The Prank: How a bold gag in 1961 mocked the Tigers
If a prank has anniversary parties, you know it was a good prank. Meet “The Prank.” In 1961, the members of South Carolina’s Sigma Nu fraternity devised and practiced an elaborate and bold gag in which dozens of them donned uniforms of a local high school football team and bluffed their way onto the field at Williams-Brice Stadium before the Gamecocks’ game against Clemson to mock the Tigers. “We practiced four or five nights. The secrecy was what was surprising,” participant Ed Hancock told the school’s website in 2011.
“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.” “(Bass) didn’t see anything wrong with it, and we needed his OK to get past the cops and onto the field,”
participant Carroll Gray told The State newspaper in 2011. “I was sports editor of the Gamecock, and I talked to (Coach) on the flight to the Virginia game. After he said all right, I told (the fraternity members), ‘Hey guys, we’re on,’ and it took a life of its own.” The tricky part was getting onto 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,” Hancock said. “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 (guard) 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.” From there, the players mimed milking a cow, fell to the ground while running simple drills, and generally portrayed their rivals as hapless cowhands. “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,” Hancock said. “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 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. 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 (that if I kicked) it twice and they returned it, we would be pretty close to our time to get off the field.
“So I kicked twice, (then I) 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.” Pushing and shoving ensued, but order was restored and South Carolina went on to win the game 21–14. In 2011, participants in The Prank gathered at a Columbia restaurant to relive their glory day. Ron Leitch, who impersonated a blustering Clemson coach Frank Howard during The Prank, told The State that his Howard outfit “cost me $10.97 at Goodwill.”
When The Prank made news across the nation, Bass distanced himself from it, according to Gray. “Coach Bass threw me under the bus,” Gray said. “I figured I would at least be suspended or maybe expelled. I spilled my guts and Dr. (William) Patterson listened, then (he) sat there and looked at me for what seemed like 10 minutes. Then he said, ‘That was pretty funny, but don’t do it again. Now get out of here.’ ”
https://www.thestate.com/sports/college/university-of-south-carolina/usc-football/article18174848.html
If a prank has anniversary parties, you know it was a good prank. Meet “The Prank.” In 1961, the members of South Carolina’s Sigma Nu fraternity devised and practiced an elaborate and bold gag in which dozens of them donned uniforms of a local high school football team and bluffed their way onto the field at Williams-Brice Stadium before the Gamecocks’ game against Clemson to mock the Tigers. “We practiced four or five nights. The secrecy was what was surprising,” participant Ed Hancock told the school’s website in 2011.
“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.” “(Bass) didn’t see anything wrong with it, and we needed his OK to get past the cops and onto the field,”
participant Carroll Gray told The State newspaper in 2011. “I was sports editor of the Gamecock, and I talked to (Coach) on the flight to the Virginia game. After he said all right, I told (the fraternity members), ‘Hey guys, we’re on,’ and it took a life of its own.” The tricky part was getting onto 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,” Hancock said. “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 (guard) 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.” From there, the players mimed milking a cow, fell to the ground while running simple drills, and generally portrayed their rivals as hapless cowhands. “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,” Hancock said. “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 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. 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 (that if I kicked) it twice and they returned it, we would be pretty close to our time to get off the field.
“So I kicked twice, (then I) 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.” Pushing and shoving ensued, but order was restored and South Carolina went on to win the game 21–14. In 2011, participants in The Prank gathered at a Columbia restaurant to relive their glory day. Ron Leitch, who impersonated a blustering Clemson coach Frank Howard during The Prank, told The State that his Howard outfit “cost me $10.97 at Goodwill.”
When The Prank made news across the nation, Bass distanced himself from it, according to Gray. “Coach Bass threw me under the bus,” Gray said. “I figured I would at least be suspended or maybe expelled. I spilled my guts and Dr. (William) Patterson listened, then (he) sat there and looked at me for what seemed like 10 minutes. Then he said, ‘That was pretty funny, but don’t do it again. Now get out of here.’ ”
https://www.thestate.com/sports/college/university-of-south-carolina/usc-football/article18174848.html
