Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009

Are You Ready for Some College Football in South Carolina?

 

 

Sweet tea, barbecue, bluegrass music and college football – some things are so distinctly Southern that they’re hard to explain to outsiders. (It’s a Southern thing; y’all wouldn’t understand.)

But we here at Weekly Surge don’t want anyone to be left out of the pigskin loop. With the kickoff of the 2009 college football season right around the calendar’s corner, we want everyone to get into the game. You don’t want to be the lone kid sitting in the corner of the sports bar watching ping-pong while everyone else is tuned into the only game in town, do you?

So let’s say you’re an NFL fan and don’t really care about the college kids until draft day. Or perhaps you’re from up North and you’ve lost interest in college ball because your team has lost virtually every battle with the South since Appomattox. Or maybe you’re a communist, err, we mean a non-football fan and you don’t have a dog in this hunt. We can fix that too.

The point is that now that you live in the South, you should do as the Romans (as in Rome, Georgians) do. You can still root for your alma mater and NFL team, but because you now live in South Carolina, you should also root, root, root for your new home’s home teams.

But which one? There’s Clemson University, which is on the far end of the state but by far has enjoyed the most gridiron success of them all. There’s the University of South Carolina, the Chicago Cubs of college football, in Columbia. And for those who like to pull for the little guy and the local guy, there’s Coastal Carolina University just up the road in Conway.

Just to give you a little background about each program, Clemson has been the dominant team in the state for most of modern history, winning the 1981 national championship and becoming a fixture in postseason bowl games ever since. The Tigers have struggled a bit in recent years, but a bad year for Clemson would be a great year for anyone else in the state.

South Carolina is a very different story.
Despite some brushes with success throughout its history, the Gamecocks seem to be victims of the “Chicken Curse,’’ which dictates that whatever bad can happen not only will, but does. USC’s football history is full of instances where the Gamecocks knocked on the door of greatness only to have it slammed in their face.

And then there’s Coastal Carolina, which didn’t even start playing football until 2003. But Coach David Bennett had the new kids on the football block playing like contenders right out of the box. The down side: The Chanticleers play in the Football Championship Subdivision, or as everyone else in the football world calls it, Division I-AA, sort of like the JV squad.

Perhaps more important than the schools’ football reputations is the reputations of their fans. Deserved or not, Clemson fans have a rap for being country, and it has an agriculture program to match. South Carolina fans, fair or not, are regarded by many as whiners – “We almost did this’’ and “If we hadn’t fumbled six times …’’ – are common phrases in their vocabulary. As for Coastal fans, they live on the coast. They like the tailgate party as much as the game.

To help you make your decision, and it is an important one because it will determine whether you are the talker or talkee of trash this fall, we offer this quiz to match your state’s school with your state-of-mind. Take out your No. 2 pencils and let’s see who No. 1 in your heart is:

• Which mascot do you prefer?
A) Tigers

B) Gamecocks (aka chickens)

C) Chanticleers (aka French chickens)

• Which league do you prefer?
A) Atlantic Coast Conference, which is known for basketball.

B) Southeastern Conference, which is known for football.

C) Big South, which isn’t known at all.

• Your coach is called:
A) Dabo

B) The Ol’ Ball Coach

C) That guy who does duck calls on the TV commercials.

• Your stadium is called:
A) Death Valley, as nicknamed by famous coach Frank Howard

B) The Cock-Pit, as named by famous coach Steve Spurrier.

C) Brooks Stadium, named after the Hooters guy.

• Which teams do you love to hate?
A) South Carolina.

B) Clemson.

C) South Carolina and Clemson, and any other big-name schools that pay us money for an easy victory.

• Which legendary player do you admire most?

A) William “The Refrigerator’’ Perry, the world’s best 350-pound running back.

B) Sterling Sharpe, the only ex-player who didn’t talk to the press to work for the press.

C) Tyler Thigpen, the Kansas City Chiefs’ little quarterback who could.

• Your favorite pre-game ritual:
A) Rubbing Howard’s Rock and running down The Hill.

B) Playing “2001: A Space Odyssey’’ and Cocky magically appearing from the smoke.

C) Sitting in U.S. 501 traffic listening to other games on the radio.

• Your idea of the perfect tailgate party:
A) Sitting on the tailgate of pickup trucks, drinking moonshine and eating fried chicken.

B) Riding on the Cockaboose, sipping cocktails and eating fried chicken.

C) Hiding from campus security, sneaking a sip of beer from a brown paper sack and eating fried chicken.

• Your favorite colors:
A) Orange and purple.

B) Garnet and black.

C) Coastal green and whatever secondary color is used that season (black, white, gold – it’s all good).

• What level of success should your team have achieved?
A) A national championship and numerous conference titles.

B) One league title 40 years ago.

C) Three league championships in its first four years of existence (that’s two more than USC in its 100-year-plus history).

• Your favorite mascots nickname is:
A) The Tiger

B) Cocky

C) Chauncey

D) None of the above, or maybe Foghorn Leghorn.

• Favorite touchdown celebration:
A) The cheerleaders doing push-ups for every point your team scores.

B) Good thing our cheerleaders don’t have to do push-ups every time the other team scores.

C) Watching the cheerleaders jump in their push-up bras.

• Most famous former football coach:
A) John Heisman.

B) Lou Holtz.

C) We haven’t had time to have a former coach yet.

• Your stadium should seat:
A) A capacity crowd of 88,000.

B) A capacity crowd of 83,000.

C) A capacity crowd of 8,000 so you can beat the traffic to the postgame party.

• Post-game parties should be held at:
A) The Esso Club

B) The Vista.

C) Any bar at Broadway at the Beach.

• Your school’s claim to fame should be:
A) An excellent agriculture program.

B) A great business program.

C) Uh, it’s close to the beach.

• The ideal place for a bowl would be:
A) The Orange Bowl in Miami.

B) The Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.

C) Renting shoes to bowl at Waccamaw Lanes.

• The rally cry you most hate to hear is:
A) the Rooster Crow.

B) The Tiger Roar.

C) “Last Call!’’

• The band you love to listen to on Saturdays is:

A) The Tiger Band.

B) The USC Marching Band.

C) The Mullets.

• A perfect Saturday is when my team:

A) wins

B) loses

C) doesn’t conflict with my weekend social plans.

 

OK, class, time to tally your scores. Remember that all results are final. No switching teams midseason or you will be labeled a bandwagon fan, which is even worse than being a loser.

If you answered “A’’ to the most questions, you are without a doubt a Clemson Tigers fan. Paint some paw prints on your pickup truck and go out and buy yourself some orange overalls. Not only can you wear them to the games on Saturdays, but you can don them to go hunting on Sundays and to your job picking up trash on the side of the highway all week.

If you answered “B’’ to the most questions, you poor soul, you are a South Carolina Gamecocks fan. Go ahead and start planning your lame excuses now. The good news is you don’t have to worry about the Gamecocks ruining any of your New Year’s plans.

If you answered “C’’ to the most questions, you are a Coastal Carolina Chanticleers fan. The bad news is you won’t be going to any BCS bowls, or be ranked among the top teams in the nation. The good news is, win or lose, the visiting team will return to whatever po-dunk town it came from and you still get to live at the beach.

Click here for previous cover stories

 

 

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