Rivalry on fire: USC’s annual Tiger Burn pep rally is Monday night
The rivalry between the University of South Carolina and Clemson University is set to literally catch fire Monday night.
USC will host the annual Tiger Burn pep rally at 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 22, at the intramural fields on Bluff Road in Columbia. USC’s website bills the event as the “annual signature event of the Department of Student Life.”
The Tiger Burn precedes Saturday’s football rivalry game between South Carolina and Clemson. That game kicks off at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Williams-Brice Stadium and will be broadcast on the SEC Network. The Gamecocks enter the contest with a 6-5 record, having gotten bowl eligible with a Nov. 20 win over Auburn. The Tigers come in with an 8-3 record and seemed to find their stride on Nov. 20 with a 48-27 win over then-No. 10 Wake Forest.
USC football coach Shane Beamer is slated to be at the Tiger Burn rally on Monday night.
The Tiger Burn features a “tongue in cheek eulogy” and the burning of a structure built to resemble a tiger. According to USC’s website, the origins of the event came about more than a century ago.
“The idea of the Tiger Burn was born out of a full-scale riot in 1902,” the school’s site says. “That year, when South Carolina scored an upset victory, Clemson students became angry about a drawing of a gamecock crowing over a beaten tiger. Eventually, both sides agreed to burn the poster in an effort to defuse tensions, but the fighting cemented the gamecock as the UofSC mascot.”
According to a piece from The Daily Gamecock, it takes about 30 engineering students to put together the model tiger, “using wood and metal for the skeleton and paper and poultry wire for the decoration.”
There will be live music and food trucks after the Monday night burn, per an email from USC.
This story was originally published November 22, 2021 at 12:12 PM with the headline "Rivalry on fire: USC’s annual Tiger Burn pep rally is Monday night."
