The Clemson-Carolina rivalry dates back to 1896, and has gone on 105 consecutive years since 1909.
Manning resident Ted Gardner has been there for the last 70, and today’s game in Williams-Brice will mark his 71st.
Gardner, 87, attended his first Carolina-Clemson game as a 17-year-old Clemson freshman in 1945.
Gardner’s first memory of the rivalry is 1945’s 0-0 tie in Columbia during the Big Thursday era.
“It was right after the end of World War II,” he told The State before his 65th game in 2009. “Both teams had a lot of returning veterans, and they fought each other hard, but they didn’t have much offense.”
In 70 years, Gardner has seen his Tigers triumph 38 times versus 29 losses to Carolina, five of them in a row from 2009-13. He’s also seen three ties, the first at his very first game in 1945, and the other two in 1950 and 1986.
“The year (2003) when (Lou) Holtz coached and we won 63-17,” Gardner said in 2009. “We pretty much emptied the stadium of Carolina fans. I was in the upper deck on the visitors’ side – my tickets (at Williams-Brice) are always up near the top of the flagpole – but we’d moved down to the 50-yard line by the end of the third quarter.”
