Thoughts, reflections, and a promise from a COOT (long).....

Nov 22, 2004, 8:56 AM

A few topics on my mind after staurday:

1) Clemson- I look forward to my visit to Clemson every two years. It’s a great football atmosphere, I love the on campus stadium, Death Valley is a great place to watch a football game. I do wish ya’ll had backs on your seats but other than that I don’t have a single complaint about anything. Saturday did not disappoint. The weather was great, the trip into Clemson could not have gone smoother and all was well. I tailgated in lot # 2 and had a great time. I love the cheers the student section starts, I love that the entire stadium gets into the them. I love the way Clemson clings to its traditions and would never think of changing them.

2) The Game- What can be said about the game? The best team clearly won! The best coaching staff clearly won! The most talented team clearly won! The team with the most heart and desire clearly won! The Clemson football program is to be commended on an excellent victory over their rival, bowl eligibility, and complete domination of a team that I thought would play so much better. Any attempt by me or any other COOT to blame refs, so we played flat, blame distractions or anything else would be futile. We got our ##### kicked by a better football team on Saturday. I will continue to follow my rule that I will not say anything bad about this Clemson team until USC beats them on the field. I have another 365 days, 52 week, 12 months, 4 Quarters, 1 year to live by that promise now, and I will!!!!
I wish you good luck in your bowl game and hope you represent the South Carolina and your school well.

3) The Fight- What an embarrassment! Whether you believe that the fight started when the ridiculous taunting at the Hill took place or whether you believe it started when who ever punched Newton, doesn’t matter! Whether you believe has no class or that USC is a bunch of thugs doesn’t matter! NO ONE and I mean NO ONE gets to hold their head up high after that. We ALL should be embarrassed for our teams, for our schools and for ourselves. There is plenty of blame to spread around. No one is innocent!!
The game was out of hand all day and it was only a matter of time. I personally saw Shropshire continue to push and shove after almost every play. Meanwhile Miller would get himself off the ground using the Gamecock player’s face mask every chance he got. The pushing, shoving and #### talking was rampant all day long and by both teams. The coaches, officials and players should have all brought it under control much sooner than they did.
The worst part was the way it infected the stands. The fans wanted to kill each other after that fight. Again there is no difference, at least where I was, between the USC and the Clemson fans going at each other. They all acted like children and they all need to be ashamed of themselves.

4) The Fans- I have been to every USC/Clemson game for the last 10 years ( I think that makes my record 3-7, ya’ll should keep buying me tickets it’s working) I have never had a poor experience. Win or lose, blow out or close game, wide right, push off, didn’t matter. 99.9% of Clemson fans have conducted themselves with class and dignity and 99.9% of USC fans have reciprocated in each stadium. THIS YEAR WAS DIFFERENT!!! I’d like to begin with the woman seated behind me. That’s right a woman, technically. There is no doubt in my mind she was what we will call a “non alumni fan”. She was the most vile person I’ve ever encountered. She spent the first half using the term “whoop ###!!” very liberally, despite the presence of children and the requests from Clemson fans to please tone it down. I guess she drank during half time because when the second half began she had very nicely replaced “###” with “####”. Then came the fight. She began to exclaim “go home you f-ing losers” it became clear the second time she said it that she was talking to me, not my team. This toothless wonder that had obviously mortgaged her trailer to buy these tickets then began to lecture me on class and called the wife to be a very dirty name. We decided to leave rather than to confront. On my way down the stairs another “non-alumni” explained to me loudly that he hoped a Clemson player would hut Lou so hard it would “kill the old #######” b/c to his way of thinking Lou had “no class”, “started the fight” and “deserved it”. To sum up this guy thought it would be great for a 20 something athlete to cold #### a 67 year old man and hurt him. I looked at him, since the line was not moving, a said to him that he was certainly one to speak of class. Fortunately, several Clemson fans agreed with me and subdued this idiot.
Now the difference is I do not believe these two “fans” are typical. I am not going to do what is done here so often and try to claim that these isolated events some how speak of Clemson as a whole. What they do speak to is the “change” that has taken place over the last few years. WE have all gotten nastier and more vile. Had this game been in Willy-B, I am sure a Clemson fan would be posting similar experiences from my Gamecock brethren and that is the problem. We ALL need to do better. On this day RevDodd’s words did not ring true. Clemson was not better than that, USC was not better than that, and none of us were.

5) The Internet- I am as guilty, in fact more guilty than most. And it is gonna change today! There is no accountability in this or any other chat room, but I for one am gonna act like there is. I am going to act as though I know each and every one of you personally, as though you are my neighbor, my friend, and my coworker. I am going to act as though our wives shop together and our children (if I had any) play little league together. I am going to disregard whether you are a tiger, a coot or an idiot. I am going to do this because I now believe that we are as responsible as any one for what happened on that field Saturday. We as fans set a tone for our teams and we have gotten to the point where we hate each other. Hate is not a word that needs to be associated with college athletics. I don’t hate Clemson and I don’t hate any of you (that includes you RMH) If you hate me fine, but you are going to have to go it alone because I will not reciprocate. This doesn’t mean I’m not gonna joke this means I’m not going to cheap shot, I’m not going to insult, I’m not going to nit pick. I’m not going to devote posts to the denigration of Clemson; I’m not going to spend my time thinking of bad things I can say. I’m not going to rush over here to report that player was suspended or that you lost a basketball game. In short I am no longer going to be part of the problem. I encourage all of you to come with me but if you don’t I will go ahead by myself. Many of you already have adopted this philosophy but many of US ( I include myself) have not and need to.

5) Apologies- TgrDiver, Tiger85, BIGCUfan, I apologize to all of you for not taking you up on your kind invitations to join you Saturday. I had looked forward to meeting each of you. I hope you can understand that after the tone the game ended on I chose to stay in familiar surrounding with familiar people. I will go ahead and let all three of you know that I am extending an invitation to you to join me at ####’s Corner for next year’s game. I hope you will.

P.S. The whoo-hoo still stinks!!!!

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after all, showing such gross ignorance of another human being simply because of the institution where he or she received his or her degree ranks among the same ignorance of judging a person by the color of hisor skin, judging him or her by nationality, or judging the person by his or her economic upbringing.

while it's certainly honorable to be proud of your alma mater, it's naive and childish to think that every person of another school is "redneck" or "stupid" or "white trash."
- catahoula

I do agree most schools have rough fans. I know I encountered a problem trying to go to my seats last year and had people try to physically fight me for wanting to sit in my seats in the upper deck. Now I would expect someone to run their mouth to me if I was in the student section. I know there were carolina fans in the student section by us and we were giving them a hard time, but if you are going to sit in the student section you have to have thick skin. The man snapped and tried to fight someone but we were able to prevent it, and made sure the cops did not make them leave. I understand that people get rowdy in a student section but there is no need for stuff like that in areas of the stadium with kids and families etc. I hope more of our fans and yours will begin to take the approach you have, but not to the extent our rivalry loses some of its fire.

Thoughts, reflections, and a promise from a COOT (long).....

Great points, Paddyd...

Great Post!!********

There where several Coots around me that never had

Props to you my friend

I agree completely. Although, thankfully, I did not have an

Well said!

Thanks very classy post..

I'm not ashamed by the actions of our team during the fight

Takes two to tango! If you beleive it was one sided then....

Go make exuses for your teams lack of class somewhere else

No comment!!! Have a happy thanksgiving!!!******

Right back at you.***

Don't tell me what to do. You are not the boss of me.

LOL!!*******

WELL DONE!!!***

Nice post. I think most football fans are generally well

bravo...

Nice Post & Amen, the woo-hoo does still stink******

Re: Thoughts, reflections, and a promise from a COOT (long).....

Re: Thoughts, reflections, and a promise from a COOT (long).....

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