Oculus Spirit [90820]
TigerPulse: 100%
Posts: 45503
Joined: 10/18/09
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I interviewed Coach Frank Howard as a young Sports Writer. Would YOU
Aug 17, 2011, 6:58 PM
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like to hear some of what he said to me personally back in 1965 while interviewing him...when he promised me I could sleep on a cot just as the rest of the football team did in those days in old Jervey basketball center night before big Maryland game, but what happened at last minute.
And, what he told me in 1988 (know that he still had an office to work from even though retired over 10 years) while he was raking up a pile of dried grass left on the curb, with a pitch fork he had taken from the trunk of his car that was parked beside the present Athletic Center's parking lot (since he wasn't pleased with the lawn service!)..and about how he personally got the state of S.C. to build a 4-lane road from Greenville To Clemson...for him! I was astonished..about his claim and his picking up dried grass at age 75+ on a humid 84 degree Spring day since this was the famous "Baron of Barlow Bend", Alabama.
Plus, know I was at last Big Thursday football game in Columbia in 1959 which Tigers won big with two great QB's..and I saw him tip his hat afterwards to the cheering crowd to say "Good bye" and I'll see you Gamecocks in Clemson next year for the very first time in 60+ years. So, I knew even then that this man was famous and not one to mess with.
This guy was amazing, gruff, rough speaking, tobacco chewing, big & muscular, folksy, delightful to listen to, one-of-a-kind, well-known & respected in the college football world, full of rural stories but smart as a fox with a degree from Bama in English. Hence, Frank was able to get Clemson College some great publicity with his stories & folksy way, especially at bowl games...and even got boys from up North to come visit Tigertown.
Plus, he helped more than anyone to get our nationally renowned athletic scholarship fund organization up & going by getting in his old car in the hot, humid summers and driving all over rural South Carolina before the depression to "beg" farmers & citizens to give at least $1 down payment towards the $10 a year donation to Clemson College (Hence: I Pay Ten Dollars A Year or IPTAY).
Oh, are you a member of IPTAY? It helps all Tiger teams to compete and win, something we all talk about with our mouths, but which some of us don't support with our wallet. Many thanks if you have given & supported.
And, Frank helped select the football field we have now..planted the grass seed & mowed it on a tractor...plus coached several other teams..track included.
And, he was one of the famous under-sized "RED ELEPHANTS" linemen on the Bama team, weighing only 185 lbs, that played in the Rose Bowl. YES, the Rose Bowl!..something really special.
This man "IS" Clemson to many fans, maybe more than John Heisman or Coach Jess Neely..and I got to watch him in 1959 from my open dorm window from the original quadrangle buildings during my freshman year..when the practice field was on what is the soccer field now...him in shorts with massive muscular calves and that old gray Clemson athletic shirt & ball cap.. him treating his players the same as a circus boss who bellowed out orders...and they obeyed.
Remember, this is 1959..the year after being ranked #10 after regular season, and just barely losing 7-0 to the undefeated 1958 National Champion LSU Tigers with Coach Paul Dietzel (later, a loser at South Carolina). They had the famous Chinese Bandit platoon team that supposedly invented gang tackling, painted their eye area with black paint and wore a special band on their upper arm area. They were feared like no other team that year, but our Clemson "boys" fought them to a standstill, fumbling near the goal line..and allowing LSU to win when faked out by a half-back pass by tailback Billy Cannon into the end zone.
This was the famous Sugar Bowl game where "our" Tigers wore the new Sugar Blue outfits...with Navy Blue jerseys, which were wore occasionally years later in big games.
So, let me know with a post of "YES" if you're interested in hearing about Coach Howard...and I'll get my memory going (at age 70) and get out the old The TIGER sports articles I wrote from 1965...and entertain some of you young Tiger fans.
Cordially, "Lightbulb" Bill
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