The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, October 16, 1998, Page Page 6, Image 6
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features editor KRISTIN FREESTATE
The gamecock is history at
USC. He knows it, the
students know it and :
Woody Carlson knows it.
Carlson, a sociology professor, has
been investigating the history of the
gamecock symbol and mascot since the
beginning of the semester.
If s an investigation still in progress,
but Carlson uncovered enough information
to give a presentation, "Poultry
or Patriot: Why Are We Gamecocks?,"
last month as part of the Preston Seminars.
Carlson is a member of the Preston
community.
When he had the chance to give a
brief presentation on the topic of his
choice, "I thought it would be a real natural
topic for me," he said.
His interest in the subject began
when he came to USC in 1979.
"I wondered why we had a chicken
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Carlson set about finding the answer
to that question by doing research
in the South Caroliniana Library.
He also talked to people who were
"interested in the [gamecock] story,"
such as anthropology professor Karl
Heider and USC President John Palms
In doing so, he's discovered a history
that's as feisty as the gamecock itself.
Horseshoe
Showdown
The first gamecock symbol took form
in 1902 beneath the pen of a math professor
named Colcock.
Colcock, apparently inspired by the
upcoming "Big Thursday" CarolinaClemson
football game, drew a poster
that depicted a gamecock crowing over
a tiger.
The poster was displayed in the window
of a tobacco store downtown.
Carolina unexpectedly won the
game, 12-6, and USC students paraded
the poster up and down the street to
celebrate.
The Clemson students got mad at
this display, and 300 Clemson cadets
gathered in front of the State House to
protest.
They then drew their sabers and
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Horseshoe, where 40 USC students had
managed to barricade both themselves
and the poster.
Some of the USC students, including
Rion McKissick, after whom the
McKissick Museum was named, were
brandishing clubs.
McKissick had a gun, and at one
point, a student who was hanging out
of the window of a nearby dormitory
shouted, "Make every shot count,
McKissick!"
No shots were fired, but faculty
members and police officers finally had
to come on the scene.
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A 1913 cartoon of the gamecock. Du
many different looks. The first offu
wouldn't come until I960.
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They settled the affair by having
the students bring the poster forward
and throw it into a bonfire.
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the gamecock began appearing around
1913-17 and in the 1920s in the form
of newspaper cartoons and other drawings,
but the images were all different
renderings of the same bird.
Creating the Bird
Then, in 1960, Jack Morris, a football
player who was majoring in art,
drew an official version of the gamecock:
a 3-d bird, wings and spurs outstretched,
that seemed to rise off the
page.
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ring that decade, the gamecock had
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imecock symbol. The model for this
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The gamecock kept that look until
the late 1960s, when it began to evolve
at a rate that would've stymied Darwin.
In 1966, a new drawing of the gamecock,
designed by local art firm R. L.
Bryan, replaced Morris' 1960 version.
The newer gamecock was a silhouette
that seemed to point straight across
the page.
The next change came in 1975 when
Jim Carlin, who was the football coach
at the time, put the gamecock into a
block "C."
At about the same time, the bird
took on a living form when a graduate
journalism student spontaneously made
a seven-foot gamecock costume and
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Live gamecocks sometimes roam th
tice that was temporarily discontim
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bird was first drawn by Jack Morris,
i features outstretched wings and spin
started showing up at football games
as Big Spur.
Cocky came along in 1980 as what
Carlson calls "a product of the university's
imagination."
The university created the mascot
so it'd have the mascot and symbol under
its control.
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a less-than-doting audience that had a
preference for the more familiar Big
Spur.
After a few years, though, both
Cocky and the public changed.
The fans grew fonder of Cocky the
more they saw of him, and Cooky's costume
changed subtly: he began sporting
black legs.
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in the '70s, when a Clemson stue
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SPECIAL TO The Gamecock
a football player who majored In
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The Missing Link
It's unlikely that many would question
either the gamecock or its history,
but Carlson, for one, still wonders why
Colcock chose a gamecock for his poster
drawing.
Carlson said a number of names,
including the USC Jaguars, had been
considered before the gamecock came
along.
"We don't have any clear evidence,"
Carlson said, "but I think [Colcock] was
just picking up on something that
was already being said."
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this case, Revolutionary War hero
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The current version of the Cocky n
1980, much to the chagrin of Big Spu
his predecessors, has black legs.
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]OCKY
rhomas Sumter, the oldest living Revfiutionaiy
War general.
Sumter had died only two generations
before Colcock and was known as
The Fighting Gamecock."
The nickname has its roots in the
North Carolina mountains.
As Sumter was scouting for recruits
in the late summer of 1780 in those
mountains, he passed through the Gillespie
farm.
The Gillespies raised fighting cocks,
the most famous of which was a blue
one named Old Tuck.
When Sumte^ came riding up to the
farm in his blue coat, fire in his eyes,
Gillespie said something to the effect
of, "He's Old Tuck's chick."
Even the British seemed to think
so.
"It's a unifying
and identifying
purpose, mostly.
The symbol
allows [the students]
to have a
focus for that
feeling."
Woody Carlson
sociology professor
During the spring of that same year,
a British officer named Tarleton, who
was also known as the Green Dragoon,
referred to Sumter in more or less the
same terms.
He said he was tired of chasing the
Swamp Fox (war hero Francis Marion)
and was going to confront the Gamecock.
Carlson doesn't know where Tarleton
got that name from, but he doesn't
think the officer came up with it independently.
It's possible, then, that Tarleton had
heard about Gillespie's remark and liked
it enough to use it himself.
What It Means
Either way, Carlson finds it ironic
that the Clemson cadets crossed Sumter
Street in 1902 in order to try and recover
Colcock's poster.
While the gamecock might have begun
as a nickname and later taken a
more artistic form, some students
find a deeper meaning in the symbol.
"I think it stands for school pride,"
senior Ken Ziegler said. "The gamecock
shows us how we should view our pride
in our school."
Carlson agrees, but he sees the significance
in slightly broader terms.
"It's a unifying and identifying purpose,
mostly," he said. "The symbol
allows [the students] to have a focus for
that feeling."
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NIKKI THORPE Photo Kditor
n ascot. Cocky replaced Big Spur in
r's adoring fans. This Cocky, unlike