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YOUR BALANCE
It all Started with a Carolina game (long)
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It all Started with a Carolina game (long)


Jan 6, 2021, 4:46 PM

As a young boy who grew up in the rural Midlands of South Carolina, I was first exposed to college football around 5 years old. A friend took me to a Gamecock game. They had 50 yard line seats and President Box access. I went several times with him until I was 12 years old. I thought every football game would be like that. Great parking, great seats, free food bar, drinks, promotional items, etc. I hardly cared that they lost most of their games. I had a blast just going.

At the age of 12, I was in the Presidents box chowing down on a free hotdog, when a family friend, who was enrolling in Clemson the following year, asked if I wanted to attend a campus visit with him and his family. I went, and we got a tour of the campus, including the stadium. And at that moment, I became a die-hard Clemson fan for life. That was it!

All it took for a scrawny little farm boy to fall in love was a 5 cent tour of the campus. So I can’t help but imagine what players must feel when they get the 2021 version of “the tour.” No wonder we land so many great young men and women student athletes.

Since joining IPTAY at a young age, attending over 90% of home games since then (missed a season due to cancer), and seeing all the ups and downs along the way, I can emphatically say that I have never regretted attending those Gamecock games. If not, I may have never converted.

Today, we have our own great parking, incredible seats, and a house on Lake Keowee – where we stay every home game weekend. One Day we will make the upstate our permanent home… and to think, it all started with a trip to a dang Carolina game.

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..:: ru4god2 ::..


I totally get it !!!


Jan 6, 2021, 5:07 PM

My grandfather (Clemson class of 1924) took me to my first Clemson football game when I was 8 years old. That was in 1971. I had never set foot on the campus prior to that and frankly didn't know much about it.

I have vivid memories of walking around the campus with him that day before and after the game checking out the buildings and listening to his stories.

That was it for me. I absolutely fell in love with the place. At that moment, I was all in and became a die-hard, died in the wool, orange blooded Clemson Tiger for life.

Fourteen years later, long after my grandfather passed, I would earn my first of two degrees from Clemson. My daughters, his great granddaughters, would also graduate from Clemson.

PawPaw, as I called him, was a charter member of IPTAY in 1934, so someone in my family (my PawPaw, my father, or me) has been a loyal IPTAY member since the organizations inception.

There really is something in those hills.




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Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.


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