why as a kid growing up in SC you chose the Gamecocks over the Tigers as your team? It's weekends like this past one that makes me think about it.
Do You Ever Think About
- Thread starter tejones
- Start date
I liked going to USC for school a lot more than I liked going to Clemson. Started at the latter, hated it and transferred to the former. Grew up in a Clemson family also, going to games...the whole nine yards.
From my youth, I was conditioned to view UPC as a school identified with yokels and hicks and USC as a school identified with more urbane and sophisticated people. I think that sealed it for me.
I hope you come to view that as a blessing before you check out.
USCBatgirl21
Well-Known Member
Thank God a neighbor took me to some USC games.
Step dad work for Defender (BC Inabinets company). Statered going to tater games. Riding that Defender bus to the gate when I was 9-10 yrs old. Then a neighbor took me to Carolina night game and I was hooked. Taters usually played in day and crowd boring. Gamecocks were wild at night in early 80's. In 84 i was 14. Worked the summer to help neighbor with gamecock dues and got my first season tix. I bet not many fans were pitching in on gamecock club dues at 14 lol
Step dad work for Defender (BC Inabinets company). Statered going to tater games. Riding that Defender bus to the gate when I was 9-10 yrs old. Then a neighbor took me to Carolina night game and I was hooked. Taters usually played in day and crowd boring. Gamecocks were wild at night in early 80's. In 84 i was 14. Worked the summer to help neighbor with gamecock dues and got my first season tix. I bet not many fans were pitching in on gamecock club dues at 14 lol
King, I do view it as a blessing. I can afford to go now, and love it (although I'm getting too old for the drunks). One of my son's first complete sentences was "go Cocks, beat Clemson".
This thought has wondered through my mind from time to time as well. I come from a Clemson family and was hooked early as well, although the hatred that many of the fans of each school hold for each other has never really caught on with me. My wife’s PhD is from USC (BA, and MS from Clemson) and I worked for the SCDNR for 10 years on the Statehouse grounds. I spent MANY a pleasant lunch hour on campus at the Horseshoe. There used to be a hospitality program there that served lunch right there. Great food at a reasonable price. It’s a beautiful campus for sure.
I have a lot of respect for USC fans in the same way that people respect Charlie Brown (of comics fame). He WANTS to kick that football, just as USC fans WANT to have a really good nationally respected program. Just as CB KNOWS that Lucy is going to pull the ball away, USC fans KNOW that as soon as they get their hopes up the Team or the Admin is going to let them down. But does that stop CB or USC fans? Hell NO!! Charlie Brown runs to kick that ball EVERY TIME just as USC fans get excited EVERY YEAR. It always ends the same way, but just like Charlie Brown, the USC fans hit the ground, get back up and are ready to go again. Because just as Lucy MIGHT hold the ball next time, USC MIGHT push through next year.
As Linus often said… You’re a good man Charlie Brown.
I have a lot of respect for USC fans in the same way that people respect Charlie Brown (of comics fame). He WANTS to kick that football, just as USC fans WANT to have a really good nationally respected program. Just as CB KNOWS that Lucy is going to pull the ball away, USC fans KNOW that as soon as they get their hopes up the Team or the Admin is going to let them down. But does that stop CB or USC fans? Hell NO!! Charlie Brown runs to kick that ball EVERY TIME just as USC fans get excited EVERY YEAR. It always ends the same way, but just like Charlie Brown, the USC fans hit the ground, get back up and are ready to go again. Because just as Lucy MIGHT hold the ball next time, USC MIGHT push through next year.
As Linus often said… You’re a good man Charlie Brown.
I grew up in Charleston and was about 10 when Clemson won it all. You'd think I'd have caught the bug- only problem was all the Clemson fans I knew, at that time, were complete rednecks. Sidewalk alumni, as some here say. They were just obnoxious a-holes about the whole thing, and they reveled in the Clemson "redneckery". Ugly, dirty people. Smokers, Drinkers, and Dippers; I remember that like it was yesterday. I saw them get in people's faces about it too. Just gross.
I wound up going to Carolina and many of my friends growing up when to Clemson and that softened my image of Clemson- the school. It's a good school. It wasn't for me though; it seemed like High School part 2. Not to say Columbia was Manhattan or anything, but there was lots happening outside of the school. As a student, I was friends with all kinds of people; a local attorney, a business man, the dishwasher where I worked, bar owners, gym owners, etc. I loved that.
I don't really hate Clemson like I used to anymore. Like I said, good school and have have friends and family who graduated from there. I still feel like Dabo owes us an apology for the ugly things he said years ago, but outside that you have to be impressed with what they are doing.
Finally- I don't care how many football games Clemson wins (or South Carolina for that matter). I am a South Carolina Gamecock (and Alum) for life! Believe me, my friends here in California know that all too well. I have lived all over and South Carolina is a great place, I am proud to be raised a Gamecock! I wouldn't want it any other way.
I wound up going to Carolina and many of my friends growing up when to Clemson and that softened my image of Clemson- the school. It's a good school. It wasn't for me though; it seemed like High School part 2. Not to say Columbia was Manhattan or anything, but there was lots happening outside of the school. As a student, I was friends with all kinds of people; a local attorney, a business man, the dishwasher where I worked, bar owners, gym owners, etc. I loved that.
I don't really hate Clemson like I used to anymore. Like I said, good school and have have friends and family who graduated from there. I still feel like Dabo owes us an apology for the ugly things he said years ago, but outside that you have to be impressed with what they are doing.
Finally- I don't care how many football games Clemson wins (or South Carolina for that matter). I am a South Carolina Gamecock (and Alum) for life! Believe me, my friends here in California know that all too well. I have lived all over and South Carolina is a great place, I am proud to be raised a Gamecock! I wouldn't want it any other way.
Wow that was so mean and clever I don't know how to respond. You wouldn't kick someone when they're down would you.
Dude that is honestly how I feel about USC fans. And yes it is mean (and maybe witty… or half way to witty anyway). But what makes it that way is that it’s the truth too. I personally consider USC fans to be the best fans in the country, hands down. Bama, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas? None of these schools fan bases can hold a candle to you guys. USC has had some HARD freaking times on the football field, and WB is sll packed every game. USC fans are loyal to a fault and always support their team and school. You as a group deserve SO MUCH MORE than you’ve ever gotten and so much more than I can see you EVER getting.
I just shake my head and wonder if it’s some kind of infectious sickness, but at the same time you gotta respect it.
Do you live in a fantasy world in which Clemson has always been a powerhouse football program? There's no arguing Clemson's recent success, but let's not pretend it's been that way forever. Your condescending comments sum up the attitude of Clemson's entire fan base.
It was easy for me to never consider supporting clemscum, when my older sister was in college, and at the end of that disaster that was the '98 season, they played the scumbuckets up in the trash dump aka "dung valley." She went to use the restroom and when she came back, a cowraper bumped into her and knocked her down, the pos then replied "well since you're a Carolina b**** You're not worth apologizing to" I told a now former friend of mine who was a clemscum fan about it and he said she got what she deserved for going to Carolina. And on top of that Carolina lost the game. If I saw a tater stranded on the road with cold rain or snow falling on them I would flip them the bird then then drive on and leave them stranded there!
Hell, I was the first college student and graduate within my entire family (on BOTH sides). They're all Clemons fans, so F'em!!!
I actually believe if I could truly convert to a Clempsin fan I could wreck this Titanic momentum they have going. I swear I have ALWAYS pulled for bad football teams. My high school team was bad, my daughters high school team is bad, her boyfriends team is bad. Well, you get the picture.
I try to think about Elvis.....Memphis.....Oprah in the afternoon.........
Parents were alums, met at USC actually, and then I went to school there. I would care considerably less if none of the above had happened and it was just a choice like vanilla or chocolate ice cream.
Ancestors are from Upstate, but I always heard the reason we turned Gamecock was my grandfather got mad at Clemson for fencing off some of the land around Pendleton he used to hunt on as a teen and young man to help feed the family.
That doesn't explain some of my billhilly cousins though. They still pull for Clemson. Look like giant oranges on gamedays.
That doesn't explain some of my billhilly cousins though. They still pull for Clemson. Look like giant oranges on gamedays.
As a four year old I attended my big brother's graduation from Carolina in 1945. He was the first in my family to ever attend college and was there on the Navy's wartime program to produce officers or my family could never have afforded to send him.
From that experience I was loyal to Carolina and never wavered even though grew up in the upstate surrounded by all things Clemson. I knew I was going to graduate from the university...Clemson was just a college.
From that experience I was loyal to Carolina and never wavered even though grew up in the upstate surrounded by all things Clemson. I knew I was going to graduate from the university...Clemson was just a college.
Well, the following is true and not intended as a slam on Clemson:
On my mother's side of the family, I had numerous relatives who graduated form USC. No big football fans who went to games or anything. Quite a few intellectuals / professor types. (One older cousin who went to Berkley instead of Carolina had a Nobel nomination. His mother, brothers and sisters make up 4 college professors, research scientists, one early computer scientist and one farmer - the only one of 8 kids without an college degree). I had other,more normal, Carolina alum family than that one advanced branch.
My dad's family was mountain hillbillies who moved down to Greenville to work in the textile mills during the Depression.. Dad was a machinist with an 8th grade education (though he held several patents as a tool maker and was simply a ROCK in the family). Other than my sister, there were simply no college grads on the whole side of the family except one first cousin who graduated from Clemson when I was about 12. Good guy. Became a successful contractor.
One Saturday in the mid-sixties, Dad and I dropped by to visit one of his distant cousins who lived in a Greer mill village. Clemson and Carolina were playing. The cousin was pulling for Clemson. Also, he whipped out a bunch of KKK material. Dad (who was a prejudiced product of his times who used the n-word regularly and without thinking) told the cousin that he didn't want me (about ten years old) around that stuff, and words got a bit heated. We left and dad gave me a talk about not hating or harming any person of any race and how the klan should be rooted out as traitors, criminals and murderers. Mom gve me a talk wehn I got home too. We weren't a liberal family by any means, but my parents drew a line at hurting people.
Wrongly, I admit, I associated Clemson with that type of behavior as a youth because of that distant cousin. Every time there was any competition between the schools, I pulled for Carolina. Became especially strong during high school and the McGuire years.
I knew as a teenager that I shouldn't judge Clemson on the basis of a t-shirt fan, however, my prejudice had taken hold.
I apologize to the Taters on this board. I am merely relating what caused me to choose a side. No, I do not consider Clemson an overly racist, Southern University. Tilman was elected by all the people of South Carolina. Indeed, no Clemson graduates existed to elect him to his first term. He is our state shame.
On my mother's side of the family, I had numerous relatives who graduated form USC. No big football fans who went to games or anything. Quite a few intellectuals / professor types. (One older cousin who went to Berkley instead of Carolina had a Nobel nomination. His mother, brothers and sisters make up 4 college professors, research scientists, one early computer scientist and one farmer - the only one of 8 kids without an college degree). I had other,more normal, Carolina alum family than that one advanced branch.
My dad's family was mountain hillbillies who moved down to Greenville to work in the textile mills during the Depression.. Dad was a machinist with an 8th grade education (though he held several patents as a tool maker and was simply a ROCK in the family). Other than my sister, there were simply no college grads on the whole side of the family except one first cousin who graduated from Clemson when I was about 12. Good guy. Became a successful contractor.
One Saturday in the mid-sixties, Dad and I dropped by to visit one of his distant cousins who lived in a Greer mill village. Clemson and Carolina were playing. The cousin was pulling for Clemson. Also, he whipped out a bunch of KKK material. Dad (who was a prejudiced product of his times who used the n-word regularly and without thinking) told the cousin that he didn't want me (about ten years old) around that stuff, and words got a bit heated. We left and dad gave me a talk about not hating or harming any person of any race and how the klan should be rooted out as traitors, criminals and murderers. Mom gve me a talk wehn I got home too. We weren't a liberal family by any means, but my parents drew a line at hurting people.
Wrongly, I admit, I associated Clemson with that type of behavior as a youth because of that distant cousin. Every time there was any competition between the schools, I pulled for Carolina. Became especially strong during high school and the McGuire years.
I knew as a teenager that I shouldn't judge Clemson on the basis of a t-shirt fan, however, my prejudice had taken hold.
I apologize to the Taters on this board. I am merely relating what caused me to choose a side. No, I do not consider Clemson an overly racist, Southern University. Tilman was elected by all the people of South Carolina. Indeed, no Clemson graduates existed to elect him to his first term. He is our state shame.
Instilled in me. I grew up in a Carolina family in Irmo. My mother started at Clemson but got married to my dad and finished at Carolina. My dad and grandfather are proud Carolina grads and my dad raised me to be a diehard Gamecock fan. My grandfather was editor of The Gamecock in the early '40s. My dad was always a big Carolina fan but he became a rabid fan after '84. My dad's older brother went to Clemson but doesn't follow football closely. My brother also went to Clemson after choosing their engineering school over Carolina's. He attends every Clemson game home and away but has a place in his heart for Carolina. I should have taken his advice and stayed away from message boards but I could never help myself. As far a being a Carolina fan, I have very fond memories as a kid going to Carolina games or watching them on tv and rooting for my team. It's part of who I am.
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Grew up in a family of hard working textile workers . Most supervisors in the mill were Clemson grads, After working a couple of summers in the mill I knew that wasn't the life I wanted , so off to Columbia I went and have been a Gamecock ever since, over 69 years.
I grew up in a blue collar family. My dad was a diesel mechanic and worked on Thermoking units on trucks for Colonial Stores off of Shop Road. My dad grew up in Olympia and you could see Williams Brice stadium from my grandma's front porch. My family has always been USC fans. My undergraduate degree is from USC and I will be Gamecock till I die.
I have thought in the past how much easier my college sports fan life would be if I grew up a tater. However, I also know that to be Gamecock you have to tough and you have to show a lot of grit. Taters have never really had their loyalty tested like the Gamecocks. And I know there are tons of bandwagon fans for clem now as evidenced by the growing number of tater license plates and stickers I see on vehicles now. (Interestingly enough it was during our 5 game winning streak that I actually saw several "tater" fans take off their plates and scrape those stickers off.) I know when I see Gamecock gear on a vehicle now, they are true fans and I tip my hat to them when I pass by.
I have thought in the past how much easier my college sports fan life would be if I grew up a tater. However, I also know that to be Gamecock you have to tough and you have to show a lot of grit. Taters have never really had their loyalty tested like the Gamecocks. And I know there are tons of bandwagon fans for clem now as evidenced by the growing number of tater license plates and stickers I see on vehicles now. (Interestingly enough it was during our 5 game winning streak that I actually saw several "tater" fans take off their plates and scrape those stickers off.) I know when I see Gamecock gear on a vehicle now, they are true fans and I tip my hat to them when I pass by.
Not at all man.
If you look at Clemson's total football history, you will see that except for the 80's and the current run, a very mediocre program. There were flashes here and there, but mediocre or a little better sums up Clemson's program history.
USC on the other hand has a poor to mediocre history. Except for a flash here and there, the 3 year 11 win "Streak" is your brightest point.
But at least Clemson has delivered a couple of NC trophies to it's fans. You guys have a lone ACC Conference Championship and one SECE trophy. And that's my point, you guys deserve MORE. Year after year, you pack out WB, supporting the program, coaches, and players. And what do you get out of it? Heartbreak. Every. Damn. Time.
Now I'm a Clemson fan for life at this point. I'm too old to change my ways and picking a new team to root for doesn't appeal to me at all. And I've lived through the 90s and 2000s as a fan, and I know what decades of suckage is like. So I totally get where you older fans are coming from. But why would you want a youngster to follow in your footsteps as far as the USC football fan is concerned?
One title yes (2016). 1981 hell no! Clemson cheated to win that one. But through the generosity of the NCAA, you were allowed to keep it in your trophy case and sell the vision.
NCAA has, or had, no say in football "National Championships."
That would do it for me too man. Ben Tillman was a racist murdering domestic terrorist. More shameful still is that he's actually buried in my home town and has a very nice monument there. But even bad men (and he's among the worst) do good things occasionally. I hear that Hitler really loved his dogs. The state needed an ag college and Tillman delivered. It does nothing to justify Tillman's deeds, but it's a good thing for the state.
The title was never stripped so there you are... And what if USC had won a national title right before your steroids scandal? Are you honestly telling me that USC fans wouldn't claim that title? Come on!
So all those sanctions were because Clemsin was innocent? Come on.
And comparing the cheating Clemsin got busted for versus the steroids is like comparing the two programs now...not even close.
When you are a young man, what women have that you want can flip a lot of things.
