Fritz P. Hamer - A History of College Football in South Carolina: Glory on the Gridiron

Published by The History Press
Charleston, SC 29403
www.historypress.net

Copyright 2009 by Fritz Hamer and John Daye
All rights reserved

First published 2009
Second printing 2011
e-book edition 2012

Cover design by Marshall Hudson

ISBN 978.1.59629.627.5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hamer, Fritz.
A history of college football in South Carolina : glory on the gridiron / Fritz Hamer
and John Daye.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
print edition ISBN 978-1-59629-627-5
1. Football--South Carolina--History. I. Daye, John. II. Title.
GV959.52.S6H35 2009
796.33209757--dc22
2009026268

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It has always amazed us with all the interest and passion for football in the Palmetto State how little has been written about its history, save for the various books on the Carolina and Clemson rivalry and the few additional books about these teams and their special coaches. This surprising situation came into focus when the authors worked together to organize an exhibition about the history of football at the South Carolina State Museum in 2007 and 2008. The exhibition displayed a wealth of artifacts and documents that told a story that went far beyond just the Carolina-Clemson rivalry. We found out in these sources, both three and two dimensional, that smaller schoolsfrom Furman and Wofford to The Citadel and the College of Charlestonhad legacies in the game. While Furmans football legacy is long and often dominating, other colleges, even if they lacked significant winning traditions, still had players of note, some impressive games and a support system that needed to be resurrected.

Despite the ending of some programs, such as College of Charleston (1913) and Erskine College (1952), new programs took their place, albeit in a much later era. The history and traditions of such schools as Charleston Southern University, Coastal Carolina University and North Greenville University only began near the end of the last century. Nonetheless, whether a school has a long or just a short football legacy, it deserves inclusion because it was part of an athletic tradition into which every fan and player has poured energy and passion, not to mention personal funds, to turn fall Saturdays into major events for more than a century.

These traditions and passions, along with some of their stories, came out in the State Museum exhibition that opened in August 2008, and they were available for visitors to see until its close in February 2009. While we think that this museum exhibition provided new insights into football history in South Carolina, it was not meant to last. Museum exhibitions are at best temporary, whether they are up for one month or one year. They cannot provide the details and intricacies of the history they purport to examine, and museums too often lack the time and the funding to make their exhibitions permanent through published catalogues and related books. Even the growing use of virtual exhibitions through websites has only a semipermanent reality to them since even these are not designed to be permanent records.

In our mind, we thought that the subject of football history, though more than a century old, deserved a permanent record that would attempt to tie together the colleges of the state in the game over that time. As the exhibition research showed usand as our further works since then have continued to remind usthe football history of South Carolina is detailed and complicated. We trust that this first attempt will be the start of a larger and more comprehensive study in the future.

We decided to create this book to provide a permanent record of footballs history in the Palmetto State. Using college media programs, correspondence and oral histories, combined with contemporary newspaper accounts, we have tried to weave a story that is both distinctive from and similar to footballs history in the rest of the country. Football had northern origins that filtered down to South Carolina. In-state rivalries soon developed, and they remain as strong today as they ever wereif not more so. But such rivalries have tended to draw only the interest of South Carolina residents, in part because until the last thirty years college teams in the state have rarely challenged college powers beyond state borders. Struggles to reach national prominence began to change in the 1980s, as will be shown, but the reasons for this national obscurity for colleges in the state is not the focus of this book; we leave that for another study. Our main purpose here is to show the local changes and development of college football from its inception to the present. What we have tried to do in this small work is give a broader overview of this history that someday can be examined in greater detail.

Many individuals and organizations have provided indispensable assistance in putting this study together. And as they did, it was always with enthusiasm and energy. Perhaps the most important assistance came from the archivists at the Special Collections of the Presbyterian College Library in Clinton. Nancy Griffith and Sarah Leckie not only located important documents about PC football history, but also graciously answered our additional research requests when we were unable to travel up to Clinton. We are extremely grateful for all of their valuable assistance on several levels. In this vein, we would also like to thank Susan G. Hiott, curator of Exhibitions of Special Collections at Clemson University, and her director, Michael Kohl; Susan Hoffius, librarian at the Waring Medical Library at MUSC in Charleston; Phillip Stone, PhD, archivist at Wofford College; Richard Haldeman of Erskine College; and Elizabeth West, university archivist at the University of South Carolina, Columbia.

In addition, we would also like to thank the following for giving permission for use of images from their institutions: Jennifer Scheetz, archivist, and her colleagues, curators Grahame Long and Jan Heister, at the Charleston Museum; Gordon C. Henry, archivist, and Matthew DeWitt, sports information director, both at Newberry College; Brian Hand, formerly sports information director at Presbyterian College; Hunter Reid, sports information director, and Dr. Gary Clark, athletic director, both of Furman University; Bill Hamilton, sports information director at South Carolina State University; and John T. Kennerly, director of McCain Library at Erskine College.

Finally, we thank Dr. Reverend William Pregnall and his wife, Joye, of Irvington, Virginia, and their nephew, Richard Pregnall, of Columbia, South Carolina, for providing details about Alex Pregnall, including a copy of a manuscript that Reverend Pregnall wrote about his father along with contemporary newspaper articles about early College of Charleston football. Lastly, we want to recognize Jane Yates, director of The Citadel Museum and Archives, for providing information and pictures concerning Citadel football. And we also want to acknowledge the encouragement and support of the staff at The History Press, especially Laura All and Ryan Finn, for making this study come to pass. There are many others whom we wish we could name who provided assistance in helping make this study possible, but space will not allow us to name them all. So to those we have left out, please know how much we appreciate your assistance.