An Exchange Student's Perspective on Clemson Football...

Sep 19, 2005, 5:30 PM

The following is an e-mail sent by a Clemson exchange student from Australia to her friends back home describing the Texas A&M game:

"Clemson Football: Solid Orange…It’s about pride.

So I had my first football match. OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME! I cannot put in words the experience that is American football. Picture if you will, 86 THOUSAND (PLUS) people going out for a massive picnic by their car for 8 hours before the game. They call this tailgating. All around the stadium, in parks and ovals and by the roadside, there are people eating and drinking and watching the day’s football on TV from the back of their car or suv or RV depending on how luxurious you intend tailgating to be.

Then splash orange or tiger all over EVERYTHING. I mean shirts, shorts, shoes, earrings, hats, cars, antennas, tents, cups, plates, serviettes, wheels, your DOG! Frats and sororities are out in full force by their houses. You walk down the street and it’s not abnormal to hear someone chanting the Clemson tigers cheer. The opponents Texas A&M wear moroon and stick together in small packs to defend against the marauding orange menace.

About an hour before the game is due to start at 8pm, there begins a mass trek toward the stadium. As you turn onto the roads closest to the main entries there is just a sea of orange. The surging mass erupts frequently with the sound of cheers and fists raised to cry “1234, 1234, C-L-E-M-S-O-N T-I-G-E-R-S FIGHT TIGERS, FIGHT TIGERS, FIGHT FIGHT, FIGHT”.

We squeeze through the crowds to reach the gates and we are in… The stadium itself is huge, no magnanimous. It fills rapidly with excited fans and the crowds just keep coming and coming. The stadium fits 86,000 but was not completely full due to construction!!! They are making it bigger!

Pre game action begins, the players are leaping about on the field, psyching up the crowd. The band plays, the cheerleaders and rally cats lead the stadium in cheers and perform death defying acrobatic moves, huge flags fly to spell Clemson. The players leave the field in reparation for their entry. On a massive screen to one end, the players are shown preparing to enter on ‘the hill’. They atmosphere is absolutely electric. Everyone is screaming and jumping and yelling. The players pause to rub ‘the rock’ (tradition for good luck). The crowd is going dead set scitz and my ears are sore from the noise. A cannon fires and the players run down the hill, the noise gets louder than ever before and suddenly overhead fly three jets… everyone goes even more sctiz. I am in awe, I am in disbelief, this is something that cannot be captured, it can only be experienced.

And so the game begins… lets just say I didn’t really know what was happening, but it was so fun because everyone just stayed scitz the whole time, like you DO NOT sit down during the game. I had everyone describe what was happening, so I could follow a little. It was hard enough to even follow the ball, because the team on offense is intentionally trying to fake out the opposition. It’s very misleading. The game took about 4 hours all up, because they have ads and breaks and fan fare the whole time!

Of particular interest for me was half time… as it was military appreciation day, the half time entertainment was based on this theme. They requested volunteers from the 10 nations involved in the signing of a treaty at the end of the second world war to fly their flag during the proceedings. Of course I could not pass up such an opportunity. So… I got to go on the field and fly with pride the Australian flag! WAHOO! It is a rare privilege to go onto the field during a game, so I was pretty stoked to say the least.

The Clemson tigers (who were the underdog) won the game by a field goal in the last seconds of the game. The crowd was absolutely SCITZ! Everyone went crazy and thousands of orange people stormed onto the field to meet the players and congratulate them. Of course I did to; after all I needed an autograph!

The night wound to a close for me around 2am, completely and utterly exhausted, although the festivities lasted long into the wee hours of morning, as everyone celebrated the stunning victory or drowned their Texas sorrows.

P.S they turn around and do this for every home game of the season! Wow."

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An Exchange Student's Perspective on Clemson Football...

how'd you get that***

Point for that! That is awesome to read!***

I spent two weeks in Australia and still know nothing about

That post was the SCITZ!***

Is that student from Bond University in Australia?

you might say they share a "bond" ... sorry, i had to do it***

The stadium is "magnanimous"?***

Latin for "that's a huge.." :)***

No, it means generous and giving. Nothing to do with size.***

two "fights"

OT: Do you have a larger version of your avatar I want that.***

Hate to break it to you. Changing back to "two" fights...

silly boy---2 fights is the way it needs to be....

I love how the jets fly over at the same time we run down

TigerBoard POTD