Clemson Football in a Hurricane—Against Guess Who?

 

Clemson's cheerleaders frolicking on the sidelines of the 1959 NC State-Clemson game. (1960 Clemson Taps yearbook.)

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© Tim Peeler, 2022

Pity the poor bands.

There were three dozen high school marching squads from the Carolinas and Georgia on that rain-soaked day more than 60 years ago, all arriving at Clemson’s Memorial Stadium with woodwinds re-reeded, brass polished, shoes shined and batons ready to be set afire for both a pregame parade and the annual “Band Day” halftime show.

They were sidelined, however, by the first major hurricane-affected game in Clemson football history, according to National Weather Service records. The opponent on Oct. 10, 1959? The Wolfpack from North Carolina State University, the same team the Tigers will host Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in the soggy aftermath of Hurricane Ian.

A combination of two tropical storms dampened the planned activities that previous afternoon, as massive rain fell in the week, the days immediately before and the morning of the 2 p.m. contest. Hurricane Gracie made landfall on Sept. 30 near Edisto Island, South Carolina, followed by Tropical Storm Irene, an extratropical event that lingered in the Upstate before dumping more than six inches of rain on central North Carolina on game day, causing flash floods and water damage in both states.

The hour before kickoff, Clemson’s field crew grabbed several water pumps from the school’s maintenance shed and pumped away more than a foot of water that had collected on the sidelines of the crowned field, clearing the way for both teams to have wooden benches on the sidelines.

It would have been a nightmare for all the modern electronics—a laptop, perhaps?—plugged into today’s sidelines.

Sadly, all Band Day activities were called off. Some schools chose to load up their buses and go home. Others sat in the puddle-pocked grandstands, slickers flapping in the wind.

“What had been billed as Band Day had to be canceled because of the downpour, which had a foot of water standing between the stadium and field sidelines before game time,” wrote The Greenville (S.C.) News. “Instead, it the wet October afternoon was turned into a fall fashion show of wet-weather wear, which included bare-footed spectators.”

(The newspaper account did not say if the lack of shoes was intentional or a normal occurrence at the Pickens County venue.)

The only music that day was provided by Clemson’s band, who remained in the grandstands at halftime to play “Hold That Tiger” and, in tribute to the Wolfpack, “Grand Old Flag,” among other marching standards. The 150-member State College Marching Band, billed as the largest college band in North Carolina, did not attend.

Halftime entertainment was relegated to The Country Gentleman and the Tiger mascot flirting with NC State’s rain-soaked cheerleaders.

The Country Gentleman is Clemson’s now-politically incorrect mascot from the 1930s through the 1970s, portrayed by a student and instructed to represent the school’s motto “A Clemson Man Needs No Introduction.” Usually, the character was decked out in plantation-style formal wear, with a wool top hat, a purple or black velvet jacket with tails (the tuxedo kind, not the tiger kind), a string tie and a cane. For this game, in deference to the lingering storm, the Gentleman wore Bermuda shorts. Eventually, the Gentleman was shuffled away in 1972, the same year the school decided to stop playing “Dixie” at home football games.

 

 

As for the game, it was as miserable for the Wolfpack as the weather. Flashy sophomore quarterback Roman Gabriel, starting his third career game, was anchored in the turf. The Wolfpack running game was tied to a pier, gaining only 29 yards the entire game. The offense never penetrated deeper than the Clemson 40-yard line.

Late in the first quarter, State’s defense stopped Clemson's offense on downs at the goal-line, giving head coach Earle Edwards and his 33-player traveling squad a little momentum.

Early in the second quarter, though, Clemson quarterback Lowndes Shingler threw a 26-yard touchdown pass to Gary Barnes. Lon Armstrong kicked a 28-yard second-half field goal. Clemson fullback and defender Ron Scrudato intercepted second-team quarterback Gerry Mancini’s pass and ran it back 60 yards for a touchdown. And, following a pass interference penalty on NC State, Tiger halfback Bill Mathis scored from 4 yards out for the final score, as the defending ACC-champion Tigers took the 23-0 victory.

Clemson running back splashing through NC State's defense.

Wrote Herman Helms of the Charlotte Observer: “Lowndes Shingler, who has often been accused of being the best second-string quarterback in college football, stood on a turf as slick as a tin roof, gripped a ball as slippery as a piece of soap and fired a 26-yard pass to sophomore end Gary Barnes for Clemson’s first touchdown midway through the second quarter. Sophomore quarterback Roman Gabriel…was given the beating of his life by a raging Clemson line, which frequently crushed him for huge losses when he faded to throw.”

 

Clemson coach Frank Howard, "The Bashful Baron from Barlow Bend," was mightily impressed—more so with the people in the stands than either of the two teams on the field.

“That’s what I call loyal fans,” Howard said of the 19,000 individuals who waded into the stadium, about 6,000 fewer than expected. “I had no idea we’d have one-tenth that number out in this weather.

“The field wasn’t so bad. But I don’t like the way we are playing right now. We’re too spasmodic. We’re not consistent enough. We should’ve scored a couple of times when we didn’t.”

State lost three fumbles in the game, Clemson two.

“Rotten game—just rotten,” Edwards said afterwards. “Worst game we’ve played in I don’t know how long. It was just a rotten performance, but we’ve got no excuses. We had time to get ready for them and we thought we were ready.

“With Roman, we thought we could throw on them, but our receivers just didn’t hang on to the ball. It was a wet field, but they kept wiping the ball off. And, anyhow, Clemson was able to catch passes.”

Water-logged, the Wolfpack went back to Raleigh and finished the season with a 1-9 record.

Another Clemson Rain Game

Technically, according to NWS meteorologists, the game played between No. 6 Notre Dame and No. 12 Clemson on Oct. 3, 2015, was not affected by Hurricane Joaquin, despite the drenching rain that fell on both teams and more than 70,000 fans at Memorial Stadium.

Those fans had been told to stay home by South Carolina Governor and Clemson graduate Nikki Haley.

Joaquin made a quick shift eastward the day before the game and never made landfall in the U.S., though it did wreak havoc in South Carolina’s Lowcountry and with that weekend’s college football schedule. NC State lost to Louisville, 20-15, that day at Carter-Finley Stadium in one of its many hurricane-affected games. South Carolina moved its game against LSU from Columbia, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in preparation for the storm.

However, an extratropical cyclone formed in the aftermath of Joaquin, hovered over the center of South Carolina, caused 500-year flooding in the Upstate and was responsible for 19 deaths in South Carolina, including four Notre Dame fans from Indiana who were on their way to the game when their single-engine plane crashed on the banks Lake Hartwell, about five miles from Clemson’s stadium.

Partially because ESPN’s GameDay was already set up to broadcast from Clemson that day, the game between the highly ranked teams was not relocated.

In a dousing rain, the Tigers upset the Fighting Irish, 24-22, as quarterback Deshaun Watson threw two touchdown passes and ran for another. The Tiger defense stopped a two-point conversion attempt by Notre Dame quarterback DeShone Kizer with seven seconds remaining to take a 24-22 victory at Memorial Stadium.

Waterlogged fans, in orange ponchos and raincoats, stormed the field afterwards, celebrating the first victory over a Top 10 opponent since 2013.

A year later, Notre Dame played NC State at Carter-Finley Stadium in a game that was most definitely played in the middle of a hurricane.

 

No Introduction

 Who wore it better?