Clemson -vs- LSU
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Since there are so many people out there posting stuff about this, I decided to start a thread just for comparisions between the 2 schools.
I will add more later, if you have any information then please post. Also post where you got the information if you can.
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Stadium - "Death Valley"
LSU - From the book "Eye of the Tiger - 100 years of LSU football" pg 123
" ....Tiger Field was dubbed "Deaf Valley." The name "Death Valley" -- which was used first at Clemson -- was picked when the orginal term wasn't properly enunicated, and misunderstood.............."
Clemson - Name synonymous with Clemson's Memorial Stadium. The Stadium was dubbed this affectionate title by the late Lonnie McMillian, a former coach at Presbyterian. He used to take his teams to play at Clemson, and they rarely scored, never mind gained a victory. Once he told the writers he was going to play Clemson up at Death Valley because his teams always got killed. It stuck somewhat, but when Frank Howard start calling it that in the fifties, the term really caught on.
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Nickname/Mascot - "Tigers"
Clemson - Walter Riggs, Clemson's first head coach came over from Auburn so some say he brought the nickname with him but others say that John Heisman was the first to call his team The Tigers in 1900. They used an insignia of a tiger's head with bared
fangs with the motto "Eat 'Em Up Clemson"
Sidenote : Clemson could have easily been known as The Lions. The players wore long manes at the time for head protection but because of the Orange and Purple striped jersey's the players wore, they resembled a Tiger more than a Lion.
LSU - 'Tigers' seemed a logical choice since most collegiate teams in that year bore the names of ferocious animals, but the underlying reason why LSU chose 'Tigers' dates back to the Civil War. According to Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., PhD. and the "Guide to Louisiana Confederate Military Units, the name Louisiana Tigers evolved from a volunteer company nicknamed the Tiger Rifles, which was organized in New Orleans. This company became a part of a battalion commanded by Major Chatham Roberdeau Wheat and was the only company of that battalion to wear the colorful Zouave uniform. In time, Wheat's entire battalion was called the Tigers.
Thus when LSU football teams entered the gridiron battlefields in their fourth year of intercollegiate competition around 1899, they tagged themselves as the 'Tigers'.
In 1924 LSU receives first live mascot named "Little-Eat-'Em-Up" as a gift from an alumni in South America. The tiger was a black bobtailed tiger. He was quickly deposed after the football season for "failure to act."
The Mascot (costumed) Started sometime in the 1950's
Sidenote: Before being called The Tigers, LSU was known as The Pelicans.
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Song - "Tiger Rag" (Hold that Tiger)
Clemson - The 1918 "Tiger Rag" recorded by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band wasn't adopted as the Clemson University fight song
in 1942
LSU's official fight song is called "Hey, Fightin' Tigers" not "Tiger Rag"
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School Colors -
Clemson - Original colors were pale Purple and Gold but Coach Jess Neely wanted uniforms that were more colorfast. So the official colors of Clemson were born, North-Western Purple (PMS 541) and Burnt Orange ( PMS 165)
LSU - There is some discrepancy in the origin of Royal Purple and Old Gold as LSU's official colors. It is believed that those colors were worn for the first time by an LSU team in the spring of 1893 when the LSU baseball squad beat Tulane in the first intercollegiate contest played in any sport by the University. Team captain E. B. Young reportedly handpicked those colors for the LSU squad.
Later that year, the first football game was played. On November 25, 1893, football coach/chemistry professor Dr. Charles Coates and some of his players went into town to purchase ribbon to adorn their gray jerseys as they prepared to play the first LSU gridiron game. Stores were stocking ribbons in the colors of Mardi Gras - purple, gold and green - for the coming Carnival season. However, none of the green had yet arrived at Reymond's Store at the corner of Third and Main Streets. Coates and quarterback Ruffin Pleasant bought up all of the purple and gold stock and made it into rosettes and badges.
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Other notes of interest.......
Clemson developed the Tiger Paw which is its trademark today (no other team has one like it).
The LSU Tiger Marching Band, is referred to as the "Golden Band from Tigerland"
The Clemson Tiger Marching Band, is referred to as "The Band that Shakes the Southland"
The Clemson Dance squad is referred to as the "Rally Cats"
The LSU Dance squad is referred to as the "Golden Girls"
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