It’s been a good year to be a Gamecock — a year of firsts and longtime-comings.
We’ll save those for just a bit, though.
Today is a day the garnet and black faithful turn their eyes away from history, toward Atlanta and the present and what could be the most distinguished prize yet in 118 years of excruciatingly disappointing football exploits.
The Southeastern Conference championship game.
South Carolina vs. Auburn.
It’s the grandest of conference contests, the gauntlet that when conquered has paved the road for football programs that live among the immortals.
And Carolina, finally, has its chance — both to stake a new claim and to ruin No. 1 Auburn’s chance to play for a national championship. A win punches for Carolina a ticket to the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.
Has there ever been a bigger game for the long-suffering Gamecock disciples?
“This is probably the greatest game in University of South Carolina history,” said Frank Chibarro, who at 89 years old and 62 years as a Gamecock booster has waited longer than just about anybody to see this day. “I don’t know of any more that could even come close.”
The exodus has begun as fans have traveled by interstate and by air to the promise land — which is green and striped, 100 yards long, encased within a huge dome.
The promise land looks good in HD, too.
Now to the history.
A look back into Gamecock football futility is important to understand why the proclamations of the faithful aren’t hyperbole.
Today, at age 89, Chibarro is perhaps more qualified than any to point out what coaches and TV analysts and (Clemson) hecklers have declared for far too long.
“It’s always been pretty hard to win at South Carolina,” the former manager of a Greenville insurance company said.
The year the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the New Jersey native enrolled at Carolina, playing on the freshman football team before heading off to war and returning on a G.I. bill to finish his degree in 1949.
Back then, Chibarro was a lineman, spindly by today’s standards.
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“I never was too big — about 185 pounds, at most 210,” he said. “Now these guys are 300, 350. They wouldn’t even let me be a water boy.”
Chibarro remembers the likes of Steve Wadiak in the 1950s on through to Heisman Trophy winner George Rogers in the 1980s with legendary coach Joe Morrison at the helm and, most recently, players like Sidney Rice and Kenny McKinley and Marcus Lattimore, whose place in Gamecock history can’t yet be put into perspective.
There were but a few special seasons — most notably “Black Magic” in 1984 (the only time the program has won as many as 10 games) and in 2001, the school’s bi-centennial year and the only time it won nine games during the mercurial Lou Holtz turnaround.
And both were seasons that Carolina enjoyed a rare win over arch-rival Clemson.
USC won its only football championship when it claimed the Atlantic Coast Conference title in 1969.
There were the memorable games — defeating Notre Dame in South Bend in 1984, only to lose to struggling Navy in Annapolis the same season with a chance to move to No. 1 in the land there for the taking.
Then there were the embarrassments — none more stinging than going winless in 1999.
Witnessing the win at Michigan in “The Big House” in 1980 was epic in an 8-4 season, said Rodney Parker, who has been a Gamecock since the early 1960s.
So was beating Southern Cal in convincing fashion the next year, he said, in what at the time was the battle over who was “the real USC.”
“That’s not very many ball games to talk about in 50 years,” Parker said. “I’ve always said, ‘You’ve got to have a thick skin to be a Gamecock.’”
Even as coach Steve Spurrier brought hope to the masses five years ago, the phrase was uttered early and often: “Wait til next year.”
Year of firsts
Now fast forward.
Regardless of today’s outcome, the year 2010 will go down in Gamecock history as a year of firsts.
“This is what Spurrier came to do,” said Tom Meilinger, owner of the Rendezvous Café in Greenville, a private bar that caters to Gamecock fans. “Each game got bigger as the season went on. The next game was the biggest game.”
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For the first time, the Gamecocks beat a No. 1 nationally ranked team, shoving aside Alabama at Williams-Brice stadium.
For the first time, the program won in Gainesville, beating Florida to earn another first — an SEC East division championship.
The win culminated another first — beating traditional SEC East powers Georgia, Florida and Tennessee in the same season, all in convincing fashion.
Last week, the Gamecocks accomplished a first for those who have lived less than four decades — beating Clemson two years in a row, both blowouts.
And football doesn’t get all the glory. Last June, the Gamecock baseball team beat No. 1 Arizona State, then Clemson twice in the College World Series and later defeated UCLA to win the national championship — a feat fans can point to as the beginning of something special.
A win in basketball over top-ranked Kentucky earlier in the year made it so that Carolina beat a No. 1 team in the three major sports.
Now, the only question is how great can this season be?
“If we win this game, it could be the biggest season South Carolina has ever had,” Parker said. “Now, it’s about now and in the future — not what happened in the past.”
A loss?
“It would still be a great season, because at least we know we can get to the (SEC championship) game,” Parker said. “The pinnacle has been so high before. But you look down the road and people aren’t going to talk about second place as much as they do first.”
The chance to view Gamecock history today for many has come at an exacting price.
The SEC set aside 15,900 tickets for Carolina to distribute to Gamecock boosters (the Georgia Dome seats a little more than 70,000).
Those who didn’t accumulate enough loyalty points to secure the lowest-price $80 seat were left to scrounge for scarce tickets on their own, largely from those who bought tickets offered to the general public that are often scooped up well in advance.
Tickets offered through online brokers and fan and auction sites this week were going for upward of $500 per seat.
Dan Drew, president of the Greenville County chapter of the Gamecock Club, got his tickets through the university and is headed down on a bus with other fans.
“South Carolina could probably take 50,000 people, if we could get the $80 tickets,” he said.
As for Chibarro, his road warrior days are behind him, but not his dreams of an SEC championship — and one day, a national championship.
“I’ll be watching this game at home,” he said. “I just hope we win. I think we’ve got a chance for an upset — hopefully, anyway.”
If Gamecocks have anything, they have hope.
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