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University of South Carolina www.dailygamecock.com WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2002 * ■ — , GAMES OF CAROLINA-CLEMSON RIVALRY Right: An effigy of the Clemson tiger goes up in flames during Tigerburn in 1987. USC beat Clemson 20-7 that year. The spirited Tigerburn tradition is about 50 years old. This year’s will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday on Davis Field II. Below right: Cocky and the Clemson Tiger pose at the 1990 game, which Clemson won 45-0. FILE PHOTOS FROM GARNET & BLACK YEARBOOK Tiger burn, football run, blood drive heat up rivalry week BY KIMBERLY HUNT THE GAMECOCK Carolina-Clemson traditions are upheld annually at both schools, and this November is no exception. USC fans will prepare for the university’s 100th football game against Clemson during Tigerbum on Thursday at 7 p.m. on Davis Field H, beside Longstreet Theatre. At Tigerbum, a USC tradition about 50 years old, students gath er to build a giant tiger, then set it on fire as a way to get pumped up for the game. “Past generations have em braced Tigerbum,” said Missy Curls, Traditional Events com missioner for Carolina Produc tions. “Tigerbum incorporates the Carolina-Clemson rivalry.” Construction of the 10-foot-tall, 14-foot-long, 8-foot-wide crouch ing tiger started Nov. 11 and was finished Sunday at the Farmer’s Market. Another event, the Si gma Nu fraternity’s annual Gameball Run, will begin about 7 p.m. at Tigerburn. Students will watch the fraternity run out of Columbia and toward Clemson. “It’s something you can see,” Sigma Nu President Matthew Moore said. “We’re running a football on a major highway across the state.” Each of the 80 fraternity mem bers runs at least a mile with the ball on Highway 378 and U.S. Highway 1. Four members ride be hind the runner in a rented van to take the handoff, and each finished runner boards a chartered bus to follow the rest of the run. By 6 a.m. Friday, USC’s Sigma Nu chapter will have run about 75 miles to meet up with the Clemson chapter in Greenwood, S.C., and hand over the football. Clemson’s chapter will finish the second half of the 148-mile run. Members will make it into Clemson at 5 p.m. and hand off the football to Tigers quarterback Charlie Whitehurst. The Sigma Nu football will be used during the first kickoff of the Carolina-Clemson game. Fans place bids in an auction to win the football, and proceeds will be do nated to multiple sclerosis re search. Both Sigma Nu chapters raise money for research. “Our money goes toward researchers getting closer to finding a cure for multi ple sclerosis, and that makes the run an even stronger tradition,” Moore said. Moore said preparation has been going on since August. » “Preparation is a semesterlong process,” Moore said. “It gets more intense in November.” Last year, USC’s chapter raised $22,000 during the event. A third tradition for the rival ry week is the Carolina-Clemson blood drive. “Our reputation is on the line,” said Lara Bratcher, a third-year anthropology student and one of two coordinators for this year’s blood drive. “We won the trophy last year, and we want to keep it here at USp.” Last year, Carolina collected 2,297 pints of blood versus Clemson’s 1,809 pints. Since the war started in 1985, Carolina has won only five times. “People enjoy the Clemson-, USC rivalry,” Bratcher said. “It is a good way to show your spirit in a really productive outlet.” The blood drive will be set up in the Russell House Ballnyim on Wednesday and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Donors get free food and T shirts, along with chances to win raffled prizes, such as a baseball autographed by the Atlanta Braves, a football signed by Lou Holtz, a baseball signed by Ray Tanner and gift certificates to lo cal restaurants. Donors must be at least 17 years old and weigh at least 110 pounds. There are also restric tions on recent tattoos and pierc ings and if the donor recently vis ited certain countries. The winning school of the blood drive is announced Saturday at the game and award ed the trophy. “The blood drive has good tim ing,” Bratcher said. “The Red Cross is always short around the holidays.” Comments on this story?E mail gamecockudesk&hotmail.com jj What the rivalry is really about ADAM BEAM GAMECOCKUDESK@HOTMAIL.COM Fans give a special touch to in-state battle. What makes Carolina and Clemson such big rivals isn’t what happens during the games but what happens between them. My first-grade Sunday-school teacher gave me my first lesson in the rivalry when she asked me which team I pulled for. Not know ing any better, I chose Clemson be cause, to a 6-year-old’s eyes, the or ange color stood out more. But my dad — the music minister—was a Gamecock, and when word got out that his son was a Clemson fan, he never heard the end of it. It was then that my dad took me aside and had a little chat with me. “Son,” he said, “you’re a Gamecock. Remember that.” X uxu. When I was 12, my grandmother tried to give me a Clemson towel to dry off with after I got out of the pool. I took one look at the tiger and refused, claiming I’d rather be soaking wet than have that thing draped across my shoulders. So in stead, I stood shivering on the con crete for half an hour, slowly drip drying while my mom stood at the window and laughed at me. When Rod Gardner pushed off during the 2000 game to make the 50-yard catch that denied the Gamecocks an upset in Death Valley, my dad turned the televi sion off by throwing the remote on the floor and told me the only way it was coming back on was over his dead body. He didn’t get like that when we lost to Florida. If you define rivalry as just en joying beating someone, then that makes every team on the schedule a hated enemy worthy of spirit ♦ BEAM, SEE BACK PAGE