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YOUR BALANCE
Sunday sermon: Not for others, but ourselves
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Sunday sermon: Not for others, but ourselves


Sep 27, 2015, 10:53 AM

We'll start with one of my favorite folks in the Bible, Nehemiah: "They which built the wall, they which bare the burdens, let them with one hand continue the work, and with the other hand hold a weapon."

Many, many years ago, in Death Valley, the upper walls were not yet built. The foundation was just being laid. The hands were still building, and the weapon was not yet forged.

That was the last time Notre Dame came to town. To the little backwater burg in the hills to squelch the rural rebellion and hillbilly hopes of a small raucus family called Clemson.


"You Clempson peckerheads know better than to mess with my mighty Notre Dame team. Just bend over and take it like the inbred hillbillies you know you are."

At least that's the feeling you get when you read the missives sent to the ACC from Dan Devine in 1977. They were the words of the haughty, words of a man used to privilege who didn't have the time to coach when bullying seemed the more efficient course.

A man with a very good team and a very bad attitude ... just the kind of foe Clemson LOVES to welcome into the Valley.


Y'all have heard snippets of that week from the Silverbacks, and this week you will hear more. Tales of Devine's letter to the ACC that he expected them to reign in the rowdy Clemsonites. That his Irish would expect proper decorum when they arrived.

They arrived to silence ... a stone-cold unnerving silence, save for the ND band and Lucky Charm swilling fans that somehow found their way through the mountains to our little backwater burg. Even then, Death Valley was every bit as big as their stadium and they had to wonder if, perhaps, they hadn't underestimated the devotion these peckerhead hicks put into their game.

The story of the silence is nothing short of miraculous. After Devine's dismissive missive, a lot of folks in Clemson began making plans to "welcome" the Irish at the old Holiday Inn by calling the rooms, driving through the parking lot with horns blaring, cranking the fire alarms, etc.

President R.C. Edwards would have none of it. But clearly, something had to be done to channel it energy and emotion of the faithful. The suggestion: Why not let Devine think he had won? Let the Irish stroll into Death Valley like the King of Ai before Joshua with nothing to indicated the liquid #### awaiting.



Do nothing. Say nothing. Bottle all the rage and insult ... and wait for the cannon.

It remains a day of days for those who were there. The eerie silence giving was in a concussion of cheers when the cannon went off on top of the hill. In the end, the Tigers weren't quite the euqal of the team that went on to win the national championship that year.

But the legend of Clemson and Death Valley went nationwide that cold November afternoon. And had the Tigers not fumbled, I am convinced Texas would have beaten Penn State for the national title. Or Alabama's win over Ohio State might have given the Tide the title.

Clemson, in a sense, was in a position to play the king-maker. Much like last year, where if we hadn't fumbled in Tallahassee either Baylor or TCU would have been in the playoff.

This year, though, we hold the wall with one hand and a sword in the other ... and we're playing for our own destiny. We fight not to deny Notre Dame, but to advance Clemson. We fight, not as kingmakers but to be king.

This is the battle that we have longed for, lived for since 1977. Our temple is completed, our foundation secure. And if you think Notre Dame is any less self-smug, less "let's beat down these peckerhead hicks and get back to civilization" that that day so many years ago, you're mistaken.

Clemson, to them, is a stepping stone, slightly more interesting than Virginia.

Do YOU think we're only "more interesting than Virginia?" Me neither.



Things are a little bit differnt this time, BB Heads ...

This Saturday evening, in one of the holiest of football's shrines, we will be waiting, one voice, one heart ... one night to raise #### and to turn college football on its ear. This is a blood debt owed by the Irish, and only blood will satisfy it.

It is time to place one hand on the wall and hold tight your sword, Tigers...and listen for the cannon.

It will be glorious.

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much better than laying in the weeds; it's time...


Sep 27, 2015, 11:01 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGQYhWl50z4

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Re: Sunday sermon: Not for others, but ourselves


Sep 27, 2015, 11:01 AM

:)

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In all confidence . . . chalk it up!


Sep 27, 2015, 11:06 AM

I like your words, Rev!

Go, Tigers!



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Spot the Ball!


Sep 27, 2015, 11:07 AM

Go Tigers!

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a blood debt.


Sep 27, 2015, 11:14 AM

Ohhhhhh man. That really cooks my cornbread. Let's get this game goin!!

I'm eating lucky charms all week.

Go tigers!

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this is not exactly the battle I've longed for, lived for


Sep 27, 2015, 11:17 AM

since '77, although that game is when my somewhat ambivalent dislike for ND turned into intense hatred. Only to be further stoked by their arrogance in having their own tv deal and expecting a spot in the playoffs without a conference affiliation.

So I'm glad their coming, and look forward to seeing their cockiness knocked down a peg or two with a Tiger win.

Good sermon, Rev.

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A close, hard-fought win will not suffice.***


Sep 27, 2015, 11:19 AM



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Rev, how you gonna get us so worked up this soon?


Sep 27, 2015, 11:20 AM

GO TIGERS!!!

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Let this be the foundation...build up from here


Sep 27, 2015, 12:41 PM

You never know just how hyped you can get to whip someone until they call you and everything you hold dear "backwater."

Let it sink in a little every morning. By Saturday, things should be properly fermented.

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dang REV, you done gave me the chills !***


Sep 27, 2015, 11:37 AM



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Good job Chick. *******


Sep 27, 2015, 11:43 AM



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.


We'll get a new good night pic of packed DV with the Oculus


Sep 27, 2015, 11:52 AM

sticking up over the WEZ (a giant middle finger in honor of Dan Devine - RIP).



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Great job Rev. I was a freshman at Clemson in 1977, sitting


Sep 27, 2015, 11:52 AM

in Section A among the other students. A game where we fumbled four times, the first three, each one inside the ND 15 yard line after long drives into ND territory. Even after all that, we carried a 17-7 lead into the 4th quarter. The fourth and final fumble happened late in the 4th quarter near midfield, and from there, Montana drove the Irish to the win. That was bad enough, but Dan Devine's antics on the field as time expired were unlike anything I have ever seen in Death Valley. The payback in 1979 in South Bend was great, although I watched that one in Littlejohn on closed circuit TV.

It will be great to get another shot at ND in Death Valley!

Go Tigers!!

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geeZ REV..Pope Francis couldn't have said iT any more forceful or elegantly! ??


Sep 27, 2015, 12:23 PM

ThX..and now Asking all TiGER Fans to Show up in Orange, Paws, deep Voice & Support of The Clemson Tiger Team! ??

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Re: Great job Rev. I too was there...


Sep 29, 2015, 12:28 AM [ in reply to Great job Rev. I was a freshman at Clemson in 1977, sitting ]

The ND players stood in the middle of the field, pregame warm-ups... in sort of a huddle..
just looking around the stadium, like a little flock of sheep...
as we chanted,
O R A N G E - W H I T E
from one side to the other side...and then,
spelling
C L E M S O N
around the stadium.
You could tell we were implementing the ol' intimidation factor upon them.

By the way..
That was the subject of the Dan Devine letter the week of the game, to the ACC...
Keep the noise down. :) Of course we were very obedient to that. :)
RIGHHhhht!

That needs to be the case on Saturday...LOUD AND PROUD, TIGERS!
GO TIGERS!!!

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Re: Sunday sermon: Not for others, but ourselves


Sep 27, 2015, 12:19 PM

The only appropriate response is "let all God's children and Tigers everywhere say AMEN!"

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Outstanding post Rev!


Sep 27, 2015, 12:20 PM

You have outdone yourself again.

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927 people have read this at 1:02 p.m. and


Sep 27, 2015, 1:06 PM

only 40 points awarded....THUMBS DOWN TIGERNET STALKERS! SHAME ON YOU!

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It's OK the other folks are out ...


Sep 27, 2015, 1:09 PM

...sharpening their disc harrows for the impending ritualistic slaughter Saturday night.

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Great One, Rev!


Sep 27, 2015, 1:10 PM

.

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Re: Sunday sermon: Not for others, but ourselves


Sep 27, 2015, 1:16 PM

Dang, I've been boohooing like baby since I read your post, Rev. Then, I watched "Who Will You Be" for about the fifth time and cried some more. Love my Tigers! All in! Spot the dang ball!

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Re: Sunday sermon: Not for others, but ourselves


Sep 27, 2015, 1:47 PM

Sorry REV ! The devil steered my clicker to give you a TD but I sure meant a TU! If I knew how to change it I would!

Great post as always!

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Re: Sunday sermon: Not for others, but ourselves


Sep 28, 2015, 2:19 AM

Read it to, and show the video to the team right before they enter the buses for the ride to the entrance of Death Valley. And hopefully if ND wants to get a closer look, they will get run over by a backwater hick town FB team at the bottom floor of Death Valley!!!


Message was edited by: allorangeallthetime52®


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Re: Sunday sermon: Not for others, but ourselves


Sep 28, 2015, 5:26 AM

Remember that game in 1977 like it was yesterday! The "silent out" was the most amazing thing I have ever witnessed in the Valley,considering it was done all by word of mouth. We didn't have email or text back then. And Dan Devine's attitude was something to behold. And you are so right...IT IS TIME!!!! So let's do this, Tigers!!!!!!!

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Re: Sunday sermon: Not for others, but ourselves


Sep 28, 2015, 7:02 AM

Awesome Sermon Rev. I was a '77 Spring Grad who was able to sit in the senior student section with my future wife. That game was probably the toughest lost I experienced in DV.

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Can I get a Hallelujah!


Sep 28, 2015, 7:11 AM

Preach on, Rev.

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Spot the friggin' ball !!!!!***


Sep 28, 2015, 7:54 AM



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Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.


What was the exact message Devine sent to the ACC prior to


Sep 28, 2015, 8:35 AM

1977 game? I have seen references to it, but nothing else.

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every head bowed and every eye closed....***


Sep 28, 2015, 9:00 AM



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Re: every head bowed and every eye closed....***


Sep 28, 2015, 5:10 PM

Amen brother, and not a whisper.

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Did y'all think I was joking about the "no respect" part?***


Sep 28, 2015, 1:01 PM



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What a deplorable thing for Dan (un)Devine to say...


Sep 28, 2015, 4:46 PM

And to think he probably got such a notion from the movie Deliverance...Written by James Dickey, who later went on to teach at, you guessed it, the University of South Carolina.

All the more reason to rain down auditory fire from above onto the scourge of ND.

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Dickey - Long


Sep 28, 2015, 10:56 PM

Of course Dickey played football for a couple of years at Clemson, I think before going into the army and then back to school elsewhere afterwards. Has a poem entitled The Bee (dedicated to the coaches at Clemson College. I remember we read it in Freshman English 102.

One dot
Grainily shifting we at roadside and
The smallest wings coming along the rail fence out
Of the woods one dot of all that green. It now
Becomes flesh-crawling then the quite still
Of stinging. I must live faster for my terrified
Small son it is on him. Has come. Clings.

Old wingback, come
To life. If your knee action is high
Enough, the fat may fall in time God ####
You, Dickey, dig this is your last time to cut
And run but you must give it everything you have
Left, for screaming near your screaming child is the sheer
Murder of California traffic: some bee hangs driving

Your child
Blindly onto the highway. Get there however
Is still possible. Long live what I badly did
At Clemson and all of my clumsiest drives
For the ball all of my trying to turn
The corner downfield and my spindling explosions
Through the five-hole over tackle. O backfield

Coach Shag Norton,
Tell me as you never yet have told me
To get the lead out scream whatever will get
The slow-motion of middle age off me I cannot
Make it this way I will have to leave
My feet they are gone I have him where
He lives and down we go singing with screams into

The dirt,
Son-screams of fathers screams of dead coaches turning
To approval and from between us the bee rises screaming
With flight grainily shifting riding the rail fence
Back into the woods traffic blasting past us
Unchanged, nothing heard through the air-
conditioning glass we lying at roadside full

Of the forearm prints
Of roadrocks strawberries on our elbows as from
Scrimmage with the varsity now we can get
Up stand turn away from the highway look straight
Into trees. See, there is nothing coming out no
Smallest wing no shift of a flight-grain nothing
Nothing. Let us go in, son, and listen

For some tobacco-
mumbling voice in the branches to say 'That's
a little better, ' to our lives still hanging
By a hair. There is nothing to stop us we can go
Deep deeper into elms, and listen to traffic die
Roaring, like a football crowd from which we have
Vanished. Dead coaches live in the air, son live

In the ear
Like fathers, and urge and urge. They want you better
Than you are. When needed, they rise and curse you they scream
When something must be saved. Here, under this tree,
We can sit down. You can sleep, and I can try
To give back what I have earned by keeping us
Alive, and safe from bees: the smile of some kind

Of savior-
Of touchdowns, of fumbles, battles,
Lives. Let me sit here with you, son
As on the bench, while the first string takes back
Over, far away and say with my silentest tongue, with the man-
creating bruises of my arms with a live leaf a quick
Dead hand on my shoulder, 'Coach Norton, I am your boy.'

James Dickey

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I did not know that...that is wild, weird, stuff


Sep 29, 2015, 1:53 PM
carson.jpg(123.9 K)



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Re: Sunday sermon: Awesome as usual..


Sep 29, 2015, 12:31 AM

As I mentioned in a reply earlier in this post. I too was there!
GO TIGERS!!!
:)

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100 TUs looked good but I couldn't help myself and


Sep 29, 2015, 12:41 AM

Had to bump this up to 101!

How do we get you to speak to the team before the game in the locker room?

Aiki

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keep this on the front page


Sep 29, 2015, 5:44 PM

A

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amen rev!***


Sep 29, 2015, 10:24 AM



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Re: Sunday sermon: Not for others, but ourselves


Sep 29, 2015, 5:40 PM

This one gave me chills Rev!!!!! So pumped I can't stand it!!! TIGERS HAVE TO WIN - NO OTHER CHOICE WILL DO!!

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This post is GLORIOUS. Going to share it with those with


Sep 29, 2015, 5:49 PM

the greatest impact. Pun intended.

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Re: Sunday sermon: Not for others, but ourselves


Sep 29, 2015, 7:48 PM

Good one Rev. Back to the top!!

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warrior princesses are ready to slay the leppies-Go Tigers!***


Sep 29, 2015, 7:58 PM



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I'm curious is this the most points ever? BMeist? *******


Sep 29, 2015, 8:38 PM



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.


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