Most Gamecock fans have heard the story at some point or another - a caper legendary enough to be known simply as "The Prank".
While some details have been blurred or exaggerated over time, we went back to someone who not only remembers it - he was one of the culprits. Ed Hancock, now retired and still living in Columbia, was one of about 50 Sigma Nu fraternity members who pulled off one of the greatest college sports pranks of all time. He reminisced on the day's events now at its 50th anniversary.
In case you haven't heard the story, here's the prank in a nutshell: in 1961 before the Carolina-Clemson game, members of the Carolina chapter of Sigma Nu borrowed uniforms from Orangeburg High School and made their way on to the field at Williams-Brice to imitate the Clemson team during warm-ups, complete with pretending to milk cows, punting backwards over their heads, bumbling through plays and more. It took a few minutes for the Clemson crowd to catch on, but once they did, they were not happy!
"When we ran out onto the field, the Clemson band immediately started with Tiger Rag and we had about five lines of ten guys, so it was enough that it looked credible," said Hancock. "A few people had on two left shoes but that's because we couldn't find shoes that all matched and we had some tiny guys on the team too."
Hancock said the biggest surprise about the entire prank was that they were all able to keep it a secret.
"We practiced four or five nights, the secrecy was what was surprising. It was such a well kept secret. I had a date, like everyone else did, to the football game and I just told her I was going to the restroom. I could see all my teammates coming out of the stands and we met under the left side which is where Coach [Marvin] Bass gave us permission to use a small room there to dress."
With the imitation Tigers dressing on the home side underneath the west stands, they realized to be more convincing they would need to make their way over to enter the field from the southeast corner where the real Clemson team would enter. They made their way through some confused fans under the south stands to get to the corner. With a few guys leading the pack who looked like they could realistically be football players, the "Tigers" took the field.
"The real teams had been out to warm up and they'd gone into their locker rooms, and that's when we came out onto the field. There was a huge, burly looking guard standing there at the gate and I said I don't know if we're going to get through here, but since Jack was leading the way and he really looked like a football player, cause he actually was, the guy swung the gate open and we ran out and as soon as we touched the field the Clemson band just started Tiger Rag and all the stands went crazy, they were all standing, all wearing orange all screaming and yelling and the South Carolina side is booing and booing and carrying on."
At first the team did realistic drills and calisthenics to see if they would be believed before going into their antics.
"We had about ten minutes on the field and then we had to leave regardless, no matter what happened, so we had to start letting them know the hoax was on. The first thing we did was the 'cow milk' where I would put my fingers together and point my thumbs down and my partner would 'milk' my thumbs. We had a guy named Ron Leitch playing [Clemson coach] Frank Howard and he was walking around telling people what to do...We would line up, snap the ball to the quarterback, and everyone would just fall on the ground, we did that three times. I was on the sideline nearest Clemson which I argued not to be, but I was punting facing the north end zone and it would go back over my head and Dick Melton would let it bounce off his helmet rather than catch it. During our practices, we would time ourselves and we thought if I kick it twice and they returned it, we would be pretty close to our time to get off the field and so I kicked twice, looked over my shoulder at the Clemson stands just to see what was happening and it looked like someone had taken orange paint and poured it down the stands. The crowd was coming after us, the band stopped playing, literally the entire stands were coming after us."
The level of description for what ensued varies depending on t he storyteller, everything from "melee" to "ruckus" to "brawl", but Hancock said it was more of a scuffle than a vicious fight between the two sides. He also said ticket allocation was very different then, and the entire east side of the stands was filled with Clemson fans so the Tiger fans weren't quite as outnumbered as they would be today.
As far as whether or not a prank like this could be pulled off today, 50 years later?
"You couldn't do it today. It would really be impossible. The main reason it couldn't happen today of course there are so few tickets given to the visiting team. Out of 80,000 people in the stands only 10,000 is the most we give. In terms of attitude, I don't know, I think they would think it was funny. Sports Illustrated used to rank the top pranks and they named it as the number one prank in college history."
We agree... "The Prank" will be pretty tough to ever top.
Hancock had one more note to share about that day's activities:
"There is a little story that gets forgotten. We borrowed a cow from a guy out in Blythewood, we had it on a trailer. We had taken white shoe polish and had written 'Clemson homecoming queen' on both sides and it was of course spelled "Klempson" and the idea was to lead the cow - I don't know how the hell we thought we'd get the cow through the gate - the idea was to get the cow out on the field. I knew the cow was pretty old and I was hoping she'd make it out to the center of the field but she unfortunately passed away on the wagon in the parking lot. I'm not so sure how happy the farmer was about that."
While some details have been blurred or exaggerated over time, we went back to someone who not only remembers it - he was one of the culprits. Ed Hancock, now retired and still living in Columbia, was one of about 50 Sigma Nu fraternity members who pulled off one of the greatest college sports pranks of all time. He reminisced on the day's events now at its 50th anniversary.
In case you haven't heard the story, here's the prank in a nutshell: in 1961 before the Carolina-Clemson game, members of the Carolina chapter of Sigma Nu borrowed uniforms from Orangeburg High School and made their way on to the field at Williams-Brice to imitate the Clemson team during warm-ups, complete with pretending to milk cows, punting backwards over their heads, bumbling through plays and more. It took a few minutes for the Clemson crowd to catch on, but once they did, they were not happy!
"When we ran out onto the field, the Clemson band immediately started with Tiger Rag and we had about five lines of ten guys, so it was enough that it looked credible," said Hancock. "A few people had on two left shoes but that's because we couldn't find shoes that all matched and we had some tiny guys on the team too."
Hancock said the biggest surprise about the entire prank was that they were all able to keep it a secret.
"We practiced four or five nights, the secrecy was what was surprising. It was such a well kept secret. I had a date, like everyone else did, to the football game and I just told her I was going to the restroom. I could see all my teammates coming out of the stands and we met under the left side which is where Coach [Marvin] Bass gave us permission to use a small room there to dress."
With the imitation Tigers dressing on the home side underneath the west stands, they realized to be more convincing they would need to make their way over to enter the field from the southeast corner where the real Clemson team would enter. They made their way through some confused fans under the south stands to get to the corner. With a few guys leading the pack who looked like they could realistically be football players, the "Tigers" took the field.
"The real teams had been out to warm up and they'd gone into their locker rooms, and that's when we came out onto the field. There was a huge, burly looking guard standing there at the gate and I said I don't know if we're going to get through here, but since Jack was leading the way and he really looked like a football player, cause he actually was, the guy swung the gate open and we ran out and as soon as we touched the field the Clemson band just started Tiger Rag and all the stands went crazy, they were all standing, all wearing orange all screaming and yelling and the South Carolina side is booing and booing and carrying on."
At first the team did realistic drills and calisthenics to see if they would be believed before going into their antics.
"We had about ten minutes on the field and then we had to leave regardless, no matter what happened, so we had to start letting them know the hoax was on. The first thing we did was the 'cow milk' where I would put my fingers together and point my thumbs down and my partner would 'milk' my thumbs. We had a guy named Ron Leitch playing [Clemson coach] Frank Howard and he was walking around telling people what to do...We would line up, snap the ball to the quarterback, and everyone would just fall on the ground, we did that three times. I was on the sideline nearest Clemson which I argued not to be, but I was punting facing the north end zone and it would go back over my head and Dick Melton would let it bounce off his helmet rather than catch it. During our practices, we would time ourselves and we thought if I kick it twice and they returned it, we would be pretty close to our time to get off the field and so I kicked twice, looked over my shoulder at the Clemson stands just to see what was happening and it looked like someone had taken orange paint and poured it down the stands. The crowd was coming after us, the band stopped playing, literally the entire stands were coming after us."
The level of description for what ensued varies depending on t he storyteller, everything from "melee" to "ruckus" to "brawl", but Hancock said it was more of a scuffle than a vicious fight between the two sides. He also said ticket allocation was very different then, and the entire east side of the stands was filled with Clemson fans so the Tiger fans weren't quite as outnumbered as they would be today.
As far as whether or not a prank like this could be pulled off today, 50 years later?
"You couldn't do it today. It would really be impossible. The main reason it couldn't happen today of course there are so few tickets given to the visiting team. Out of 80,000 people in the stands only 10,000 is the most we give. In terms of attitude, I don't know, I think they would think it was funny. Sports Illustrated used to rank the top pranks and they named it as the number one prank in college history."
We agree... "The Prank" will be pretty tough to ever top.
Hancock had one more note to share about that day's activities:
"There is a little story that gets forgotten. We borrowed a cow from a guy out in Blythewood, we had it on a trailer. We had taken white shoe polish and had written 'Clemson homecoming queen' on both sides and it was of course spelled "Klempson" and the idea was to lead the cow - I don't know how the hell we thought we'd get the cow through the gate - the idea was to get the cow out on the field. I knew the cow was pretty old and I was hoping she'd make it out to the center of the field but she unfortunately passed away on the wagon in the parking lot. I'm not so sure how happy the farmer was about that."
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