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YOUR BALANCE
Thank goodness for the late Red Parker
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Thank goodness for the late Red Parker


Sep 17, 2019, 9:34 PM

This is a guy we'll always owe a lot to. The late CU HC - Red Parker ('73-'76).

Clemson had stopped running down the hill after Frank Howard retired. Mainly because the new locker rooms under the West Endzone Stands had been finished at a pretty big cost (for the time).

Red Parker had just started as the Tigers' new HC in '73 & thought DV was flat; no passion from the crowd or the team. His idea was running into the field from those

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Re: Thank goodness for the late Red Parker


Sep 17, 2019, 9:37 PM

actually, a group of players approached Red about resuming the hill entrance. the late Ben Anderson was the leader of the group

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Re: Thank goodness for the late Red Parker


Sep 18, 2019, 8:07 PM

When I arrived in Clemson in 1955 the team dressed in the old Fike Field House, walked down to the stadium and ran down the hill. After the game they returned up the hill (but not running) and returned to Fike.

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Re: Thank goodness for the late Red Parker


Sep 17, 2019, 9:40 PM

Ahhhh..... Messed up & hit the post button. (Continued):

.....running onto the field from the West Zone lockers was boring. Parker thought up the idea of using the buses to take the team back up to the East Endzone & return to - running down the hill!!!

The team we played when that tradition returned in Oct '73? Texas A&M. We lost, but "The Hill" was back!

Thanks Red!!

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I remember that game for Mitch Tyner's punt


Sep 17, 2019, 9:50 PM

It's still the record, I believe. It was funny watching little Carl Roach's elbows and heels trying to catch up that blast. It was pretty much the highlight of the game, too. That aTm squad was good...Ed Simonini and company. Of course, later in the season came Maryland with Randy White.

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Re: Thank goodness for the late Red Parker


Sep 17, 2019, 9:56 PM [ in reply to Re: Thank goodness for the late Red Parker ]

The team members started rubbing the rock prior to running down the hill September 23, 1967, a day when Clemson defeated Wake Forest,23-6. Prior to running down the hill that day, Howard told his players: "If you're going to give me 110 percent, you can rub that rock. If you're not, keep your filthy hands off it." Howard told of the incident the next day on his Sunday television show and the story became legend. When Hootie Ingram succeeded Howard as head coach prior to the 1970 season, Ingram decided that the team would make its final entrance on the field out of the dressing room in the west end zone. In all home games in 1970 and 1971 and the first four of 1972 when the Tigers did not run down the hill, their record was 6-9. The team decided it wanted to come down the hill once prior to the South Carolina game in 1972. The result, in a cold, freezing rain, was a 7-6 victory when Jimmy Williamson knocked down a two-point conversion attempt which preserved the win.

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Re: Thank goodness for the late Red Parker


Sep 17, 2019, 9:55 PM

Actually, running down the Hill JUST BEFORE THE GAME began on November 27, 1972 when a group of players lead by Ben Anderson approached Hootie Ingram (in his last game as a coach) to run down the hill just before the South Carolina game. Coach Ingram agreed and his got 2 school buses to take the team around to the Hill just before the game.

Red Parker continued the tradition on the second home game of the following year and it has continued ever since then.

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Re: Thank goodness for the late Red Parker


Sep 18, 2019, 7:37 PM

It makes me feel REALLY old that the appearance of Howard's Rock and Running the Hill before games are events that are contemporary to my personal memory and time as a student at Clemson. From the perspective of most fans today touching the rock and running the hill started about a thousand years ago. They seem as old as Death Valley.

'Course I am about as old as Death Valley.

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Thanks also to Coach Parker for the '75 class,


Sep 18, 2019, 7:52 PM

Steve Fuller, Jerry Butler, Dwight Clark, Joe Bostic and others...we turn the corner with these guys

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Re: Thank goodness for the late Red Parker


Sep 19, 2019, 5:21 PM

Agreed he started the dream and got the players that Pell won with

GO TIGERS

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