, all of whom add insightful commentary. Tommy Suggs, the Dietzel-era quarterback and longtime football color commentator for the Gamecock Radio Network appears, along with former WIS-TV sports director Joe Daggett, and former State sportswriter, Bob Gillespie. Even your’s truly got in on the act to provide some historical perspective.

So how did a guy from Reno, Nevada, born five years after that 1984 season, come to direct this project? It was a circuitous path, and like most of us, his obsession with sports and storytelling goes back to childhood.

“My dad was a big [Los Angeles] Rams fan growing up. The rest of my family, on my mom’s side, being from Reno, close to San Francisco, were all Niners fans. And so, because of the rivalry between those two teams, my dad didn’t want his son to be a Niners fan,” Kirkland recalls, laughing. "And so the first year the [Carolina] Panthers were a franchise - I think I was five-years-old at the time (1995), my uncle bought me a bunch of Panthers stuff as kind of a joke. But it just kind of stuck. I really fell in love with that team.”

Kirkland says his affinity for the Panthers evolved over time into an interest in SEC football, and the Southeast region in general. When it came time for college, he looked at a few schools in the area, South Carolina included. Though the lure of in-state tuition kept him at home - he graduated with a double-major in English and Journalism from the University of Nevada-Reno in 2013 - the Southeast still called to him.

While at Nevada-Reno, he took his first stab at documentary filmmaking for a class project. As his subject he chose, of all things, a newly formed bass fishing club on campus. “There are no bass in Nevada,” Kirkland laughs, “and my professor at the time was like, ‘ok, we’ll see how this goes.’ I thought it was kind of a joke at first, but once he saw the stuff I did, he was blown away.”

Around the same time ESPN introduced their award-winning 30-for-30 series, which revolutionized documentary storytelling in the sports world. “I started to see where my path was leading,” Kirkland recalls. After graduation, he helped start a production club at Nevada-Reno, focused on making 30-for-30-style documentaries for Wolfpack athletics - a precursor to his eventual career.

Looking for new challenges and an opportunity to move South, Kirkland eventually entered a Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) program in documentary filmmaking at Wake Forest University, which he completed in 2021. While at Wake, Kirkland produced an endearing and highly personal short film about his blue-collar dad’s transition to a sales role after forty years delivering beer along the same route in Reno. Keghead’s Last Stand displays Kirkland’s evolving talent for storytelling, and accomplishes what all good documentary works do - it entertains while compelling the viewer to ponder a larger meaning.

His MFA in hand, a short stint as creative director back at the University of Nevada followed, but the Southeast soon called again.

At a work conference, Kirkland connected with Bo Mattingly, an executive at Sport and Story, the soon-to-be parent company to Gamecocks Plus. Sport and Story had already inked partnerships with several SEC athletics departments, including Arkansas, Auburn, and LSU, as well as Oklahoma State and Baylor of the Big Twelve. The USC athletics department, meanwhile, was looking to enhance its digital offerings. An opportunity manifested, and in 2022 Kirkland relocated to Columbia to begin work on a nascent Gamecocks Plus.

Kirkland works through Gamecocks Plus as a partner of sorts with USC athletics’ in-house digital content team, led by Executive Associate Athletics Director for Brand Strategy, Justin King. Kirkland and his team focus on long-form productions, like the 1984 documentary, while King’s team focuses on short-form, social media-focused efforts.

“Initially, I think the biggest challenge was figuring out how we fit in. But we’re (Gamecocks Plus and King’s in-house crew) all part of the same team. We’re all at the games together, we fly with the team together, we room together… we’re all very much part of the same team. We just do it in different ways.”

And they do it well. King is an elite talent, recognized across the industry as a leader in his field. He and his team brought home three Emmy Awards earlier this year for their various Gamecock football-related short-form projects. Likewise, Kirkland is gaining notoriety with an Emmy of his own for the Darius Rush documentary.

More awards are sure to follow. Big-time college athletics, after all, and the Southeastern Conference in particular, lends itself to great storytelling. The color, the pageantry, the history-rich programs, the imposing venues, the verdant campuses, the big moments, and the legendary characters all combine for unrivaled drama in the American sports landscape.

Gamecock fans should count themselves lucky that the one-time little kid from Reno, the unlikely Panthers fan in a distant land, born some five years after that iconic season of Black Magic, is here to capture it all.

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Gamecocks Plus is part of the Sport & Story network, which produces content in partnership with several SEC schools, including LSU, Arkansas, and Auburn, as well as South Carolina.

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A Gamecock Odyssey, now in paperback!

Author’s note: This is not a political newsletter. It’s one focused on sports and history - subjects that still possess the power to bring us together, in the case of the former, and which roots us commonality in the case of the latter. This piece was a bit of a departure for SxSE. Originally published January 15, 2023, on the 120th anniversary of a notorious murder that shocked the nation, it is a nearly unbelievable tale of outlandish characters, toxic political rivalry, and cold-blooded retribution which casts our current political tribulations into perspective. It is my fervent wish that the events of this week serve as a wake-up call to us. That we might remember that speech, even that which we find odious, absurd, or insulting, is sacred in America; that we remember fellow citizens with divergent viewpoints are not enemies; that we remember who we are as a people, rediscover our civility, and ultimately are brought closer together rather than pushed further apart.

“With the suddenness of a thunderclap from a cloudless sky, Tillman drew his weapon and sent the bullet on its deadly mission.” – The State, January 16, 1903

He almost forgot to eat sometimes. Such was the frenetic energy the editor poured into his duties at the newspaper he and his brothers founded over a decade before. This fateful day began no differently than most others, and none but one man could have predicted the sensational events which would unfold.

Friday, January 15, 1903 dawned seasonably cold in South Carolina’s capital city, with overnight lows around freezing. A weak winter sun brought temperatures into the fifties by mid-afternoon as early clouds gave way to clear skies. Around 1:45 pm, Narciso Gener (N. G.) Gonzales, the forty-four-year-old co-founder and editor of The State newspaper stepped out of his office at 1220 Main Street, setting off on his customary one-mile walk for lunch at his home at 1010 Henderson Street.

Gonzales turned south on Main in the direction of the State Capitol building, which sat impressively helmeted under a new copper-plated dome added a year prior, now glittering in the afternoon sun. Bronze stars marked the chipped blue granite of the capitol’s western façade where Sherman’s cannons found their target from the Congaree River’s west bank some five decades before.

Fire from that march destroyed eighty-eight of Columbia’s one hundred and twelve city blocks on February 17, 1865 during the desperate, waning days of the Civil War. Char still colored the stone foundation walls of Main Street basements whose original buildings had succumbed to the conflagration, even after new structures were built atop, including the offices now home to The State.

Gonzales had always been a man in a hurry. He was slightly built, with Pince-nez glasses, a chevron mustache, and twin crescents of scalp marking a hairline in steady retreat. His most distinguishing features were dark, piercing eyes, the windows into a searing intellect. Hands stuffed in overcoat pockets in his customary way, Gonzales strode with purpose the half block to Gervais Street, where he would turn east toward home.

Meanwhile, three legislators walked with equal purpose from the capitol building north, crossing Gervais, and meeting Gonzales just as he reached the corner. Within seconds the acrid smell of gunpowder filled the air, setting forth a chain of events which would shock the nation.

Amid a bustling capitol, the rise of “Tillmania”

Columbia boasted a population of over twenty-six thousand residents by 1900, then the largest city in the Carolinas outside of Charleston. Commerce thrived along the city’s Main Street, originally Richardson Street, but renamed a decade prior to reflect its prominence. Still five years from being paved, Main Street, as all of Columbia’s grid of avenues, was a “miry bog,” as described by Charleston’s News & Courier. The bicycle craze of the 1890’s was still going strong, and “wheelmen,” were often pitted against walkers as they avoided muddy streets in favor of firmer, if more kinetic sidewalks.

The Gonzales brothers were the sons of a Cuban revolutionary, Ambrosio Jose Gonzales, and Harriett Rutledge Elliott, the daughter of a prominent South Carolina family. After living for a time in his native Cuba, Gonzales returned his family to his wife’s native South Carolina following Harriett’s untimely death.

Ben Tillman, of Edgefield County in the western part of the state meanwhile, was a former leader of the “Red Shirt” mob, purveyors of political violence, employing murder and mayhem to influence the 1876 Governor’s race. It was an election which effectively marked the end of Reconstruction-era Republican rule in South Carolina and the broader old Confederacy.

Following the election of 1876, the State Legislature closed the University of South Carolina to purge it of its Reconstruction-era influence. USC had been the only state-supported university in the South to accept and grant degrees to Black students. It reopened as the South Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanics in 1880, returned once again to an all-white institution.

Tillman later ran a virulently racist campaign for Governor in 1890, ridiculing the wealthy planter-class establishment leadership within the Democratic party, known as the “Bourbon Democrats,” a ruling faction led in South Carolina by former Confederate General Wade Hampton, III.

The Gonzales brothers, sympathetic by social standing and temperament to the establishment Bourbons, founded The State in 1891 primarily to oppose Tillman’s most nakedly demagogic impulses.

Tillman. popularly known as the “Agricultural Moses,” was both revered and reviled for his advocacy on behalf of an often marginalized agrarian and rural population. He listed among his 1890 reform platform a desire to permanently close the University of South Carolina, calling it the “seedbed of aristocracy.” (He also directed his ire at The Citadel, which he called a “dude factory”).

Tillman demanded reforms in higher education, reallocating funds from South Carolina College, as the institution was by then known, in favor of Clemson College, which had in 1889 been founded as the state’s agricultural college.

During Tillman’s inaugural speech on December 4, 1890, he called his election a “triumph of democracy and white supremacy over mongrelism and anarchy, of civilization over barbarism.”

Historian Lewis Pinckney Jones in Stormy Petrel, his 1973 history of N.G. Gonzales and The State, notes many of Tillman’s accomplishments were progressive, but his methods drove away many who might have otherwise been supportive but for the Governor’s combative style. He wrote:

“…his dictatorial, abrupt and profane actions and language alienated many of his own followers, and yet his demagoguery and appeal to the prejudices of the masses elicited the popular support necessary to keep him in office long enough to make many of his reforms a permanent part of the South Carolina body politic.”

Gonzales frequently skewered Tillman within the editorial columns of his paper, earning a reputation for acidity and sharp elbows. He called Tillman, “as promising a tyrant as was ever bred by a free republic,” among other less flattering screeds.

Tillman in return focused much of his significant ire upon Gonzales, to which N.G. quipped, “Governor Tillman is still advertising The State. We pay him nothing for doing it. It is a service of love.”

Tillman even propped up a rival Columbia daily newspaper, The Register, recruiting the agrarian agitator T. Larry Gantt as editor. Gantt frequently appeared, according to Jones, wearing a coarse woolen shirt with a soft collar and a “remnant of a tie.” His trousers stopped well above his worn brogans, and the tobacco in his long pipe was always supplemented by another wad in his cheek. Upon arriving from his native Georgia. Gantt reportedly warned Gonzales, “There’s no use for you fellows to begin telling lies, for I give you fair warning that I kin beat any man in South Carolina in the lying business.”

Gonzales called Gantt “Tillman’s salaried provocateur.”

Tillman easily won reelection in 1892, during a time when the governorship ran for a two-year term. Gonzales’ unrestrained attacks on Tillman, according to an early Tillman biographer, foolishly accentuated the division between businessmen and farmer, further endearing to the latter their iconoclastic leader.

Following Tillman’s second term, he ran a successful campaign for U.S. Senate in 1894. Tensions between Gonzales and Tillman settled into a relative ease back in South Carolina, with both men practicing a more restrained tone, and more moderate Reformers running the state. Soon after, a younger Tillman would disrupt that delicate détente.

“Tillman the Little”

By 1900, Senator Ben Tillman’s nephew, James Hammond Tillman had risen, largely on the coattails of his famous uncle, to the position of Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina. When the younger Tillman announced his intentions to run for Governor during the 1902 election, Gonzales once again, “dipped his pen into the gall,” as Jones put it, calling Tillman among other things, a “debauchee,” a “blackguard,” and a “criminal.”

In a series of exposés, Gonzales documented Tillman’s falsifying of State Senate records and misuse of public funds, including the misappropriation of monies raised to construct a Confederate monument in his native Edgefield.

Jones wrote that the younger Tillman represented Tillmanism at its worst, noting that he “out-Tillmaned” his uncle as a master of demagoguery, particularly in arousing bitter anti-Black prejudices. “He was a known gambler, a drunkard, a ‘rascal’, and a free-spender of his and other people’s money.”

The feud between Gonzales and Jim Tillman actually went back to 1890, when an anonymous letter published in the Winnsboro News and Herald attacked Gonzales personally, describing him, among other racist tropes, as “a treacherous Spaniard.” Gonzales eventually discovered it had been James Tillman who wrote the letter, and he was later instrumental in blocking Tillman from attaining membership at a prominent social club in Columbia.

Following the second incident, Tillman sent Gonzales an “invitation to Georgia,” which was a thinly-veiled challenge to a duel. Dueling or challenging to a duel was illegal, explaining the awkwardly-worded invitation. “Georgia” was almost certainly a reference to an area where duels were sometimes fought on a narrow strip of land in the Savannah River, marking the border between South Carolina and Georgia. Gonzales declined the invitation.

Though Gonzales did not vigorously oppose Tillman’s run for Lieutenant Governor in 1900, writing, “we can stand it if the senate can,” things turned ugly a couple of years later, due to a series of high-profile events.

From December, 1901 to June, 1902, the City of Charleston hosted the cumbersomely-named South Carolina Interstate and West Indian Exposition, which aimed to improve trade relations between South Carolina, Latin America and Caribbean nations. A visit from President Theodore Roosevelt in April, 1902 highlighted the event. The Presidential visit, however, was nearly sidelined by poison politics.

Ahead of the President’s visit, James Tillman raised funds to purchase a sword for Major Micah Jenkins, a famed South Carolina military hero, and member of Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. Roosevelt agreed to present the sword during his April visit.

The Presidential visit was endangered when on February 22, 1902, Ben Tillman and the Junior Senator from South Carolina, John McLaurin, engaged in fisticuffs on the floor of the U.S. Senate, sparked over political disagreements amid a pending vote on the annexation of the Philippine Islands.

McLaurin was an old mentee of Tillman’s, but had been courted by Senate Republicans, and motivated by a desire to see South Carolina participate more fully in the nation’s industrial progress, McLaurin turned away from his old mentor, infuriating Tillman.

During the annexation debate, Tillman charged with colorful language that McLaurin had succumbed to “improper influences,” in changing his position on Philippine annexation. McLaurin, who had been temporarily absent in committee meetings, got wind of the remarks and charged back into the Senate chamber to denounce Tillman’s diatribe as “a willful, malicious and deliberate lie.”

At that, the fifty-four-year-old Tillman attacked the forty-one-year-old McLaurin. As Jones describes in Stormy Petrel, efforts to separate the two resulted in misdirected punches landing on other members.

The fight was the first in the Senate chamber since a similar incident fifty-two years prior, between Mississippi Senator Henry Foote and Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton on April 17, 1850, more than a decade before the outbreak of the Civil War.

Tillman and McLaurin were both found in contempt of the Senate, and both eventually offered apologies, though they each did so in such caustic terms that the ruckus threatened to explode once more.

This, and other outbursts on the Senate floor earned Tillman the nickname “Pitchfork Ben,” for his tendency to poke and prod political opponents, both verbally and at times, physically.

Following the censure of Tillman and McLaurin, the Senate passed Rule 19, a directive which prohibited senators from “directly or indirectly, by any form of words, impart to another senator any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator.”1

Roosevelt subsequently cancelled an invitation for Ben Tillman to attend a White House dinner, after which James Tillman withdrew his invitation for Roosevelt to present the sword to Jenkins, the old Rough Rider. The unpleasant series of insults and disinvitations nearly sidelined Roosevelt’s Charleston visit altogether, but cooler heads eventually prevailed.

Gonzales, wrote of James Tillman’s insult to the President, “South Carolina is not responsible for this act of boorishness by ‘Tillman the Little.’” The State, in concert with several other dailies across South Carolina, raised money for a replacement sword, which President Roosevelt presented to Jenkins on April 9, 1902.

Amid these chaotic events, the younger Tillman entered the Governor’s race during the same month as Roosevelt’s South Carolina visit. Throughout the spring and summer of 1902, Gonzales was unrestrained in his open disdain and mockery of the younger Tillman, to the extent that his brothers and friends warned of the potential danger from Tillman, who was known to be violent. Gonzales responded that if Tillman were going to shoot him, he would have done so already.

Unlike Gonzales’ handling of the elder Tillman, there was no hint of humor or lampooning in his handling of James Tillman in the campaign of 1902. Gonzales noted there was no room to lampoon a man whose character offered no grounds for jest, noting also that, “compared to Jim, Ben was a gentleman and a patriot.”

Tillman ultimately finished fourth in the first Democratic gubernatorial primary on September 3, 1902. He bitterly blamed his dismal finish on Gonzales, citing the “brutal, false and malicious newspaper attacks” suffered at the hands of The State.

Though Gonzales no doubt took quiet satisfaction in the results of the election, his editorial guns went silent following the primary results, which denied Tillman a general election shot at the Governor’s Mansion.

For four and a half months, Gonzales turned his attention to other issues, while Tillman finished out his term as Lieutenant Governor and simmered over Gonzales’ role in his humiliating defeat.

“Shoot me again, you coward'‘

Gonzales and Tillman frequently crossed paths as Gonzales covered debates in the State House, and while walking upon the streets surrounding the capitol, always passing wordlessly, each careful to steer clear of the other.

As they both approached the corner of Gervais and Main Streets on that fateful day, Gonzales cut inside to make his left turn, putting him between Tillman and a trolly transfer building which then occupied the northeast corner of that intersection (now the site of the Moxy Hotel). Tillman was in the company of State Senators W. Brown of Darlington and Thomas Talbird of Beaufort.

As they came abreast, Tillman pulled out an automatic pistol to the surprise of his companions, and fired a shot which entered around Gonzales’ chest pocket, exiting with calamitous effect, bisecting his abdomen. The stunned Gonzales fell back against the transfer station and managed to push himself into a sitting position against the building’s south façade.

As Gonzales stared up at his attacker, who stood with pistol drawn as if to fire a final deadly shot, the editor hissed, “Shoot me again, you coward.”

Tillman lowered his pistol and surrendered to Columbia policeman George Boland, who had been standing nearby. Boland found a second pistol on Tillman’s person.

One eyewitness to the event, Emma C. Melton, testified later that she was about to speak to Mr. Gonzales, whom she knew well. “His face,” she said, “was perfectly calm,” indicating that Gonzales was not anticipating trouble. Though the editor was known to own a revolver, he was unarmed at the time, a fact confirmed when the weapon was later found in a locked drawer at his desk.

Bystanders James F. Sims and Gamewell LaMotte went to Gonzales side, asking him where he wanted to go. He answered, “The State offices.” With Sims and LaMotte on either side, Gonzales struggled back to his office and was laid on the floor, his head propped atop a stack of newspapers.

Doctors summoned to The State’s offices confirmed the situation was dire and Gonzales was soon transferred to the Columbia Hospital, “a trip he tolerated beautifully,” according to reports. As he was transported, Gonzales dictated his account of the shooting, which was later entered into evidence. An operation was performed in short order to repair the damaged intestines, and a colon which had been nearly severed by the bullet.

Word swiftly spread across South Carolina and beyond of the inconceivable shooting by South Carolina’s sitting Lieutenant Governor of its most prominent journalist. The focus of the entire city and state turned to Gonzales, and even Mrs. J. H. Tillman offered personal expressions of regret and sincere hopes of recovery to Mrs. Gonzales. Worshipers offered prayers in churches throughout Columbia during services on Sunday, January 18.

Everywhere citizens gathered, talk centered around the sensational event. Reaction across the state was mixed, and fell along political lines, with many Tillman supporters perversely gleeful about the shooting and calling for immediate acquittal. To many, the surprise was not that Gonzales had been shot, but that it had not happened months earlier, in the immediate aftermath of Tillman’s primary loss. As one editorial put it, according to Jones, “If a man insists upon playing with live wires, electrocution generally results. Nonetheless, it is a great pity.”

Despite the best efforts of Columbia’s most esteemed surgeons, Gonzales’ wound proved mortal, as medical practices of the day were not sufficient to repair the damage and reverse the effects of Gonzales’ extensive blood loss. By Wednesday, January 19, the forty-four-year-old Gonzales succumbed to peritonitis, a septic inflammation of his ruptured colon.

News of Gonzales’ death unleashed a spasm of grief and rage among editors, who swiftly elevated him to a martyr for the freedom of the press. Telegrams offering expressions of sympathy from all corners of South Carolina, and from as far away as New York and San Francisco flooded the offices of The State. A representative message sent from C. A. Matthews of Charlotte in the hours before Gonzales’ death read, “Give my love to your brother and tell him Charlotte feels deeply for him in his sufferings. May God spare him to The State and to South Carolina.”

The “Trial of the Century”

South Carolina’s Chief Justice Young L. Pope refused Tillman bail in the days following the murder. Though confined in the Columbia jail, Tillman received hundreds of well-wishers at his cell who came bearing gifts of furniture, books, and flowers.

In the murder trial which followed, Solicitor William Thurmond, father of future Governor and U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, received the assignment to prosecute Tillman. The Thurmond family, as the Tillmans, had deep roots in Edgefield County.

Defense council opened by filing for a change of venue when hearings began in June, 1903. The defense introduced hundreds of affidavits to demonstrate that Tillman could not receive a fair trial in Columbia, the home of Gonzales’ State, where local sentiment was stridently anti-Tillman, and where a monument to honor the fallen editor was being planned.

The court agreed to move the trial to neighboring Lexington County, which was notably more rural and historically voted more overwhelmingly for Ben Tillman than any other county, including Edgefield.

The State hired a young stenographer, James F. Byrnes, to record trial proceedings for its columns. In later years, Byrnes served as South Carolina Governor, U.S. Senator, Supreme Court Justice, and the 49th Secretary of State under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Ben Tillman largely avoided the trial, appearing in the courtroom just one day, but offered support in helping to arrange legal counsel. Though he had for years distanced himself from James, he noted, “Jim Tillman is my nephew, and blood is thicker than water.”

A special train operated daily during the three-week trial, carrying the many reporters and interested spectators the twelve miles between Columbia and the Lexington County Courthouse. Beyond The State’s stenographer Byrnes, reporters from the Anderson Daily Mail, the Charleston Evening Post, Florence’s Daily Times, Greenville’s Daily News, Spartanburg’s Daily Herald, Greenwood’s Daily Index, and Sumter’s Daily Item provided extensive coverage, along with representatives from other regional and national outlets.

The defense team had little with which to work. Tillman, after all, admittedly shot the deceased in broad daylight at the most prominent intersection in Columbia, an event witnessed by dozens. During the trial, Tillman’s counsel argued that the defendant shot Gonzales in self-defense, having seen Gonzales’ hands in his coat pockets, and claiming one of them “moved menacingly.” Perhaps unsure of the convincing power of their “menacing hands” defense, Tillman’s attorneys also introduced a number of inflammatory editorials penned by Gonzales as evidence that homicide was justified.

The prosecution, led by Thurmond, countered with testimony that Gonzales was known to walk unarmed, and had frequently passed Tillman in the street without incident. Further, they argued, “thumb wriggling” was no justification for murder.

Many editorials introduced by the defense were shown by prosecutors to be quotations from other newspapers. Twelve of the thirteen dailies in South Carolina, ran frequent anti-Tillman editorials during the 1902 election. Yet, assistant prosecutor William Elliott noted, The State was the most prominent, and Tillman’s defense team “placed the abuse of every newspaper… upon the head of Gonzales.”

The prosecution showed that Tillman had never even contemplated the possibility of a lawsuit against Gonzales for the editorial attacks his lawyers claimed were so provocative and libelous. Further, the State produced witnesses who testified that on several occasions during the 1902 campaign, Tillman commented that he ought to murder Gonzales.

William Elliott closed for the prosecution by saying a verdict of “not-guilty” would mean no less than an end to freedom of the press, adding that the defendant had, “slain the prosecuting witness, and added a crime to his record which far exceeds anything charged against him by the dead editor. James H. Tillman’s motive was revenge, and he is a murderer.”

Despite an airtight prosecution and a shaky defense, friendly Lexington County jurors acquitted Tillman, bringing a shocking end to the three-week trial. Following the verdict, The State dropped its policy of neutrality, in place since the shooting, proclaiming in bold headlines the next day, “THE FARCE IS ENDED…. THE CARDS WERE STACKED.”

According to Jones, both pulpit and press roundly condemned the verdict as a travesty in the days which followed. Fund raising for a monument to honor Gonzales, which had been paused during the trial resumed in earnest.

Tillman retired from public life following the trial, disgraced and in poor health. He died in Asheville, North Carolina on April 11, 1911 at the age of forty-two.

An often-forgotten monument stands watch over lawmakers still

On December 12, 1905, a granite obelisk was unveiled before an estimated crowd of two thousand onlookers at the corner of Sumter Street and the eastern terminus of Senate Street across from the State Capitol complex. The location marks the route which Gonzales walked daily between work and home, and stands permanent watch over lawmakers as they conduct the people’s business.

Josephus Daniels of the Raleigh News & Observer lauded his peer on the occasion, noting, “He was simply an editor in a small Southern capital, who made a great newspaper simply through his ability and his pluck. The people of South Carolina erected a monument to that editor because he fought their battle and because he was the foe to public men who do not have the high conception of public office as a sacred trust.”

Among the etched tributes is a quote from Gonzales’ own December 10, 1900 editorial in The State, which notes, “The measurement of success is not what we get out of life, but what we leave after it.”

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1

In 2017, Republican senators used the arcane directive to sideline Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) after she cited criticism of then Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), President Donald Trump’s nominee for Attorney General. Warren quoted from a pair of letters written by the late Coretta Scott King opposing Sessions’ nomination to a federal judgeship in 1986, accusing Sessions of racial bias. Invocation of the rule silenced further comments from Warren until after Sessions’ nomination.)

Dear SxSE readers,

I am immersed in a book project (more on that later), so new posts will likely be on the shorter side over the coming months. That said, I could not pass up the opportunity to highlight the historic play of Gamecock punt returner Vicari Swain over the first two games of the season.

Unbelievably, Swain has returned three punts for touchdowns so far in 2025 - one in the opener versus Virginia Tech, and two in the second quarter versus South Carolina State in game two. Swain’s electric play has him tied for the season record for punts returned for a touchdown with Gamecock great Dickie Harris, who accomplished the same feat in 1971.

Swain is also in hot pursuit of Harris’ career mark - four punts returned for touchdowns, set over two seasons in 1970 and ‘71.

Chasing a legend

Dickie Harris was a phenom in Garnet & Black. A defensive back and punt return specialist from Point Pleasant, New Jersey, Harris had a nose for the end zone, and found his way there in nearly every way imaginable.

During his junior campaign in 1970, Harris returned a kickoff 96 yards for a score versus Georgia, then scored in spectacular fashion against the Bulldogs again with a 94-yard pick-six. Earlier that season, he returned a punt 97 yards for a touchdown in an upset win over #18-ranked UNC.1

Harris followed that with a spectacular senior season in 1971, solidifying his legendary status in Gamecock lore, and earning him All-ACC and All-America recognitions.

Saturday, September 11, 1971 dawned ominously, with dark clouds and rain that lingered most of the day. South Carolina played host to #17-ranked Georgia Tech for the season-opening game, slated for a 7:30pm kickoff. The previous season it was the #17-ranked Gamecocks who fell to Tech 23-20 in a season-opening contest at Grant Field in Atlanta in the first meeting between the two programs since 1950.

Intermittent rain could not dampen the enthusiasm of what was then the largest crowd to ever witness a football contest in the state. The stadium was a kaleidoscope of rain ponchos, Gamecock-garnet and canary-yellow and generic shades of blue, and as kickoff approached, fans in the new upper-west deck gawked at newly-elevated views of the State Fairgrounds and a rain-veiled capital city skyline beyond.

Late-arriving fans with upper-west tickets ascended in serpentine fashion around and around the massive new concrete ramps at the northwest and southwest corners of the stadium. Some stopped along the way to catch a breath, taking in stadium views while leaning against ramp walls during the benediction and the Star-Spangled Banner. The wafting aroma of cigarette smoke and Cromer’s popcorn mingled in the early evening damp - both cigarettes and popcorn were available at concessions stands for forty cents-a-pack and twenty-five cents per red-and-white-striped box, respectively. It was the fragrance of football season in Columbia.

Defense and special teams carried the night for the Gamecocks in a dominant 24-7 win over the favored Yellow Jackets. Gamecock special teams were special indeed, as Harris blocked a punt by Tech’s Bob Johnson, which Jimmy Nash scooped up for an eleven-yard touchdown return just before the half, giving Carolina an 11-7 lead at intermission. Harris provided more fireworks in the third period with an electrifying seventy-seven-yard punt return for a touchdown.

Harris added a 43-yard punt return for a score in a 34-14 victory over Virginia, and another score on a 59-yard punt return in a 35-6 win over Maryland later that season.2

Further marking Harris’ brilliance as an all-around threat with the football, Coach Paul Dietzel moved his star defensive back to tailback for the Wake Forest game in 1971 - a surprise move, which caught the Demon Deacons off guard. Harris feasted off Wake defenders, scoring three rushing touchdowns on the afternoon.

In all, Harris scored nine career touchdowns; four on punt returns, three as a running back, one interception return, and one kickoff return. He went onto a Hall of Fame career with the Canadian Football League’s Montreal Allouettes, and was inducted into the University of South Carolina Athletics Hall of Fame in 1988.

Living up to the legend of Dickie Harris is no small order. No Gamecock had come close for 54 years, until now. Victari Swain, a redshirt sophomore from Carrollton, Georgia, has already tied Harris’ season-record for punt returns taken to the house. With nine regular-season games left in 2025, and perhaps two more years with the program beyond, he is poised to rewrite the Gamecocks’ special teams record book.

Something tells me Harris is pulling for him to do just that.

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South Carolina’s 1971 win over Maryland marked the final meeting between the two programs, capping what had been a spirited rivalry which began in 1926 and peaked during Carolina’s eighteen seasons of ACC play (1953-1970). 1971 was the Gamecocks inaugural season in the post-ACC era.

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The crape myrtle and hydrangea blooms are growing paler by the day, inching past their prime as we enter the doldrums of late summer. Earlier markers of the season have flown by like mile markers on a blacktop highway - Memorial Day and the College World Series; Independence Day, beach trips, and, for those who follow it, the three-week televised diversion of the Tour de France rolling through the blast-furnace days of July.

Daylight has shortened noticeably since midsummer, and school busses are lurching along their appointed routes once more. Our thoughts turn naturally in this first week of August to pigskin and tailgating, and the promise of cooler weather to come… at some point.

The long-awaited opening game sits agonizingly close. Across from Williams-Brice Stadium, the pop of shoulder pads and the shrill retort of coaches’ whistles cuts through air as warm as dogs breath, and fall camp is underway with its tantalizing promise of what might be. We’ll pass the coming weeks absorbed by the minutiae of roster and schedule analyses, knowing full well Gamecock football will be back before the calendar turns again.

Renewing a long-dormant series

There was a time in 1980’s and early 90’s that Virginia Tech was the closest thing South Carolina had to an all-sports conference rival. The two were football independents at the time - Carolina left the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1971, while Virginia Tech departed the Southern Conference in 1965. Both later joined the Metro Conference in all sports other than football (Tech in 1978, Carolina in 1983). From 1986 through 1991, the programs played annually in football with the Gamecocks holding a 4-0-2 advantage.1

Going back a little further, the two schools were conference rivals as members of the old Southern Conference from 1922 until 1953, when the Gamecocks left to help form the ACC. The Gamecocks and Hokies faced off seven times between 1925 and 1936 as members of the SoCon, with Carolina holding a 4-3 advantage. Oddly, the programs did not play between 1937 and 1952, despite being in the same conference.

Overall South Carolina holds an 11-7-2 advantage across twenty matchups between 1905 and 1991, and there have been a number of memorable games in the rivalry over the years. Here’s a look at a handful of those matchups:

1905

The Virginia Tech series started in calamitous fashion for South Carolina, a 34-0 loss in Roanoke on November 18, 1905. Despite the defeat, reports from The State noted without critique that Gamecock coach Christie Benet “expressed himself as well pleased with the result of the game,” adding “all of the boys report a pleasant trip and speak in an appreciative manner of their treatment at the hands of the Virginians.” Victorian-era editorializing, it’s safe to say, was a touch more restrained than today’s readers are accustomed to.

The Gamecocks finished 4-3-1 on the season - a winner, but off pace from the program-best eight-win squad in 1903 - a win total matched only twice over the next eight decades (1979 & 1980), and not eclipsed until the 1984 team won ten games.

Carolina’s athletic teams had only been known as “Gamecocks” for a few years at that point. It was a trending nickname that became entrenched in university lore following a near armed riot at the gates of the USC Horseshoe following the 1902 Big Thursday game.

That incident led to a pause in the Carolina-Clemson rivalry for seven years, finally returning for the 1909 season. Trustees at Carolina banned football altogether in 1906 due to concerns over student safety amid an alarming number of deaths associated with the game. As many as 19 football-related deaths occurred across the country during the 1905 season.

President Theodore Roosevelt intervened, threatening to shut down college football by executive order unless changes were made. The President, an admirer of the game, sought to save what was good about the sport while heading off a wave of justifiable public concern about the dangers.

In short order, college administrators formed the Intercollegiate Athletic Association, a forerunner to the NCAA, which in turn implemented safety measures and procedural changes, such as the ten-yard rule for first downs, the forward pass, the fair catch, and penalties for holding, tackling below the knee, and unnecessary roughness.

The changes saved college football and introduced the modern game we recognize today.

1934

Before it was rechristened Williams-Brice Stadium 1971, the Gamecocks’ football home was known as Carolina Stadium. But the ballpark originally debuted as Columbia Municipal Stadium on October 6, 1934 in a 22-6 Gamecock win over Virginia Military Institute. Following a subsequent Big Thursday loss against Clemson, the third-ever game played at what would become Williams-Brice was a bounce back-win over Virginia Tech.

Coach Billy Laval’s Gamecocks were defending Southern Conference co-champions that season, having finished 1933 undefeated in SoCon play at 3-0, though history reflects Duke as the official SoCon champ with a 4-0 mark.

Estimated paid attendance was around 4,500 in the 17,600-seat stadium, though probably closer to 5,000, “…including officials, the players, coaches, ushers, the Carolina band, the cheerleaders, and officers,” according to coverage of the contest. It was a significantly reduced crowd from the prior week’s Big Thursday outing, and included “only those who had recovered” from the Clemson game.

Third-string fullback turned starting halfback Bob Robbins proved Carolina’s ace in the hole, according to John A. Montgomery, writing for The State, who noted that Robbins “threw off the injury bug that had chased him through two-and-a-half seasons and cracked the line for valuable gains.” Robbins pulled double-duty, turning in a stellar performance on defense. “His all-around work was rewarded by a big ovation when he trotted off the field in the closing minutes of play,” Montgomery wrote. Robbins gained 45 yards and scored one rushing touchdown on the day.

Montgomery wrote with flair of the afternoon’s contest,

“The Carolina Gamecocks stretched its wings over Municipal Stadium yesterday and crowed again. Beaten the week before by a powerful Clemson Tiger, it came back yesterday, befitting its name and turned back the Virginia Tech Gobblers in the Southern Conference Battle of the Birds, 20-0, before 4,500.”

1969

The Gamecocks famously won the ACC championship in ‘69, compiling a 6-0 record in ACC play (Carolina did not play Virginia that season). Finishing 7-4 overall, the Gamecocks faced tough sledding out of conference with hard-fought road losses at top-ten SEC powers Georgia and Tennessee, and a budding Florida State program. A mud-splashed loss in the Peach Bowl versus Jim Carlen-coached West Virginia marred the Gamecocks’ second-ever post-season bowl.

A thrilling 17-16 win over the Hokies in Blacksburg represented Carolina’s lone non-conference win of the season. The Hokies overcame sloppy play, including four lost fumbles, to take a 16-14 lead with 1:13 remaining. Carolina stormed right back with a Dickie Harris kickoff return to the Hokie 32-yard line. After several plays with no gain, placekicker Billy DePre nailed a 47-yard field goal for the win.

The ‘69 team remains the only outright conference champion in program history, and the roster was filled with names that echo through the decades.2 Quarterback Tommy Suggs led the Gamecocks to three-straight wins over Clemson (1968-70), set ACC and program records for passing touchdowns in a game (5), and graduated as the program leader in yards (4,916), and touchdowns (34). He was inducted into the USC Athletics Hall of Fame in 1989, and remains an integral part of Carolina football as the longtime color analyst for the Gamecock Radio Network.

Suggs’ favorite target was a lanky receiver from St. George, South Carolina, Freddy Ziegler. Recruited by then-USC assistant Lou Holtz, Ziegler left the program as the all-time leading receiver, and still holds records for catches (12) and receiving yards in a game (199) set against Virginia in 1968. He was inducted into the USC Athletics Hall of Fame in 1995.

Anchoring the offensive backfield was rugged fullback Warren Muir, who rumbled for 969 yards during his senior season of 1969. Coach Paul Dietzel called him “the toughest inside runner in college football.” Muir was a first-team All-America selection in ‘69, and was inducted into the USC Athletics Hall of Fame in 2003.

Other notable members of the team included sophomore defensive back and kick-return specialist Dickie Harris - a future All-America and All-ACC selection who would be inducted into the USC HOF in 1998; steady placekicker Billy DuPre, a soccer-style kicker from Columbia’s AC Flora High School; offensive tackle Dave DeCamilla, from Hudson Falls, New York; and defensive end Lynn Hodge of Union, South Carolina, among a host of others.

Bob Spear of The State covered the 1969 Gamecock team’s 50th reunion in this fantastic November 28, 2019 piece.

1990

Throughout the summer of 1990, speculation swirled around two pending conference expansions - one in the ACC, one in the SEC. Florida State, Miami, and South Carolina played a high-stakes game of musical chairs that summer, as conference officials played it close to the vest.

On September 14, FSU accepted an invitation to join the ACC, leaving Miami and South Carolina to vie for the open SEC spot. After SEC Commissioner Roy Kramer visited interim USC President Arthur K. Smith at the president’s residence on the historic USC Horseshoe, Smith described the meeting as “warm, very pleasant, cordial. Friendly.” Indeed, Kramer’s meeting with USC officials was a languid affair, stretching over four hours, including an elaborate lunch. In contrast, Kramer’s earlier meeting with Miami officials was comparatively brief and reportedly not as cordial. Smith told reporters he felt, “if anything, more encouraged, more optimistic than I have been.”

Beyond the good feelings in Columbia, reports out of Coral Gables pointed to a Miami move to the expanding Big East Conference.

As excitement and anticipation built at USC, Coach Sparky Woods’ Gamecocks traveled to Blacksburg for a road contest versus Frank Beamer’s Virginia Tech Hokies. Momentum was building around fourth-year coach Beamer’s program, and though no one in Lane Stadium could have known it that day, he would go on to enjoy a legendary career spanning twenty-nine seasons at Tech, including three Big East and four ACC championships.

It was a noon kickoff in bucolic Blacksburg. Temperatures were a balmy sixty-nine degrees with clearing skies after an overnight rain. The Gamecocks struggled throughout the first half, which ended with a 14-7 Hokie lead. Tech scored ten more in the third period, while the Gamecocks scored on a one-yard Mike Dingle touchdown run. Collin Mackie’s extra point was blocked, and the Hokies carried a 24-13 lead into the final period.

The Gamecocks caught fire during the fourth quarter, scoring three touchdowns in five minutes on two Dingle rushing scores and a Bobby Fuller strike to receiver Eddie Miller. Dingle finished with four rushing touchdowns and 131 yards, while Fuller threw for 251 yards and junior receiver Robert Brooks, a future Green Bay Packer, hauled in 118 receiving yards. The Gamecocks pulled off a gritty, come-from-behind win, and the 35-24 final kept Carolina perfect in the early season at 3-0 after earlier victories over former ACC foes, UNC and Duke.

That Saturday, September 22, marked the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Hugo’s devastating landfall along the South Carolina coast in 1989. The win was a harbinger of better days, and served to heighten the good vibes in Columbia as the SEC’s decision loomed.

The following Tuesday morning, September 25, SEC Commissioner Kramer telephoned USC interim president Smith to extend the coveted membership invitation. The USC Board of Trustees voted unanimously to accept, and by midday, media outlets were notified. After a winding, sometimes uncomfortable, and often uncertain courtship, USC’s athletic fortunes changed forever with a simple phone call.

On July 1, 1991, Arkansas and South Carolina officially become the eleventh and twelfth member of the mighty Southeastern Conference.

Looking ahead

South Carolina defeated Virginia Tech again in 1991 by a score of 28-21 during Frank Beamer’s fifth season in Blacksburg. It turned out to be the final matchup between the two programs for thirty-three years.

In 2025 there is another Beamer entering his fifth season as head coach, this time, South Carolina’s Shane Beamer - a 1999 Virginia Tech graduate, Hokie letterman, and son of the legendary elder Beamer.

Beamer and the Gamecocks are riding a wave of momentum, coming off a feel-good 2024 campaign in which Carolina won nine games, including the final six of the regular season, behind the heroics of redshirt freshman quarterback LaNorris Sellers. After defeating Clemson in thrilling fashion at Death Valley, the Gamecocks found themselves very much in the discussion for the first-ever twelve-team College Football Playoffs, but ultimately settled for a Citrus Bowl bid versus Illinois of the Big 10. A frustrating and at times controversial 21-17 loss to the Illini tarnished an otherwise sensational finish to the ‘24 season, and has the Gamecocks eager to take the next step forward in 2025.

Beamer is 29-22 (.569) through four seasons in Columbia, and has won over fans and pundits alike. With a new offensive coordinator, veteran coach Mike Shula, and significant contributors from 2024 competing for spots on NFL rosters this fall, there are question marks for the Gamecocks entering the new season. But Beamer has developed a flair for dramatic results during his time at South Carolina, and there is a real sense that big things lay ahead. Carolina was picked 5th in the SEC pre-season, up from 13th prior to the 2024 season. If Sellers, an early Heisman Trophy candidate, can stay healthy and do the things he did during the second half of 2024, Gamecock fans are in for a fun ride.

Virginia Tech enters 2025 under fourth-year head coach Brent Pry, who carries a 16-21 overall record (10-13, ACC). The Hokies finished a disappointing 6-7 in 2024, and Pry is under pressure to turn things around entering the new season. The Hokies will look to make a splash in a high profile game versus an SEC opponent. Virginia Tech was picked to finish 11th out of 17 teams during polling at the preseason ACC media event in July, and fans in Blacksburg are anxious for a return to Frank Beamer-era success. Some have speculated, given his deep connections to Blacksburg, Shane Beamer could be targeted by the Hokies if things don’t pan out for Pry this season.

The Gamecocks and Hokies will meet in Atlanta for the Aflac Kickoff Game, Sunday, August 31 at 3pm. South Carolina is an early 8.5 point favorite according to oddsmakers. The game is part of a double-header weekend in Atlanta, with Tennessee taking on Syracuse on Saturday, August 30. The Gamecocks vs. Hokies Sunday tilt represents the 16th SEC versus ACC matchup in the Aflac Kickoff series, which dates to 2008. The SEC holds a 13-1 lead in those matchups.

As the sweltering August days tick by, “talking season,” as the great Steve Spurrier phrased it, is nearly over.

It’s almost time for Carolina Football.

2

The Gamecocks won a share of the 1965 ACC title, though it was later vacated. Read about that here.

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A Gamecock Odyssey - now in paperback!

The fruit baskets were a thoughtful idea.

Just days following South Carolina’s season-ending loss to arch rival Clemson, putting a merciful end the 1982 season at 4-7, a friend of the program had fruit baskets delivered to each member of USC’s beleaguered football team at The Roost athletic dormitory. The team had just lost their coach, Richard Bell, after a single tumultuous season, and were cast adrift over a span of two weeks while athletics director Bob Marcum searched for a new Gamecock head man.

“I remember all of this uncertainty,” former Gamecock receiver Eric Poole reflects. Now 60, Poole was a freshman on the ‘82 squad.

“It was a bunch of young kids. The coaches were gone. We didn’t know what direction the program was going in. There was nobody around, no bed checks, no curfews.” He calls the fruit baskets a “nice good-will gesture.”

But in that atmosphere of roiling instability, boredom and youthful exuberance, Poole says, “that fruit ended up being fuel for the biggest food fight you could ever imagine. We literally just destroyed our dorm. Some of the people that came around after that were just appalled, and I think the next morning even we were,” Poole says laughing at the memory. “We were like ‘what did we just do to our dorm?’ But we were in an unusual mental state, and being 18 year-old kids, it just kind of spoke to our state of mind - we were in this period of flux.”

In short order Marcum hired Joe Morrison away from New Mexico to lead the Gamecock program, and “everything settled down pretty quickly,” Poole says.

Of Morrison’s first season in 1983, Poole’s sophomore campaign, he recalls a distinctly different feel around the program. Indeed, when the Gamecocks took the field to open the ‘83 season against #11-ranked North Carolina, they entered to the theme from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” for the first time, beginning one of the great traditions of Gamecock athletics. The team sported updated uniforms, a snazzy sartorial upgrade - a professional look. Morrison was putting his stamp on the program early. Despite a 24-8 loss to the Tar Heels, the modern era of Gamecock football had begun.

The Gamecocks finished 5-6 that season, highlighted by a 38-14 thrashing of traditional power Southern Cal in Columbia. “We all felt a little better,” Poole reflects. “Even though 5-6 was still a losing season and not where any of us wanted to be, there was a little bit of a feeling. You could feel a little different energy, a different atmosphere, and he [Morrison] was beginning to establish his culture.”

Following Carolina’s hard-fought 22-13 season-ending loss to Clemson, Morrison told reporters, “I believe this team will mature a little bit, and on down the line will be able to turn some of these things the other way.”

Morrison proved prophetic, and “on down the line” would come sooner than anyone expected.

“Spartanburg born and raised”

Poole grew up in Spartanburg in South Carolina’s Upstate, one of three children born to Jimmy and Janice Poole, natives of nearby Gaffney and Shelby, North Carolina respectively. Jimmy worked in the region’s once thriving textile industry, and later established his own cotton brokerage when Upstate textile jobs began to dry up in the early to mid 1990’s.

Poole was a veritable Swiss Army knife at Spartanburg High School, playing quarterback, receiver and even running back, earning all-region honors and honorable mention All-America honors during a heralded prep career. The Spartanburg program was led by legendary coach Bill Carr, who coached nearby Liberty and Spartanburg for a combined thirty-two seasons between 1948 and 1980, receiving National High School Coach of the Year honors in 1978. Carr retired prior to Poole’s junior season, and was replaced by Ellis Johnson, whom Gamecock fans would become familiar in later years.

Recruited by a number of in-state and regional programs, Poole’s college choice ultimately came down to Duke and South Carolina. “I almost pulled the trigger on Duke,” Poole reflects, citing their sterling academic credentials. Another pull for the Blue Devil program was offensive coordinator Steve Spurrier. “I took an official visit, met with him, and I remember thinking, ‘wow, they throw the football a lot!’”

“It was tempting,” Poole says of the opportunity to play in Spurrier’s high-octane passing attack, “but in the end there was just too much of a pull back to South Carolina.”

The 1984 Season

Of the legendary 1984 squad, Poole describes a feeling of cautious optimism as fall camp began that August. “I think we were all pretty confident. I don’t think anybody had a sense we would be ranked as high as number two in the nation going in, but I think there was a little bit of confidence with a year under our belts of learning the offense and defense.”

Another reason for optimism was the switch from Astroturf to natural grass at Williams-Brice Stadium prior to the ‘84 slate.

“Oh, it was the worst thing ever. We really hated it,” Poole says of the rough-as-a-cob Astroturf field. “I don’t know anybody that played with me that enjoyed that field. And it was pretty old. All of us at one point or another were limping around with shin splints.”

Indeed, as crews began to take up the old field which had been in place since 1971, they encountered a thin layer of foam padding under the turf, then thirty-two tons of asphalt and twenty-nine tons of gravel nearly a foot deep which had to be broken up and hauled away. It was essentially a hundred-and-twenty yards of roadbed inside Williams-Brice Stadium. It was replaced with a foot of sand and clay, topped by the new Bermuda turf. Added as well were rows of red tip hedges lining the back of both end zones, the shrubs and natural turf combining to soften the spartan, industrial feel of the stadium.

“We were all thrilled,” Poole says of the decision to go with natural grass.

Carolina opened the season a on a shaky note, squeaking by an overmatched Citadel squad, but Poole notes the defense began to establish itself in game two with a 21-0 shutout win over Duke.

The Gamecocks moved 2–0 with an opportunity to go to 3–0 for the first time since 1977 in their next game versus Georgia. The #12-ranked Bulldogs, meanwhile, had notched a stirring 26–23 win over number two-ranked Clemson the week before, on the strength of a sixty-yard Kevin Butler field goal with eleven seconds remaining. Before a crowd of 74,325, then the third largest ever at Williams-Brice Stadium, the Gamecocks staged a stunning 17–10 upset, spurred by Mike Hold’s fourth-quarter sixty-two-yard strike to Ira Hillary to the Bulldog six yard line. The long pass set up a Hold keeper off the right side to give the Gamecocks the final margin with 8:04 remaining.

“To hold Georgia to ten points was a pretty big deal,” Poole recalls. “Offensively we did just enough.”

For the first time since 1980, the Gamecocks entered a top-20 poll, coming in at #20 in the United Press International (UPI) poll. Carolina surged to 5-0 on the season following convincing wins over Kansas State and Pittsburg, setting up a potentially program-defining matchup at Notre Dame the following week.

Following a familiar script in the ‘84 campaign, the Gamecocks found themselves down early but played their way back into it, ultimately pulling out a 36-32 win to move to 6-0 on the season. Carolina’s go-ahead score came with just over eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter on a wild thirty-three-yard scramble by quarterback Mike Hold. A final block by Poole cleared the way for Hold to plunge across the Irish goal line for a lead USC would not relinquish.

“That was an incredible day. Just to be able to go up there and play in that stadium, which has so much history and so many stories. For me, it was a humbling experience to be able to be there. To go into South Bend like that, it was special.”

The win marked the first time any Gamecock team had won six consecutive games during the same season, and vaulted Carolina into the top ten for the first time in program history, climbing to number nine in the following week’s Associated Press (AP) poll.

Poole described the greeting he and his teammates received upon arrival back home:

Keeping track of USC’s rising stock in the polls became a weekly focus. “If you go back to 1984, I think most of us didn’t have TVs in our dorm rooms. Some did, but my roommate and I kind of liked not having one, so we listened to the radio a lot. At some point during the season when we started climbing in the rankings, Tuesdays was when the [AP] poll came out, and we’d come back after practice, eat dinner, kind of collapse in the room, and we’d turn the radio on and late in the day the rankings would come out, so it sort of became a thing for us to lie in our rooms, just kind of waiting on the rankings to come out to see how high we were going to go. For a couple of twenty-year-old kids, we were pretty jacked up about it, pretty excited.”

Poole was listening after the Gamecocks’ 42-20 win over East Carolina, when USC rose to number five. He was listening after a hard fought 35-28 road win over N.C. State, when the Gamecocks remained steady at five. And he was listening following a monumental home 38-26 win over Florida State when the Gamecocks rose all the way to number two.

“After Florida State when we rose to number two, I remember feeling a little bit giddy about it, like ‘wow!’” We were all, as 18-to-21-year-old kids, pretty consumed by that. Of course, it’s up to the coaches to keep those emotions in check, and I thought our coaches did a really nice job of that, I really did [ahead of the Navy game].”

“It’s such an up and down game, and you have to play with reckless abandon, and it’s just a very emotional, physical game. But you have to control it. I think Coach Morrison and his staff did a really good job of keeping us down to earth. All the right things were said - we didn’t really change our routine at all.

“And then, what happened happened.”

Undefeated at 9-0 and ranked number two in the country, the Gamecocks ran into a buzzsaw in Annapolis. Navy pulled the biggest shocker of the entire Division I football season, handing the Gamecocks a 38-21 loss in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score indicated. “As much as we said we weren’t looking ahead to Clemson, we probably were. In the back of too many of our minds, I think we were thinking, ‘we’ll just cruise through this and then go play Clemson,’ and Navy just absolutely took us to the woodshed.”

Poole relays a story of a recent business trip to Annapolis, where he had not been since that November afternoon in 1984.

Carolina salvaged a gutsy 22-21 win at Clemson in the regular season finale to notch their tenth victory before losing a highly competitive game to third ranked Oklahoma State in the Gator Bowl.

Despite the disappointment of Navy and the bowl loss, the 1984 season stands out as one of the finest in Gamecock history, and ten wins was a program standard not surpassed until Steve Spurrier’s consecutive eleven-win teams in 2011, ‘12, and ‘13.

“I look back on that year with a lot of fondness,” Poole says. “We competed. That was the year Coach Morrison helped us climb a little bit in stature. It was just a really fun year.”

“Old Reliable”

By Poole’s senior campaign of 1985 the Gamecocks faced substantial losses to graduation from the ‘84 squad. This was particularly pronounced on the offensive side of the ball, where Carolina graduated arguably the most talented offensive line in the country in program stalwarts Tom Garner, Del Wilkes, Jim Walsh, Bill Barnhill and Carl Womble. Gone too were standout receivers Ira Hillary, Emory Bacon and Chris Wade, and dependable tailback Todd Berry. The Gamecocks were in need of senior leadership, a role Poole ably filled.

A September 20, 1985 article in the Columbia State tabbed Poole “Old Reliable.” It was a play on head coach Joe Morrison’s famous moniker during his playing days with the New York Giants, where his versatility and leadership across fourteen seasons earned him the nickname “Old Dependable.” Poole was tasked with providing leadership to a young receiving corps including a sophomore and two freshmen in the four man starting rotation.

That sophomore receiver turned out to be a pretty good one - Gamecock legend and future NFL All-Star Sterling Sharpe, but in 1985, Poole was the steadying hand, the mentor, the sure bet. Though his senior campaign ended in a disappointing 5-6 record, Poole finished his career holding a trio of program records for average yards gained per reception in a game, season and career - a testament to his efficiency and reliability.¹

“I’ve just become a big fan”

Poole says for a few years after graduation he didn’t follow the program very closely. “I was just kind of off doing my own thing,” he explains, but he has long since returned to the fold. A longtime veteran of medical equipment sales, Poole now lives in Charlotte with his wife Susan, a Texas native and Texas A&M graduate. “But she has become a big Gamecock fan to survive being with me,” Poole laughs. Their daughter Carson is a recent Carolina graduate, now living in Charleston and working in real estate. Their son Collin is approaching his senior year at Tennessee. Emily, Poole’s daughter from an earlier marriage, accompanied him along with his father Jimmy for the pregame ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the 1984 team in 2009.

Poole and family travel down from Charlotte for most home games. “When the kids got a little older, we started going, and have really been doing that since. Carson would come by the tailgate when she was a student there, and it s been a lot of fun. For me it’s been an incredible thing - I’ve just become a big fan. These last few years have just been really special.”

Poole says the “2001” team entrance still resonates with him in a profound way. “I always want to be there for “2001” - I never want to get there [to the stadium] after that. My wife makes fun of me,” Poole chuckles, “but I still get emotional, still get jacked up. I get taken right back to the mid-80’s.”

He tells a story about the Texas A&M game during the COVID-altered season of 2020, when Carson was a freshman.

“It was the first game I had been to with my daughter as a student. There was just something about that day, the emotion of it, and the stadium was three fourths empty because of COVID restrictions, and they played “2001,” and it was different because there were only ten or fifteen thousand people there, but I looked over and saw her and her freshman year roommate was there. And I always get a little emotional, but I looked at her and I just completely broke down. I shook it off pretty quick, but I was like, ‘what in the hell just happened?’ It was just an emotional moment.”

Of Shane Beamer’s program, Poole’s optimism is unreserved. “I feel really good about it. He has brought a different kind of energy to the program. It’s evident in recruiting. He has one of those personalities that just seems to be infectious. He relates well to those young players, and they’ve taken notice of what is happening at South Carolina. He’s likable, he knows football, and he knows how to build a staff. It’s been really fun to watch.”

It’s been forty years since Poole walked away from Williams-Brice Stadium as a player for the final time, and forty-three years since that impromptu fruit basket food fight at the old Roost dormitory. Looking back now, he marvels that all those years could have passed by.

He is humble, even self-deprecating in reflecting back on his career in garnet and black. “One of the good things about only having forty or fifty catches in my career is it has provided me with a certain level of anonymity,” he laughs.

But his emotional connection to the program is unmistakable.

“My whole career, I look back and I just felt honored to be there at South Carolina. I always just looked upon it as a great privilege. I was humbled just to be there.”

1 Poole set program records for average yards gained per reception in a game (33.7 on three catches for 101 yards); season (32.1 on ten catches for 321 yards); and career (21.3 on 46 catches for 982 yards) - all noted in the 1991 Gamecock Football media guide. The current USC record book applies minimums to these categories (minimum of 4 catches for the game record, 25 catches for the season record, and 75 catches for the career record), which have erased Poole’s superlatives in those categories. However, his 32.1 season average for yards per reception in 1985 is still an unofficial program record.

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A Gamecock Odyssey - Now in paperback!

(A portion of this piece contains an excerpt from A Gamecock Odyssey: University of South Carolina Sports in the Independent Era, published by USC Press)

Decades removed from her playing days, the aroma of a gymnasium and the sound of sneakers on varnished wood still excite the former power forward who scorched nets and ground competition into submission beneath the hot lights of Frank McGuire Arena nearly fifty years ago.

Dawn Staley’s players refer to Sheila Foster simply as, The Legend. Though a bout with breast cancer, devastating injuries from a late traffic accident, and the unrelenting passage of time have taken their toll, Foster’s spirit still emanates an enveloping energy, notable even through the ether of a cellular connection.

On January 10, 2024, that sprit - that irrepressible energy - was nearly extinguished.

As Foster drove her burgundy 2005 Chevy Malibu to work along Highway 9 near her home town of Boiling Springs in Spartanburg County, she approached a busy intersection across from North Grove Medical Center. She recalls seeing a car sitting in the opposite left turn lane, the way you notice other cars in traffic - a fleeting recognition of its presence, but not much beyond. Possessing the right of way, Foster proceeded straight through the light at highway speed when the other car turned left in front of her unexpectedly. Her right foot pressed full on the brake pedal, Foster was unable to avoid the accident, hitting the car broadside in a violent collision.

“I just remember waking up and the only thing I said was ‘thank you Jesus’ three times. I never talked again for two days. I heard some ladies coming to me talking, but I couldn’t answer - I just stared. Everybody said I was in shock, and she said ‘ma’am, are you ok?’ And I could hear but I couldn’t talk, couldn’t turn my head. She said, ‘let's call the ambulance because your bones are hanging out of your foot.’ I woke up two days later with a cast around my leg. I didn’t know what happened until they told me later.”

Foster’s number #53 jersey has hung in the rafters of Carolina Coliseum and Colonial Life Arena for some forty-three years. From its lofty perch, that banner has overseen a program that has gone from budding national power, to perennial Metro Conference champion, to Southeastern Conference cellar dweller, to unprecedented heights, including three national championships under the leadership of Dawn Staley.

Foster became USC’s first multi-season All-America honoree, and left the Gamecock program as the career leader in points (2,266), rebounds (1,427), and double-doubles (72), then proceeded to hold those records over the course of four decades. Gamecock great A’ja Wilson surpassed Foster as the program’s points leader at the conclusion of her bronze-cast career in 2018. Aliyah Boston took the rebounding and double-double crowns in 2023 following an equally stellar four-year run. Foster now holds second place in all three categories.

Beyond her enduring prominence in USC’s record book, Foster remains foremost in the hearts of Gamecock fans all these years later. Columbia’s State newspaper recently conducted a poll to commemorate the “Mount Rushmore” of USC Women’s basketball. The State provided a list of fourteen former stars spanning the fifty-year history of the program, from which readers were tasked with voting for their top four.

Over three thousand readers participated. Unsurprisingly, Wilson and Boston were shoe-ins for the honorific, both multi-year All-Americans and SEC Players of the Year who led national championship teams in 2017 and 2022, respectively. Two-time All-American and SEC Player of the Year Tiffany Mitchell also graced the top four.

Amidst those latter-day stalwarts, who garnered the highest vote total?

Sheila Foster.

Even amongst a cavalcade of Staley-era All-Americans, Foster’s star continues to shine. She is beloved by those who saw her play and revered by players and fans who have only heard the stories of her exploits.

“It means so much,” Foster says of the honor, “and it tells me that I got a lot of fans and friends that really love and care for me. When you got people like that, they don’t forget about you. I know there were great players that came after me and before me, and that’s not taking away from those players. It just means a lot.”

Foster has remained close to the program. Following the Gamecocks’ first national championship in 2017, she participated in the celebratory parade up Columbia’s Main Street - one of the only pre-Staley-era players in attendance. The following season Staley invited her down for the championship ring ceremony, which initially confused her. “I didn’t know what I was there for,” Foster recalls, “and then she [Coach Staley] presented me with a ring, which just touched my heart.”

Of her long-held and now relinquished scoring, rebounding, and double-double records Foster says simply, “Records are made to be broken.” She adds, “I cheered for them [Wilson and Boston], and when they broke it - all of them - I cheered for them.”

“I just appreciate all the respect Coach Staley gives me. All the players, they may not know me in person, but they know who I am. I’m there cheering for them all the time when I can get down there. It just means a lot to watch them. It brings tears to my eyes when I see them do some things, and it’s just a joy for me to be there to watch them play and to watch Coach Staley coach those girls. It brings back memories. It’s happy.”

The making of a legend

After years of club level competition, Gamecock women’s basketball gained varsity status for the 1974-75 season in the aftermath of Title IX legislation signed into law by President Richard Nixon in June, 1972.1 By December of that year, the University of South Carolina joined the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), then the governing body for women’s college sports.

After three seasons under two different coaches who split time between basketball and other teaching duties on campus, the overall program record stood at 33-45. Athletics Director Jim Carlen wanted to upgrade the program, and sought to hire a full-time coach and a proven winner.

Originally from Cookeville, Tennessee, Carlen first considered pursuing fellow Volunteer State native Pat Summitt of the University of Tennessee. Summitt had just finished her third season in Knoxville by leading her Volunteers to the AIAW Final Four. With Summitt comfortably ensconced in Knoxville however, Carlen turned to another up-and-coming coach from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia - an early powerhouse of the women’s collegiate game.

On Saturday, April 9, 1977, Carlen introduced Pam Parsons as the new women’s basketball coach and assistant athletics director for women’s sports.

Parsons quickly elevated the profile and identity of Gamecock women’s basketball. She introduced sleek new uniforms and quickly jettisoned the program’s “Carolina Chicks” nickname in favor of the less patronizing “Lady Gamecocks.”2

In prior seasons, the women’s team played their home games primarily at USC’s Booker T. Washington gymnasium, and even a few times at the Blatt P.E. Center on campus. The program had only appeared a smattering of times at Carolina Coliseum as a preliminary to men’s games. With Parsons at the helm, the Lady Gamecocks’ home games moved permanently to the Coliseum.

Parsons’ first team, 1977-78, featured upgraded talent, including Katrina Anderson, a junior transfer from Anderson Junior College (now Anderson University), who would break Denise Nanney’s nascent program scoring record during her two-year USC career. That team engineered a fourteen-game improvement over the prior season, finishing at 24-10, notching the program’s first twenty-win season.

In her second season, 1978-79, Parsons welcomed her first blue-chip high school recruit in Foster. That team achieved the program’s first-ever national ranking following a shocking 73-49 home upset of #7-ranked Old Dominion, Parsons’ former team. The Gamecocks went on to capture that season’s Women’s National Invitational Tournament (WNIT), finishing with a 27-10 record. Foster, a season-long starter, ranked among the top ten freshmen in the nation in both scoring and rebounding, averaging 14 points and nearly nine rebounds per game.

Parsons continued building her team, adding a five-ten freshman from Lansing, Michigan, Evelyn “Sweet E” Johnson - kid sister to Earvin “Magic” Johnson who shared her brother’s flair for assists and scoring. Local product Sharon Rivers, and Becky Parker, a five-eleven guard from Maryland who averaged 34.7 points per game as a high school senior further solidified the roster.

The 1979-80 squad compiled a sterling 30-6 record, highlighted by the program’s first-ever win over powerhouse Tennessee, and reached the AIAW Final Four round in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. The Gamecocks faced their third matchup of the season with Tennessee in the semifinal, coming just short of qualifying for a national championship appearance in a 75-72 loss to the Lady Vols. Parsons’ team salvaged a third-place national finish in their final game, defeating Louisiana Tech, which featured a five-foot-four guard by the name of Kim Mulkey.

With 1,105 career points after just two seasons, Foster stood at third-best in program history, but she was just getting started.

By the end of her junior season, 1980-81, Foster had comfortably surpassed former teammate Katrina Anderson for the program’s all-time scoring title. While the team’s 21-9 finish was off pace by Parsons’ standards, the season marked a continuation of USC’s winning ways. However in a precursor to problems that would unfold dramatically the following year, the Gamecocks were forced to forfeit eight games when the AIAW ruled that transfer forward Frani Washington was academically ineligible. The forfeit left the team with an official 13-17 finish.

1981-82, Foster’s senior season, was marked by the most bizarre and unfortunate series of events in program history. By this time Parsons’ program was an established national power, brimming with talent, and ranked in the pre-season top ten. Seven games in the team remained undefeated and had ascended to #2 in the polls - the program’s highest-ever ranking. It proved to be the high-water mark for Parsons and for the women’s program for many years to come, as growing whispers of improprieties dogged the coach, leading ultimately to her resignation on January 4, 1982.3

The remainder of the season was a wild ride of coaching changes, roster defections, a campus-wide tryout, a six-of-eight losing skid, plummeting poll standings, and ultimately, a stirring turnaround.

The team began to gel when it battled valiantly with only six players during a late January home game versus Tennessee. USC risked having to finish the game with less than five players on the court as three Gamecocks had four fouls late in the game. Though no one was ultimately disqualified, it was a testament to the ravages of roster defections following the early-season drama. Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt visited the Carolina locker room following the game to commend the Gamecocks’ courageous performance. USC’s interim head coach, Terry Kelly told reporters, “An emotional burden is lifted. This team wants to play.”

USC reeled off eleven wins over its last thirteen games, including a stirring one-point victory at #10 NC State in the final regular-season game. The 22-7 record was good enough to earn the program a bid to the first-ever NCAA women’s tournament.4 The Gamecocks defeated East Carolina, advancing to the Sweet Sixteen, before bowing out to future SEC rival, #14 Kentucky. Carolina had beaten the Wildcats at home just a few weeks prior before a scant 750 fans - difficult to imagine now, in an era when the Gamecocks have led the nation in attendance for 11-straight seasons, and averaged over 16,400 per home tilt in 2024-25.

The Gamecocks finished the season at #15 in the AP poll.

Foster scored 23 points and pulled down 19 rebounds in her final game, ending her career as the program leader in nearly every major statistical category.

Reflecting back on that time, Foster retains immense respect for Parsons in spite of the coach’s controversial exit. “I just have so much love for her, so much respect for her today. The only thing that really broke my heart was when they retired my jersey, they [USC officials] wouldn’t let her [Parsons] in the Coliseum,” Foster says of ceremonies to retire her #53 jersey before her final home game. It was a bitter-sweet ending to a legendary career as Foster’s #53 became the first women’s jersey retired in any sport at the University of South Carolina.

Years later following South Carolina’s first NCAA Final Four appearance in 2015, Foster found herself annoyed by what media reports touted as the “first Final Four” in program history. It prompted her to reach out to her former coach.

“They had a big article that said [the 2015 team] was the first to go to the Final Four, and it just ate me up inside, because I said no, I was on that [first] Final Four team. We went to the Final Four my sophomore year [1979-80]. I got [Coach Parsons’] number and I finally got in touch with her. She said ‘Sheila, that [1980 Final Four] was because of you.’ And I said, no, it’s because of us.”

Foster continued, “The final four IS the Final Four - doesn’t make a difference if it’s AIAW or NCAA or WXYZ.”

Her collegiate career concluded, Foster turned to professional basketball, which looked quite different for the women’s game in 1982 than today. The WNBA was a whisper of a dream, and lay a decade-and-a-half out into the future. The one US professional women’s league then in existence - the short-lived Women’s Professional Basketball League (WBL) was, at best, financially tenuous. It ultimately folded in the early 80’s after a four-season run.

Foster instead took her talents to Italy. “I played in Spinea three years, then went to Naples for a year, then played outside of Milan for two years.”

Asked if she picked up any Italian during that time, she said “I sort of speak a little, but my contract did not say speak no language,” she says laughing, “they wanted me to put the ball in the basket.” She did exactly that with characteristic grit and gusto across six seasons.

For even the very best, basketball doesn’t last forever. The rolled ankles take their toll. The accumulated soreness from old injuries, first nagging, then more insistent, begin to assert their dominion over once irrepressible energy and strength. Younger players, unencumbered by injury or doubt come in waves at the start of every season, hungry to make their mark, eager to knock off the wily vet.

At some point it ends, always more quickly than you thought it would.

After basketball, back to South Carolina

Foster returned home and started a family, resulting in a daughter, India (now 36), and a son, Stacy (now 32). She also went back to school, needing nine classes to earn her degree. “I did four one semester and five the second semester, and walked,” she says, earning a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies with an emphasis in Physical Education. She keeps a framed photo of her shaking the hand of former USC President James Holderman during the graduation ceremony in May, 1990. Her trademark smile lit up the old Coliseum even as her #53 jersey looked on from the rafters above.

After graduation, she returned to Spartanburg County where she taught and coached, ultimately ending up at her alma mater, Boiling Springs High School. There she returned to the sport that has narrated her life, spending years as an assistant, then as head coach of the junior varsity women’s team for thirteen years. She became an institution - a living, breathing legend - beloved within the community for the impact she had on students and players, for the way she poured herself into the role, for her spirit of service, and for her abiding love of basketball and of Boiling Springs.

Along the way she stayed close to the USC women’s program, following the ups and downs of the Nancy Wilson and Susan Walvius eras. In the Staley years she has been a mainstay, traveling down to Saturday games with regularity.

“I’m just so proud that I chose the University of South Carolina. I wouldn’t change it for the world. My momma’s been gone sixteen years. Her and my uncle missed one game in four years. A lot of programs wanted me - I could have went anywhere. But choosing the University of South Carolina - I wouldn’t change it for the world. I’m still a Lady Gamecock. My blood still runneth garnet. And the way the program is growing, I’m just so happy. I’ll continue to cheer until I leave this world.”

“The doctors said amputate that foot”

When Foster woke up at North Grove hospital, just a stone’s throw away from the site of the accident two days prior, her life had changed. Surgeons installed thirteen screws to stabilize the multiple compound fractures to her right foot and ankle. She also suffered four broken ribs and a cracked sternum. “I got six screws and two plates in my chest for life,” she says.

She went to therapy four times a day. Mindset and muscle memory long ago molded as an elite athlete enabled her to push through the difficult recovery. “They [the doctors and therapists] know I don’t sit down and whine. I didn’t say I didn’t want to do it - whatever they told me to do, I did it.”

“My doctor said, ‘I’m gonna tell you every visit, Ms Foster, when you came to us, all the doctors said amputate that foot. You know what? You’re so blessed. We got your bones back in place, your screws haven’t shifted.’”

Reflecting on the help she had, Foster says “I had some good people in there working with me. They were all so proud of me when I left. They all just clapped. There were so many hugs, and some of them I still keep in touch with.”

With the assistance of a walker, Foster was able to attend the annual South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame ceremony last May, a scant four months after the accident. Her brilliant smile and genuine affection for everyone in the room belied the grueling recovery she was still very much going through. She still walks with a cane, but continues to put in the work and is improving day by day.

“I’m a fighter, and you can’t give up because something happened. When my number is called, I’ll be ready. I think He’s got me here for a reason.”

On a warm April Wednesday in 2022, the City of Columbia hosted a parade to celebrate the second national championship for the USC women’s basketball program. Thousands of fans, or “Fams,” as Coach Dawn Staley proclaims them, lined both sides of Main Street for a victory parade to honor the team’s achievement. Among the VIP cars and parade floats, an assemblage of former players, mostly from the Staley era, joined in to celebrate what they had helped build.

As with the first championship celebration in 2017, Foster was in the thick of it.

From its lofty perch among the rafters of Colonial Life Arena, her long-retired #53 jersey has borne witness to the highs and the lows, the challenges and the triumphs of the Gamecock program over the course of four decades since Foster herself roamed the old Tartan floor of Frank McGuire arena, generally having her way with opponents while collecting records by the bushel.

Foster has been in remission since a scare with breast cancer in 2014 and has battled back from two knee replacements. She was hospitalized briefly in 2020 with double pneumonia, and retired after thirteen seasons from coaching to focus on her health. All that before the 2024 accident.

Like the South Carolina women’s basketball program of which she remains such an integral part, Foster has seen the greatest of highs and the darkest of lows.

But on that warm April Wednesday in Columbia as the championship parade made its way south along Main, Foster smiled her thousand-watt smile, absorbing the love of thousands of well-wishers, many of whom had never seen her ply her trade under the Coliseum lights those many years ago.

In that moment, a radiant spring sun reflecting on her face, the universe came full circle in a beautiful and healing way. Foster says of the experience, “It was the greatest feeling in the world.”

4

1981-82 marked the first season of NCAA tournament play for women’s Division I basketball, as the AIAW lost a power struggle with the NCAA for governance of women’s collegiate sports.

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The 1934 season dawned late by modern standards, with the opening game between Carolina’s Gamecocks and the Erskine Flying Fleet taking place in Columbia on September 29. It was the final game at the old wooden grandstands of Melton Field, Carolina’s football home between 1926 and that opening game of ‘34.1

“Carolina opens season versus Erskine Seceders,” a newspaper headline proclaimed, citing an older nickname for Erskine’s athletic teams. A Greenville sports writer, Carter “Scoop” Latimer, commented on Erskine’s passing strategy following a 1929 football game, noting Erskine looked like a “flying fleet,” and the name stuck. The student body soon voted to adopt it as their official nickname, however “Seceders” hung around in the popular lexicon for years after.2

Gamecock coach Billy Laval, in his seventh and final season at the helm for Carolina, had led his program to one of the more successful eras in program history, including a 3-0 Southern Conference ledger in 1933. An article in The State on the morning of that first game noted Carolina had won a share of the conference title in ‘33, however Duke had gone 4-0 and was officially recognized as the conference champion. Notably, Carolina was also riding a rare three-game win streak over their arch rival Clemson Tigers coming into the 1934 season, and expectations were high in Columbia for continued success.

There was further excitement for the 1934 season because of a sparkling new home stadium set to host Carolina’s second game versus Virginia Military Institute (VMI) a week later.

Carolina handily defeated Erskine 25-0 in the opener, and all attention turned to the dedication of their new venue.

A series of newspaper articles during the week leading up to the VMI game examined all facets of the new stadium. “New Stadium Eliminates Sun From Players’ Eyes,” proclaimed one. Most on-campus stadiums across the country were shoehorned into relatively small parcels of whatever land might be available amongst other campus buildings. The size of the lot obtained for Carolina’s new stadium, over twenty acres located approximately two miles south of campus, permitted engineers to locate the playing field in any direction they desired. The northwest to southeast orientation of the new field was designed to lessen the effects of sun in player’s eyes.

The framework of the stadium was entirely clad in steel, painted battleship grey. Seats were comprised of two cypress boards, with spacing eleven inches wide - commodious for lean Depression-era sports fans, but decidedly tight by the standards of today’s ever widening populace. Rest rooms were located under the stands, along with two dressing rooms, each containing six showers with hot and cold water - luxuries at the time. The north and south ends of the stadium were enclosed by board fences, designed to be temporary in nature, and easily replaceable by additional stands for future expansions.

“Long work by interested people”

Efforts to secure a new stadium for the university had been led by George Bell Timmerman, Sr of Batesburg, former president of the Carolina Alumni Association, USC Law graduate, and federal judge. As the Great Depression deepened, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal programs offered a lifeline for municipal projects across the country, providing financing through programs such as the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and labor through the Works Progress Administration.

Land for the new stadium was purchased by friends of the university who gave $100 apiece after the owner, Mrs. Thomas Taylor, agreed to sell for a significantly reduced price. The Taylor family had owned vast swaths of land along the Congaree River for generations, including the land which became the planned city of Columbia, when South Carolina’s capitol moved from Charleston to the Midlands in 1786.

The stadium property was deeded to the City of Columbia so that bonds could be issued, as the University could not take on such bonds by matter of law. The city later deeded the facility to the University in 1935, when it was rechristened Carolina Stadium.

Built at a cost of $82,000 ($1.93 million adjusted), the stadium was designed by Columbia architects Lafaye and Lafaye, and engineers Sumwalt and Rowe. The steel contractor was Virginia Bridge & Iron Co, and woodwork was provided by W.A. Crary and Son of Columbia. The stands were built with a crescent shape, designed to ensure that every spectator could see every play from any of the 18,200 seats.

Due to insufficient appropriations, the stadium was built with “efficiency, durability, and capacity as the dominating factors of construction,” according to designers. Eventual upgrades were anticipated to include enclosure of the exposed steel work visible from the exterior of the stands, with high brick walls arranged as series of archways with high ornamental iron gates. Many of those decorative flourishes would eventually occur, though for the better part of nine decades the stadium maintained a spartan, industrial feel, even through numerous expansions.

Civic Pride on display

The State noted of the opening game, there would be a continuous round of “delightful and attractive events,” beginning at 3pm, with the game following.

“You can see another game in the stadium later, but there will be only one dedication, only one ‘first game,’ and those who do not join the merry throng for the VMI-Carolina contest will always regret it.”

Saturday, October 6 dawned grey and drizzly with an unpromising forecast for the opening festivities. Reports noted the dedication ceremony would carry forth, rain or shine.

By 3pm, skies grew darker and a fine rain which had been intermittent all day began to fall steadily. The rain, according to reports, “in no way dampened the enthusiasm of the crowd present, and the several features of the program were followed with closest interest.” Around 10,000 spectators filed into the stadium, the rain suppressing what would have been a likely sellout in more agreeable weather.

At the appointed time, the various dignitaries and university brass assembled at the north end of the field. The Columbia High School band marched in their white uniforms down the gridiron, followed close behind by the Carolina band in its garnet, black and white regalia. Next came the American Legion drum and bugle corps in their blue and gold finery, sporting chrome helmets. An assemblage of distinguished guests followed, including South Carolina Governor Ibra C. Blackwood, Governor-elect Olin D. Johnston, and Columbia Mayor L.B. Owens, among others.3

The vaguely militaristic sounds of battle drum and bugle heralded the dedication ceremony as the high school band went to one side of the flag pole, the Carolina band to the other, while the drum corps split ranks, cleaving the way for distinguished guests to walk through, along with “nine lovely girls” who each took a part in the christening ceremony, all carrying handsome bouquets of dahlias arranged in the colors of the University of South Carolina, and of the Virginia Military Institute. The Carolina band played the alma mater as the crowd rose, umbrellas dotting the stands.

Timmerman approached the podium for his dedication speech.

“For years while I was president of the alumni association, I entertained the hope that the university would have a stadium for its athletic activities comparable with those enjoyed by its peers, and in keeping with its surroundings, its dignity and importance.”

Mayor Owens rose next, and after brief remarks of acceptance, hoisted Old Glory to the top of the flag pole, “which caught in a breeze and was thrown out to full length,” according to reporting. As the flag ascended, the Carolina band played the Star Spangled Banner and at it’s conclusion, a young coed, Ms. Wooding of Victoria, Virginia, dashed a bottle of champagne against the flag pole in a great celebratory spray. And at that, the ceremony concluded.

Hardly had the field been cleared, when the low drone of an airplane could heard through grey skies, and from out of the clouds came P.P. Parish, Jr, operator of the Parish Flying Service at nearby Owens Field. He circled the field in his biplane, flying north over Columbia, then doubling back, making a low pass over the stadium.

Parish dropped from his open cockpit a football carrying the colors of USC and VMI. The toss fell adroitly near the center of the field, as the plane banked and swooped back over the stands. A goggled and leather helmeted Parish, his scarf flapping behind, gave the crowd a snappy wave as he disappeared among the low clouds.

A few moments later, whistles blew and the game was on in the new municipal stadium, “the realization of a dream long entertained by lovers of sports.”

Carolina won that first game convincingly, 22-6 over the visitors to move to 2-0 on the season. Scoring was highlighted by a blocked VMI punt by right end Bob Johnson which was recovered in the end zone for a touchdown by left end John Rowland.

The Gamecocks went 2-2 at their new home that season, beating VMI and Virginia Tech, and losing to both Clemson and William and Mary en route to a 5-4 season (2-3 SoCon).

But beyond the wins and losses of 1934, Columbia Municipal Stadium marked a triumph of partnership between a city and a university. It stands as a monument to civic-minded men and women who, even while toiling under the burdens of unprecedented economic strife, chose to engage in the hard work of collective problem solving, of principled and visionary action over the easy petulance of political gridlock, and of optimism over fear.

Old stadiums, it seems, hold lessons for us all.

3

Columbia Mayor L.B. Owens is the namesake of Columbia’s first municipal airfield, Owens Field.

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(Part I can be accessed here)

It all happened on a balmy Friday afternoon in early September, 1992. It was an odd setting at the outset of what would prove to be an exceedingly odd season - the University of South Carolina’s first as a member of an all-sports league since leaving the Atlantic Coast Conference some 21 years prior.

The environs around Williams-Brice Stadium have softened over the years since, thanks to the greening and beautification of Springs Brooks Plaza, leafy residential and tailgating developments nearby, and the verdant Gamecock Village, once the site of an aging and ramshackle state farmers market. Stately red brick columns, wrought iron gates, and a budding urban forest of hundreds of trees have replaced the heat-blasted asphalt apron that formerly surrounded the stadium.

A more spartan scene awaited the Gamecocks’ Southeastern Conference debut those many years ago, set as it was amongst an industrial corridor south of campus, replete with machine shops and warehouses and dusty parking lots - the kind of hardscrabble setting that made one ponder if their tetanus vaccine was current.

Against this gritty backdrop that September day appeared Archibald Thibeaux, a lanky native of New Orleans and self-proclaimed witch doctor, then residing in Blythewood. With his billowing brown suit, stovepipe hat, and voodoo face paint, Thibeaux certainly looked the part.

As a late summer sun radiated off the hotplate asphalt slab near the west-side stadium gates, a hundred-or-so curious onlookers formed a semi-circle around Thibeaux. They watched as he tossed carefully procured ingredients into a bubbling cauldron - a recipe designed to exorcise the dreaded “Chicken Curse.”

First into the pot was “magic dust,” or perhaps ashes from Thibeaux’s fireplace, mused The State’s David Newton. Then a dash of something green and a pinch of something orange, followed by “something black from a jar.” Finally, a dramatic flurry of (what else?) chicken feathers.

Smoke billowed from the cauldron as those in attendance, more familiar with Methodists than mystics, stood with uncomprehending gazes, arms crossed, hands on hips, not quite sure what to make of the bizarre spectacle.

“Back to where you belong!” Thibeaux chanted, his long arms extended, fingers splayed dramatically, imploring the removal of that bedeviling spirit. “Chicken Curse be gone!”

With that the ceremony ended as bewildered attendees filtered haltingly back to their cars, unsure exactly what they had witnessed.

Pulling into Columbia about that time was the #14-ranked Georgia Bulldogs for the next day’s gridiron spectacle, and the Gamecocks’ SEC debut.

SEC play kicks off

It started promisingly enough on that balmy first Saturday evening of September, 1992. A record crowd of 75,060 fans gathered under cloudy skies to witness for the first time the pomp and ceremony of Southeastern Conference football at Williams-Brice Stadium.

The Carolina Marching Band, newly christened “The Mighty Sound of the Southeast,” played with extra panache. A crew of parachuters delivered the game ball to midfield. A commemorative coin was used for the opening toss. Flags representing each SEC school fluttered from the end-zone stands. The playing field sported a special logo in recognition of the program’s 100th season. Adding to the hoopla, a historic border rivalry was about to be renewed as the University of South Carolina kicked off its first conference football game in twenty years.

The anticipation crescendoed just before kickoff, as the theme from “2001 - A Space Odyssey” blared from stadium speakers and fingers of heat lighting lit the western horizon. As the final strains of “2001” sent the record crowd into a frenzy, the Gamecocks burst from the southwest tunnel of the stadium, through the human tunnel of the Carolina Band, sporting all-black uniforms for the first time since 1988.1

Heightening the anticipation that something special might be brewing, Carolina played shutout defense in the first half, forcing two fumbles, while two Marty Simpson field goals paced the Gamecocks to a 6-0 halftime lead.

That was the high water mark of Carolina football for the evening, and for some weeks to come. Georgia’s Garrison Hearst rumbled for a 49-yard touchdown on the third play from scrimmage after the half, and the Bulldogs took a lead they would not relinquish. The previously sleepwalking Bulldogs dominated the second half, winning 28-6.

A spirited loss to a powerful Georgia team in week one was no great surprise, and followed the script of many games in that rivalry dating back to 1894.2

Things turned dire in week two, however, with a humiliating 45-7 loss to fellow SEC rookie program, Arkansas. Compounding matters, the Razorbacks had suffered an embarrassing 10-3 defeat at home to none other than The Citadel in week one, a loss which cost Arkansas coach Jack Crowe his job. During halftime, the Gamecocks down 31-0, fans directed their considerable ire toward athletics director King Dixon. Boos rained down during an unfortunately timed on-field recognition as part of the season-long 100-year celebration.

The season continued to spiral over the following three weeks, with a gloomy home loss to East Carolina and road losses to Kentucky and #9 Alabama. Ahead of the game in Tuscaloosa, embattled senior quarterback Wright Mitchell quit the team after being benched in favor of redshirt freshman Blake Williamson.

Entering an open date, which the understated Woods called “much needed,” Carolina found its season in deep peril. The Gamecocks not only stood at 0-5, but also owned Division I football’s longest losing streak at nine games, going back to November of 1991. They were the only winless team in the SEC by mid-October, and found themselves last in nearly every statistical category, having been outscored by opponents 154-47. Adding to that, Jackie Sherrill’s 15th-ranked Mississippi State squad was slated to visit Columbia for an October 17 matchup in game six.

Following the open date weekend, things took a turn for the surreal. In a players-only meeting on Monday, October 12, the team reportedly voted 62 to 24 to ask Woods to resign. Woods, reached that evening for comment by Columbia television station WOLO-TV said he had no intention of stepping aside.

“No. I came here and worked very hard. Our staff’s worked very hard,” Woods said. “We’re working as a team. A team does everything together. We’re not 0-5 because of any individual’s fault. It’s all our problems, and we’ve all got to be a solution to the problem.”

Athletics director King Dixon declined comment, deferring to Woods, adding, “that’s a football matter… I just don’t think it would be appropriate as athletics director to comment on that at this particular time.”

By Tuesday afternoon, Woods had engineered an uneasy truce with his team and had them back on the practice field. This followed a vote of confidence from Dixon, who by Tuesday morning voiced support for his head coach. A pre-practice locker room visit by USC President John Palms further solidified Woods’ standing.

There even seemed to be some question as to the extent of the revolt. Senior linebacker Ben Hogan told David Newton of The State that the player’s only meeting was called by “a few guys who had complaints… guys who thought they should be playing more, guys who had been moved from first team to second team.” Hogan elaborated, “Most of us didn’t even know we were having a meeting. There was no organization to it. I was standing in the locker room in my jock strap and somebody called a team meeting out. I thought Coach Woods might have called it.”

Reflecting back on the situation now, Woods says handling the crisis was one of his better coaching moments.

“I said [to the team] ‘I want you, we need everybody here. I want everybody to come back and we’re gonna turn this around. We’re gonna beat Mississippi State.’ I said, ‘However, I will tell you this - we’re gonna practice here at 7 o’clock, and I hope every one of you comes back, but if you don’t, we will take up your stuff and we’re gonna move on without you.’”

Everyone did come back, and looking for a spark, Woods named freshman Steve Taneyhill starting quarterback for the Mississippi State game.

Taneyhill is a Gamecock legend now, but in October of 1992, he was a relatively untested, though brash true freshman from Altoona, Pennsylvania. His arrival in Columbia caused a stir from the beginning, wearing long hair and festooned with an earring stud - far from a standard look in the sleepy Southern college town that was Columbia in those days. He exuded confidence, boasting to reporters during spring practice that he would be the starting quarterback by mid-season. That boast, and his cocky persona did little to endear him to teammates early on.

Still, Woods was ready to try his hand with a new quarterback. It represented a fresh start, and an injection of confidence was exactly what his team needed. When the Gamecocks took the field to the strains of “2001” on that gorgeous October afternoon against the 15th ranked Mississippi State Bulldogs, they did so with their third starting quarterback in six games, and a true freshman at that.

The 19-year-old Taneyhill enjoyed one of the most Taneyhill of days that Saturday, completing 7 of 14 passes for 183 yards and two touchdowns, while guiding the Gamecocks to a season-best 505 total yards and an unlikely 21-6 upset win over a top-15 conference team. Beyond the stats though, he injected a desperately needed element of swagger to a previously beleaguered Gamecock team.

The State’s Bob Gillespie wrote of Taneyhill’s antics,

Before 55,102 fans, the smallest home crowd of the season, a legend was born. Had Taneyhill faded into oblivion after that game (as if he were ever capable of such a thing), he would still be revered at Carolina for the excitement and joy he brought to Gamecock Nation that fall afternoon in the unlikeliest of scenarios. He would still enjoy legend status for snapping the nation’s longest losing streak, for quarterbacking the program’s first SEC win, for enabling smiles to once again enliven the faces of players and coaches and fans alike.

But of course, he was not done. Behind Taneyhill’s heroics and Woods’ steady leadership, Carolina surged to five victories over their final six games, defeating Vanderbilt, winning a home thriller over #16-ranked Tennessee, dispatching Louisiana Tech, and securing a cathartic win at Clemson - the first since 1984 - in a season finale worthy of a chef’s kiss. In their one late season loss, a 14-9 setback against #11 Florida in Gainesville, the Gamecocks played valiantly, led at the half, and came oh-so-close to six-straight wins and bowl eligibility. After the 0-5 start, it was an astounding turnaround, and one of the feel-good stories of the 1992 college football season.

Elation, then deflation in ‘93

Woods’ final season in Columbia started with one of the most unforgettable game-ending plays in program history. Brandon Bennett’s thrilling last-second dive over the Bulldog goal line gave the Gamecocks a dramatic and improbable 23-21 road win over #14 Georgia. Former Georgia and South Carolina radio legends, Larry Munson and Bob Fulton, respectively, called the iconic play in their own distinctive styles, captured in the clip below, (a highlight is color analyst Tommy Suggs’ wild emotional euphoria in contrast with Fulton’s cool, professional delivery).

Any Gamecock fan old enough to remember will tell you exactly where they were when it happened - it was that kind of moment.

The State’s Bob Spear called it the biggest win in program history. And it felt that way on the heels of Carolina’s 5-1 finish to 1992, followed by an offseason of good feelings and exuberant optimism. It felt as if the Gamecocks had arrived despite the low pre-season expectations from league pundits.

Spear continued,

“They are, after all, the new guys in the Southeastern Conference, commoners in Camelot, an afterthought for membership, invited only in the aftermath of Florida State’s refusal, the subject of the know-it-all’s poison pens. No players on the SEC’s preseason all-star team. No chance in the SEC’s Eastern Division. No prayer at Georgia. Show us something, the SEC said. They did Saturday. South Carolina 23, Georgia 21. Hello, SEC, the Gamecocks said. We can play too.”

The golden glow from Athens was short-lived, however, as Carolina stumbled to a 3-7 finish the rest of the way. The losses were mostly respectable, including a one-point road loss at Arkansas, and a valiant effort at home versus defending national champion and #2-ranked Alabama. There were ugly losses too, in a 23-0 defeat at Mississippi State, and a 55-3 embarrassment at #3 Tennessee late in the season.

By 1993 Mike McGee had replaced King Dixon as athletics director. The regime change left Woods vulnerable, and USC’s third-straight losing season ultimately cost him his job.

“I don’t live in the past,” Woods reflects now, “I try to live in the future. I realize this business is hard. Most of my memories about South Carolina are fond memories. But… when they brought Mike in there, he had a plan and it didn’t include me.”

Woods noted he was slow to respond to me about this interview, careful not to speak ill of McGee, South Carolina’s athletics director from 1993-2005, who died in 2019. Still, the sting of 1993 is evident in Woods’ recollections of the time.

“I’ve been fired. I get this business. We had a plan. I saw all those facilities because King [Dixon] and I sat down and drew them out long before they were built. We just never had a chance to build them while I was there,” says Woods, referring to stadium and facilities improvements that ultimately came to fruition after his departure.

“They took a [local news viewer’s] poll about whether to retain me, and I thought the poll would be really lopsided to fire me. Well, it wasn’t. Most people voted to give [me] another year, and I think it scared Mike, because Mike came in there to fix it, and he couldn’t fix it if I was there. If we won, I would get the credit. I thought we were gonna do some good things.”

Woods’ assertion that better days lay ahead for the Gamecock program is validated to a degree by the 1994 season. The five-season tenure of his successor, Brad Scott, ended in a disastrous 1-10 season in 1998, which led in turn to the infamous 0-21 streak running the entirety of Lou Holtz’s first season in 1999. But in Scott’s first season at Carolina, the Gamecocks went 7-5, including a 33-7 thrashing of Clemson. Moreover, the ‘93 squad secured the school’s first-ever bowl win - a 24-21 triumph over West Virginia (along with a passel of demons from the program’s previous 0-8 bowl record) in the Carquest Bowl. This, with a roster full of Sparky Woods’ recruits.

Might Woods have won that first bowl game in 1994 given a reprieve? Or perhaps as early as 1989, or 1990, had his program been allowed to accept post-season bids? Would a bowl win, or perhaps as many as three, have changed the storyline of Woods’ tenure at South Carolina? Inarguably, it would have.

Woods certainly achieved his mission of stabilizing the USC program in the aftermath of the Morrison years. He brought unquestionable integrity to his role, guiding the program with a steady hand through its baptism by fire in the Southeastern Conference, and set the stage for future success. His handling of the player revolt and subsequent turnaround in 1992 remains a master class in leadership and crisis management.

Ultimately, what Woods told reporters following the news of his dismissal as USC’s head coach on November 29, 1993 probably still best summarizes his views on the matter today. “The [USC football] program is in a lot better shape than it was when I arrived. I have no regrets, but only disappointment that I am not able to complete what I started.”

Still, a treasure trove of memories

Woods recalls telling his son Casey of accepting the job at South Carolina in 1989. The younger Woods, now the offensive coordinator at Southern Methodist University, was six years old at the time.

“I remember telling him, we’re gonna go to South Carolina. And he looked at me and he said ‘Dad, you mean we’re not gonna be [Appalachian State] Mountaineers anymore?’ And I said well, now, we’ll always be, but I think we can help those players down in South Carolina. So they sent the plane up to get us for the press conference, and he sat up in the front seat next to Joe Baier, the pilot, and as we came in, Joe kind of went over the stadium and Casey looked back around at me and said, ‘That's a pretty big stadium!’ And he switched [to being a Gamecock] right quick.”

Woods remembers fondly the spring Gamecock Club circuit.

“I think I spoke at forty one Gamecock Club meetings every spring. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I would get off the practice field and get on the airplane and go. I tell you what, I had high blood pressure because of all the barbecue I ate,” Woods laughs, “but it was fun.”

Following his South Carolina exit, Woods spent another two decades in football, making eight stops along the way, including as head coach at Virginia Military Institute from 2008 to 2014. His final stop was at UNC as an advisor to then head coach Mack Brown from 2019 to 2023. Woods and Brown had known each other since they were both assistant coaches at Iowa State from 1979 to 1981. Woods served as Brown’s offensive coordinator at Appalachian State in 1983, then replaced Brown as the Mountaineers’ head coach in 1984. Relationships run deep in the coaching profession.

Woods still follows the South Carolina program from a distance. He is a fan of Gamecock head coach Shane Beamer, and sees some of himself in USC’s current head man.

“I think he’s doing a good job. I think he busts his tail. I remember one year before the season started, I took the entire team all the way up [to the upper deck]. They had never been that high, and they were holding onto each other. But I talked to them about our fans and why, when you go out and play, how important that is. Well, I saw where Coach Beamer did the same thing [in 2022]. There’s so many things that he’s done that reminds me of what we did. He’s doing a good job.”

Woods paused, thinking back over his time at Carolina and the challenges and opportunities Shane Beamer faces today, not altogether dissimilar from his own.

“It’s not an easy job,” Woods said, “but it’s a great, great place.”

2

Georgia held a 33-9-2 record vs South Carolina from 1894 through 1989. After a two-year hiatus in 1990 and 1991, the teams renewed their border rivalry in 1992 with USC joined the SEC, and the two schools played yearly as members of the conference’s Eastern Division. The Gamecocks have been relatively more competitive during the SEC years, with Georgia holding a 22-10 advantage. Steve Spurrier’s best Gamecock teams won four of five over the Bulldogs between 2010-2014, including perhaps the most high-profile game in the series in 2012, during which the #6-ranked Gamecocks dominated #5 Georgia from start to finish, 35-7. To the disappointment of many, the series was paused again for at least the 2024 and 2025 seasons due to SEC scheduling following the demise of the divisional structure.

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The voice came through my phone like a warm embrace from the early 90’s. Sparky Woods’ gentlemanly East Tennessee drawl and easy manner belies a life spent playing and coaching in the rough-and-tumble world of college football.

On-brand as ever, Woods was unassuming and humble. He began the conversation by actually apologizing to me for not reaching out sooner to tell me he enjoyed my book, which covers, in part, his early tenure at USC. I had passed a copy of it to him through one of his neighbors and a mutual friend during his time in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, not thinking much of it beyond that.

“Thanks, Coach, and no worries. You’ve been pretty busy.”

Indeed, Woods has been busy wrapping up a career in college football that spanned a half-century as a player and coach. He also recently relocated from his final career stop in Chapel Hill, to a new home in Alabama.

Gamecock fans remember Woods as the man who led the University of South Carolina’s football program into the mighty Southeastern Conference in 1992. His tenure, along with that of his successor, Brad Scott, was a bridge of sorts between the wildly entertaining - if often troubling - tenures of independent-era coaches Jim Carlen and Joe Morrison, to stability, eventual competitiveness, then unprecedented success in the SEC under coaching legends Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier.

Before coming to Columbia, Woods enjoyed an outstanding five-year run in his initial head coaching opportunity, leading one-time Division I-AA powerhouse Appalachian State to two Southern Conference championships, while earning three SoCon Coach of the Year recognitions between 1984 and 1988.

Woods was familiar with the South Carolina program - his Mountaineers played Morrison’s Gamecocks three times during those years, resulting in three South Carolina wins. He remembers Morrison fondly, saying, “Coach Morrison was great to me.” Woods also knew of South Carolina’s institutional troubles during the latter Morrison era.

“I knew about the steroid deal. I was 35 when this [opening] came about. I know at that age I was probably not nearly as prepared as I thought I would be, but you know, at that age, I thought I better grab this opportunity while I can. But I was smart enough to know that was not the best time to take this job. The next time it comes open would be the best time, but I felt blessed to have an opportunity to coach there.“

Upon hearing of Morrison’s death in February, 1989, Woods, like many others, thought NC State head coach Dick Sheridan would be the natural fit at South Carolina. “I thought, you know what’s going to happen is they’re going to hire Dick Sheridan, and I might have a chance to go to NC State,” Woods recalls.

Sheridan, an Augusta native and USC grad, led Furman to a Division II national title game in 1985 before revitalizing the Wolfpack program in short order starting in 1986. Many believed Sheridan harbored a desire to return to his alma mater as head coach, and he was the sole target of USC athletics director King Dixon in the early days of the search.

Dixon reportedly offered Sheridan the job during a meeting on February 12, just eight days following Morrison’s death. By Thursday of that week, Sheridan pulled his name from consideration to the surprise of many, opting instead to remain with NC State where he coached through the 1992 season.

With Sheridan out of the running, Furman’s Jimmy Satterfield and Air Force’s Fisher DeBerry rose to the top of media speculation for the Gamecock opening. Satterfield, a USC grad who replaced Sheridan at Furman, had just wrapped up a Division I-AA national championship with the Palidans. DeBerry, a Cheraw native and former coach of Wofford had compiled a 40-21 record in five seasons at the Air Force Academy, including a 12-1 finish in 1985.

Woods, with his 39-19-2 record at Appalachian State, had also entered the conversation.

Ultimately, Dixon chose Woods, who became the twenty-eighth head football coach at the University of South Carolina. The thirty-five-year-old native of Oneida, Tennessee, fit the profile Dixon had in mind. He was young and successful, with a squeaky-clean image and an engaging, affable presence with fans and media.

A promising start

The 1989 Gamecocks included much of the talent of Morrison’s final squad, including program stalwarts, quarterback Todd Ellis, running back Harold Green, and sophomore phenom, receiver Robert Brooks on the offensive side of the ball. Patrick Hinton, Corey Miller and Scott Windsor headlined the defense, while dependable placekicker Colin Mackie also returned.

Carolina jumped out to a 5-1-1 record, including a cathartic 21-10 defeat of Georgia Tech at home, just two days after Hurricane Hugo ravaged the Palmetto State. A 24-10 road upset of #23-ranked Georgia in Athens followed a week later, propelling Woods program into its first top-25 ranking, at number 24.1

October 28, 1989 marked the untimely end of one of the most brilliant careers in the history of South Carolina football. The number 24-ranked Gamecocks took on old rival, 20th-ranked NC State in Columbia before a season-best crowd of 74,248. On the third play from scrimmage, Gamecock quarterback Ellis was hit by Wolfpack linebacker Mark Thomas on third-and-seven from the NC State thirty-yard-line. Ellis, slumped on the ground and clearly in pain, tried briefly to get up before falling backward, grasping his left knee.

Reports from the locker room confirmed the worst - Ellis was lost for the season with a torn medial collateral ligament. The Gamecocks’ senior leader, all-time winningest quarterback, and holder of nearly every passing record in program history, had played his final down in garnet and black.

Dickie DeMasi, a seldom-used junior from Irmo, finished out the game and the season behind center for the Gamecocks. Despite earning second-string status coming out of fall camp, coaches had planned to redshirt DeMasi with durable veteran Ellis at the helm. It all changed in one play, and DeMasi was pressed into action. Despite best efforts, the Gamecocks seemed dazed following Ellis’ injury, and the Wolfpack walked away with a 20-10 win in another notable matchup between the two former ACC rivals.

The Gamecocks lost next to 6th-ranked FSU in Tallahassee, then won in Chapel Hill versus a hapless North Carolina team, before losing in humiliating fashion at home to number 15 Clemson (45-0) to end the regular season. After a promising start, Carolina ended 6-4-1. Good enough for a bowl bid, though the university declined the opportunity, deciding to stress academics over postseason play in an effort to clean up the program’s outlaw image.

Woods remembers the bowl decision as an unfortunate one.

“The Independence Bowl called and offered us a chance to come there. Grant Taft was at Baylor and Grant called me and tried to get me to come. He said ‘they’re gonna take you and us,’ and we probably could have beat Baylor at the time. South Carolina had only been to eight bowl games in the history of the school and never won one. So I should have pushed for that. It fell during exams, and [President] Holderman felt like, first of all, we’d probably lose money going to the Independence Bowl. I thought I was being a team guy, and I really wasn’t. It was really not fair to the players - the seniors especially.”

An eventful start to a new decade

Similar circumstances unfolded a year later, from Carolina’s ACC-heavy schedule and end-of-year win total, to another unsatisfying bowl scenario. But 1990 will always be remembered for the tectonic shifting of conference realignment - a movement that presaged greater shifts to come across the college landscape. Sparky Woods and the University of South Carolina found themselves in the thick of it all.

The 1990 Gamecocks again started well, dispatching Duke and UNC in Columbia, then defeating Virginia Tech on the road. Bobby Fuller, a former Gamecock quarterback, recalled a humorous moment from the Tech game.

Fuller was a transfer quarterback who followed Woods down from Appalachian State and started for the Gamecocks in 1990 and ‘91 after sitting out a year as required by NCAA rules then in place. During pregame warmups in Blacksburg, Fuller let fly an errant pass, hitting a Virginia Tech ball boy. That 13-year-old ball boy was none other than Virginia Tech Coach Frank Beamer’s son, Shane, now the fifth-year coach at South Carolina. Beamer reminded Fuller of the incident during a players reunion before the 2025 spring game. “He’s a funny dude,” Fuller recalls, “he came up and was telling me a story that I pegged him with a ball during warmups when he was a little kid ball boy,” adding with a laugh, “I didn’t even remember that.”

The 3-0 start pushed the Gamecocks into the top-25 (#25) for the second time in Woods’ tenure ahead of a road trip to Georgia Tech.

The following week was a historic one for USC. A high-stakes game of musical chairs had developed between the University of South Carolina, Florida State University, and the University of Miami - all major independent schools eager for invitations to the ACC or the SEC and the financial stability of major conference affiliation. The three schools waited for two coveted invitations - one from each conference.

Woods recalls his thinking around conference expansion at the time,

“I thought we’d get back in the ACC. I thought it made the most sense for us to go to the ACC and Florida [State] to go to the SEC. I thought, you know, we had a proud tradition in basketball, with [Coach] McGuire and all that. It just makes sense that North Carolina and South Carolina play each other.”

It’s hard to imagine for USC fans now, but Woods’ thoughts on the matter were shared by a distinct majority of Gamecock faithful in 1990. In May of that year, Bob Gillespie of The State suggested several potential paths for USC to attain conference affiliation. They included the ACC, the SEC, an expanded Metro Conference (USC’s conference home for all sports but football since 1983) which would include football; and intriguingly, the Eastern Seaboard Conference - a new conference model first proposed by Penn State’s Joe Paterno, which proposed a confederation of major independent football schools, including Penn State, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, Florida State, Miami, and South Carolina.

A State reader poll published two days later revealed a strong fan preference for the ACC, which garnered 62.2 percent of votes. The SEC was a distant second at 24.6 percent. Fans largely dismissed the Eastern Seaboard proposal (4.3 percent), with the Metro option barely registering.

By June, Penn State received an invitation to join the Big Ten, essentially ending any further talk of the Eastern Seaboard proposal. The financials for an expanded Metro never made sense on paper, and USC athletics director Dixon told reporters, “Frankly, a lot of our fans aren’t going to be intrigued with a home-and-home series with some of the [Metro] schools. There’s nothing wrong with them, but there’s no rivalry or relationship.”

After a summer filled with intrigue and no small amount of anxiety in Columbia, it was clear that South Carolina’s best hopes for a future conference home were tied to a return to its old conference home, the ACC, or a new path forward with the SEC. While nobody wanted to think about less desirable outcomes, it was by no means a given that USC would receive an invitation from either conference.

On Friday, September 14 the ACC made its move, inviting Florida State. Before FSU could formally accept, SEC presidents voted by teleconference in an odd, hastily assembled meeting not to invite the Seminoles.

Speculation then shifted to whether the Gamecocks or Hurricanes would receive the final SEC invitation.2 By Saturday, Sept 22, the day of Carolina’s road win in Blacksburg, rumors out of Coral Gables indicated that Miami would pursue membership in an expanding Big East Conference.

That day also marked the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Hugo’s devastating rampage across South Carolina. Amid an ongoing recovery from literal and figurative storms across the state and within the USC athletics program, the win in Blacksburg was a harbinger of better days to come.

On Tuesday, September 25, the University of South Carolina received its long-coveted invitation to membership in the Southeastern Conference, marking the beginning of the end of its long wilderness path of independent status.3

SEC invitation in hand, the #25-ranked Gamecocks suffered their first loss on the season, a 27-6 setback to that season’s eventual national champion Georgia Tech at Grant Field in Atlanta.4

A home win over East Carolina next pushed the Gamecocks’ early-season record to 4-1 before disaster struck in the form of a 38-35 home loss to I-AA The Citadel on October 20. The game figured to be a tuneup for the Gamecocks ahead of the annual grudge match versus NC State the following week, but the Bulldogs had other plans.

On the strength of a one-yard go-ahead touchdown run on fourth down by Bulldog quarterback Jack Douglas with 22 seconds remaining, The Citadel shocked Gamecock fans and scouts in attendance from the Citrus, Gator, and Peach Bowls. It was the Bulldogs’ first win versus South Carolina since 1950, and its first win in Columbia since 1919.

The Citadel loss hung like a pall over the remainder of the 1990 season, as defeats began to pile up, to NC State, #12 FSU, and #17 Clemson, interspersed only be a home win over non-major Southern Illinois.

Carolina found itself knotted at 5-5 ahead of a rare regular-season game after Clemson, in the form of a home matchup on Thanksgiving night versus West Virginia. It was a Mountaineer program that had played for a national championship just two years earlier under longtime coach Don Nehlen, but which limped into Columbia at 4-6, looking to close the season on a positive note.

Avenging a lopsided loss in Morgantown a year prior, the Gamecocks assembled their most balanced offensive attack of the season behind the passing of quarterback Fuller and the one-two punch of running backs, senior Mike Dingle and freshman Rob DeBoer. A two-sport star out of Omaha, Nebraska, DeBoer also played catcher for June Raines’ baseball Gamecocks during his four-year career.

It was the freshman in particular who delighted the crowd of 64,251. Shuttled into the lineup after Dingle suffered a separated shoulder in the third quarter, DeBoer rumbled like a young Brahma bull for 98 yards, dragging would-be Mountaineer tacklers for extra yards in a characteristically workmanlike performance that made him a fan favorite during his career. Senior placekicker Colin Mackie contributed a program record five field goals en route to a convincing 29-10 Gamecock win.

Despite the good feelings following a nationally-televised victory and another six-win season, administrators once again declined an invitation to the Independence Bowl.

Reflecting on the reasoning behind USC’s decision, Woods says,

“Same thing. Independence Bowl, and [we were] gonna get Baylor again,” Woods recalls. “I think it was the money (a reference to the cost of travel to the low-paying bowl). We also got a lot of negative publicity about a 19% graduation rate; we were on indefinite [NCAA] probation,” Woods reflects. “I wish I had fought for the opportunity to go to one of those bowl games. It would have been the right thing to do for those kids, and who knows, I think we might have won one of those. That was a huge mistake, maybe one of the biggest that we made while we were there.”

Woods recalls a 1989 conversation with Roy Kramer, then the Vanderbilt athletics director and a member of the NCAA’s committee on infractions.5 “I remember him saying to me, ‘Son, we know you’re gonna mess up again, and we don’t want to give you the death penalty.’” It was a reference to the unprecedented penalties imposed by the NCAA upon the Southern Methodist (SMU) football program in 1987 for an array of recurring recruiting violations. The penalties forced cancellation of SMU’s 1987 season, and cancelled all home games for the 1988 season. The penalties devastated the Dallas-based program, taking it decades to recover.6

Despite the bowl disappointment, Woods was building on the momentum from Morrison’s final two seasons, achieving the program’s first streak of four-straight winning seasons since Coach Billy Laval led six winners in a row between 1928 and 1933.

Moreover, Woods was retooling the program in his own image. Gone was the “Wild West” environment of the Morrison era. Woods was determined to prove Roy Kramer wrong - the Gamecocks wouldn’t “mess up again” as long as he strolled the sidelines of Williams-Brice Stadium.

Ironically it was Kramer in his new role of SEC Commissioner who, by the fall of 1990, felt enough confidence in the direction of the University of South Carolina - most significantly its football program under the leadership of Sparky Woods - to extend an invitation to the greatest athletics conference in all of college sports.

After a frustrating 1991 season during which the Gamecocks played spirited football but struggled to a disappointing 3-6-2 record in its final season as a major independent, Woods prepared to lead his program into the vaunted Southeastern Conference.

Coming soon in Part II, Woods reflects on the challenges and rewards of leading the South Carolina program, and navigating the rugged Southeastern Conference

6

SMU didn’t play in a bowl game for 35 years after the NCAA-imposed death penalty. Better days have arrived for the Mustangs, who joined the ACC in 2024. Woods son, Casey Woods, is the Offensive Coordinator and tight ends coach for the Mustangs under fourth-year head coach Rhett Lashee.

Happy Saturday, y’all. Somehow it has gotten to be the 26th of April. It’s been a wild year in so many ways. There’s turmoil all around us it seems, but good things too. As I sit here with a cup of coffee on a perfect early Saturday morning in Raleigh, the light is starting to filter through the trees, the birds are singing their morning songs, the weather is beautiful, and the inevitable cacophony of the day has yet to creep in. It’s my favorite time to read and to write.

I’m always reminded in these moments of how much we have to be thankful for. One of those things for me, of course, is this newsletter. It’s been a wonderful creative outlet and a privilege to research and write about the rich history of Gamecock sports. I have been at it for around two-and-a-half years now and, in fits and starts, I’ve published nearly fifty pieces. Along the way, 324 of you have joined me as subscribers, and I’m thankful for each of you.

As always, I appreciate you taking the time to read the newsletter. We all have a lot coming at us, and the bandwidth for reading only goes so far. Sincerely, thank you. I also appreciate you sharing the newsletter with friends and fellow Gamecock travelers.

Many Substack newsletters have both free and paid versions, and rightfully so - there is a lot of awesome content out there, and paid subscriptions help support great writing. That said, South by Southeast has always been and will remain free for the foreseeable future.

With that, I’m happy to share a couple of fun updates:

Remembering the Days podcast

I recently had an opportunity to sit down with my friends Chris Horn and USC’s new University Historian, Evan Faulkenbury - hosts of the excellent Remembering the Days: A USC Podcast. I chatted with Chris and Evan about all things Gamecock sports history, including what makes college sports fandom (and Gamecock fandom in particular) different from following pro sports; we took a look back at some memorable characters from the Gamecocks’ independent period; and we took a look forward at a new book project I’m in the early stages of working on.

Be sure to subscribe to Remembering the Days on your favorite podcast platform for a steady stream of in-depth USC history-related episodes. You should also follow Evan’s excellent USC Historian Instagram site for great posts on all things University history.

Book news

There’s something really great about a paperback book. They’re lighter and easier to carry than their more formal hardback cousins. Perfect for tossing in a beach bag, or a carryon for work or (preferably) vacation travel. They’re great for passing along to a friend, or slipping into a blazer pocket for easy access at the airport bar. Indeed, the paperback is a literary workhorse - a blue collar companion, perfect for lavish dog-earing and underlining and highlighting.

David Coggins is one of my favorite writers (his Substack site, The Contender, is fantastic), and I loved his comment about the recent release of his own paperback,

“If a hardcover feels at home within a library, the paperback wants to be taken out into the world.”

So I’m thrilled to announce that USC Press will release A Gamecock Odyssey in paperback this August! As a bonus, we had an opportunity to do some fine tuning for the paperback. No matter how many rounds of review go into a book, it seems there are always a few grammatical errors that make it through the editorial netting. Those items have been addressed for the paperback version.

“Odyssey” is available for pre-purchase now at USC Press, or any of your usual outlets. And while Amazon is always an option, please consider supporting your local bookshop, including All Good Books in Columbia, Hub City Books in Spartanburg, and Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh.

Wherever you have purchased or will in the future, I appreciate your generous support of the book since its release in November, 2023. I’m excited to welcome a paperback version into the world in just a few months - just in time for late summer travel and early Christmas shopping!

Coming soon on South By Southeast

A few months ago I had the privilege of talking with former USC head football coach Sparky Woods. It was a kick to catch up with Coach Woods, who coached the Gamecocks from 1989 through 1993, and famously led Carolina into the rugged Southeastern Conference in 1992. He reminisced about his time at USC during an exciting and turbulent period, and a long career in football.

It was a fun conversation, and that article is coming soon.

In the meantime, what Gamecock history stories are you interested in hearing more about? Please leave a comment below with any story ideas!

Cheers friends, and Forever to Thee.

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From the moment the first American college football game was playe don November 6, 1869 between Rutgers and Princeton (a 6-4 Rutgers victory), football engendered the passions of students and fans alike. Over the final decades of the 19th Century, the game spread South where it found fertile ground, and by 1892, arrived at the University of South Carolina.¹

A ”Wild West” atmosphere pervaded the early, unregulated days of the sport. According to David Dayen of Politico Magazine, lasting injuries were commonplace, and schools frequently admitted local ruffians as “ringers” to beat up on their opposition. Representative Charles Landis of Indiana, brother of the splendidly-named Kennesaw Mountain Landis, future Commissioner of Major League Baseball, said of football, “Dog fighting, cock fighting and bull fighting are Sabbath games,” by comparison.

Perhaps in part, the bloodsport nature of the game fueled its popularity. By the turn of the century, football had begun to rival professional baseball in popularity. Despite its undeniable appeal, a crisis of player injuries and deaths sparked intense debate about the game.

Christopher Klein, writing for History.com, described America’s gridiron’s as “killing fields.” Safety equipment and padding were virtually non-existent. Players wore primitive leather caps, a stylistic accessory at best, which provided a bare minimum of protective qualities.

During the 1905 season, nineteen college and high school football players died from injuries sustained during games. With five times the number of players now participating, Dayen notes, that would be the equivalent of ninety-five deaths today.

The deaths occurred from a myriad of violent causes, including internal injuries from body blows (four deaths), concussions of the brain (six deaths), spinal injuries (three deaths), and “blood injuries,” likely the result of infections from open fractures (two deaths), among other causes.

The Chicago Tribune described the 1905 season as a “death harvest,” and a Cincinnati Commercial Tribune cartoon depicted the Grim Reaper on a goal post surveying a twisted mound of fallen players.

The problem rose to the level of Presidential action that same year, as Theodore Roosevelt, an admirer of the game, demanded regulatory changes to enhance safety. Roosevelt, had overcome childhood frailty by determined exercise. He thought rough sports were integral in building character in boys, and contributed to the “strenuous life” he called on Americans to embrace, both on and off the field.

“He believed that football was a proving ground for the battlefield,” Klein wrote. Indeed, many of Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, who garnered hero status for their exploits in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, had been football standouts.

Roosevelt sought to save what was good about the sport while heading off a wave of justifiable public concern about the dangers. Adding to Roosevelt’s interest in the matter were paternal concerns, as his son Teddy played on the freshman team at Harvard.

The President told university officials that football had a violence problem, and if steps were not taken to make the game safer, he would ban the sport by executive order.

In short order, college administrators founded the Intercollegiate Athletic Association (IAA), a forerunner to the NCAA. The nascent governing body implemented rules that revolutionized the game.

Reform action too late to save the 1906 season for Carolina

Following the lead of several other institutions, including Duke, Columbia, and Harvard, the University of South Carolina’s board of trustees voted to ban football during a meeting on January 14, 1906.

The State reported a board member by the name of Hamer proposed that it would be a good time to take action, as “the team had been successful and no fatalities had occurred.”

The board’s decision caught most on campus by surprise. The backlash was immediate. The alumni association adopted resolutions in early February, calling the board’s ban on football “hurtful” to the university, and formally requesting the board to reconsider their action.

A February 9, editorial in The State, made slight jest of Harvard’s president, who had been a vocal leader in the efforts to ban football.

“Of course, President Elliot is not boycotting football because Harvard has been so lambasted in the game, but it is a bit unfortunate that the protesting yelps should come from the camp of the vanquished.”

By early April of 1906, members of the IAA’s rules committee, which included luminaries of the early college game, like Walter Camp of Yale, and Alonzo Stagg of the University of Chicago, met in session at the Murray Hill Hotel in New York City. There they passed a resolution designed to meet the growing demand for a “cleaner, more open game.”

Their resolutions covered “principally the punishment and definition of all sorts of roughness and brutality,” as well as the power of officials to penalize and control the game.

Perhaps most important among the new regulations was the “Ten-yard rule,” which dictated ten yards must be gained in three downs in order to achieve a first down. The rule doubled the yardage previously in place, which had contributed to violent scrums, with as many as ten linemen attempting to advance the ball by brute force against an equally determined defensive unit.

The new rules inspired coaches to create plays designed to open up the field. Adding to their options was another new rule, which provided for one forward pass per play.

Other rules included a fifteen-yard unnecessary roughness penalty, the fair catch, and a neutral zone between the offensive and defensive lines. Banned were holding, tackling below the knee, and hurtling, the latter of which had often resulted in brutal gashes to the defensive player from the ballcarrier’s cleats.

The game was shortened by ten minutes and an additional umpire was added to the staff of officials, with all officials given the power to report “roughness” and to penalize.

Writing of the new rules, The New York Times opined “the death knell of football as played last season” had been sounded, and an entirely new gridiron game created. Indeed, what resulted was the creation of the modern game we recognize today.

The ten-yard rule in particular placed a premium on quality punters, as teams were predicted to struggle in securing the needed first down yardage. Speculation as the 1906 season approached was that “a long and consistent punter promises to be about the most valuable man on the field.” The State reported on September 4 that many institutions held special punting contests for their players, and “many men were instructed to take footballs home with them on their summer vacations to practice punting and drop kicking.”

“It is a pity”

The State bemoaned the prospect of facing fall without football, opining in a September 1906 article, “‘Its a pity Columbia won’t have any football team here,’ is constantly heard on the street. And it is!”

With the Gamecocks sidelined for 1906, officials announced that North Carolina A&M (now NC State) would travel to Columbia to take on Clemson for the annual “Big Thursday” State Fair week contest in October.

The State reported “the game was an interesting one but not a great one from the standpoint of old-time football.”

“…there could not have been a prettier day for a game. The grey skies of Wednesday had cleared away and the sun shone from a turquoise dome. As always during fair week, the sight was picturesque.

The Aggies and Tigers, still adjusting to the new rules of football, battled to an uninspiring 0-0 tie.²

Despite sometimes awkward adjustments to the new rules, often resulting in a game few recognized, the newly imposed regulations had the intended effect. Citing a recent Chicago Tribune report, The State reported in November, 1906, “Fatalities in football have greatly decreased,” a vaguely reassuring headline at best.

Still a deadly season, 1906 produced “only” eleven player deaths and 104 injured, still a rate of almost a death per week from September through November. Still, compared with the “death harvest” of 1905, a measure of progress could be pointed to. The article went on to note that no fatalities had occurred in 1906 in games played by the larger American colleges.

A column one day later proclaimed that the progressive movement of fatalities “may mark the gridiron as no more dangerous than the battlefield.”

Board of Trustees unconvinced, 1907 season also imperiled

Robert E Gonzales, the son of N.G. Gonzales, founder of Columbia’s State newspaper, and himself the founder one year later of USC’s Gamecock student newspaper, wrote an editorial on March 17, 1907 advertising an upcoming edition of the Carolinianmagazine, then a monthly publication of the university.

Gonzales noted the April edition of the Carolinian would be “mammoth,” at 200 pages and 2,000 copies, a publication which he claimed would be the “largest magazine ever published in the South.” The special edition would feature a scholarly article by USC Professor F.H. Colcock on the merits of football, and a survey of over 200 prominent South Carolinians on the subject of football in general, and at USC in particular.

The publication was widely distributed and highly acclaimed, and appeared to influence the thinking of USC’s board of trustees, though the shift was incremental.

The board met on Saturday, June 9 to discuss an increasing vocal demand within the student body and the public for a return to football. Though the board declined to reverse their ban during that meeting, it was later revealed that the voting was deadlocked, and only the vote of Governor Martin Ansel, acting in his ceremonial role as chairman of the board, upheld the ban.

“It is a source of much regret that the trustees did not deem it advisable to reinstate football at the University, for Carolina would have had a strong eleven. There are a number of brawny men in school, and if permission had been granted, Carolina’s representatives would have made a good show on the fairgrounds gridiron. But what’s the use of ‘if-ing’ if there’s no Carolina football.” - The State editorial, October 14, 1907

By October 29, with the season ticking away, the full student body signed a petition imploring the board to reinstate football during a meeting the next day.

Some 200 students gathered on the University Horseshoe in front of the Library building where the board met on November 30. Anticipation and a din of small talk filled the cool autumn air as the students awaited the fate of their favorite sport.

When Major Benjamin Sloan, president of the University, came out of the library and announced their petition had been granted and once more “the boys would be allowed to engage in football contests,” there was a brief moment of stunned silence, and then, “a mighty yell rent the air.”

“From 200 throats were heard the cries of “football” and “trustees” and the old football yells were given, one after the other.”

Nearly every student then on campus joined the celebration, and marched as a body to Main Street to the beat of a drum. “Joy was written every face, and there was no effort to conceal it,” reports noted.

Eugene McCarthy, a distinguished member of the faculty, commented “It’s just great. I feel like getting in line with the boys myself. It did me so much good to see that football is back at Carolina.”

Starting at such a late date, the hastily assembled Gamecock football team of 1907 could not secure matches against their traditional rivals, Clemson, Georgia, or the North Carolina teams. However three November games were secured versus the College of Charleston, Georgia College (now Georgia State), and The Citadel.

The contests resulted in three Gamecock wins, and though it was an abbreviated slate, 1907 still marks the only undefeated season in program history.

Some 118 years later, spring practice has just concluded. The sound of coaches’ whistles, the popping of pads, and that old familiar optimism once again narrate the perfumed spring air with the tantalizing promise of fall. And the words of professor McCarthy must surely resonate with us all.

“It did me so much good to see that football is back at Carolina.”

Sources:

• David Dayan, How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football, Politico Magazine, September 20, 2014.

• Christopher Klein, How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football, History.com, September 6, 2012.

• Various articles from The State from 1906-07.

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