Amble across the Horseshoe and take a stroll down more than 200 years of memory lane with Remembering the Days, a University of South Carolina podcast. We tell the stories of everything from campus pranks in the 19th century to how we became known as Gamecocks. It’s the always interesting, sometimes quirky history of an institution that has been part of the fabric of the Palmetto State since it opened its doors in 1805 and eventually became South Carolina’s flagship university.
In the past 100 years, USC has been a member of four athletics conferences. Here's a quick primer on the whens and whys of each affiliation and a look back at the university's 21-year stretch as a football independent.
The state of South Carolina has a surprisingly rich history of Jewish presence dating back more than three centuries. It's not surprising, then, that the University of South Carolina would have its own history of Jewish life on campus.
USC students in 1977 buried an eclectic assortment of items for a time capsule that was unearthed in 2001 as part of the university's bicentennial celebration. That same year, another time capsule was buried on the Horseshoe — with its own treasure trove of items — with an opening scheduled for 2051.
For more than 110 years, USC alumni and students have been singing the university alma mater — 'We hail theee, Carolina!' But what, exactly, is an alma mater and how did USC end up with one?
For two centuries, social dances have been knitted into the fabric of the campus social scene at Carolina. Waltzes, the One-step, shag and hip-hop—the style of dance changes but the beat goes on.
When The Gamecock student newspaper began publishing in 1908, there were only 300 students on campus to read it. Since then, the award-winning paper has published myriad stories about campus life and helped launch the careers of innumerable writers and journalists.
Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton engaged in an infamous duel in 1804, and a number of South Carolina College students nearly got tangled up in duels in the years before the Civil War. History records only one duel involving South Carolina College students that ended in fatality — and this is the strange story of that tragedy.
USC's Honors College was established in the 1970s around the time that several other of the nation's first honors colleges came into being. But the South Carolina Honors College would eventually emerge as one of the nation's best, boasting hundreds of honors courses and attracting some of the best students from the Palmetto State and beyond.
Curtis Frye, head coach of field and track head at USC, knows a thing or two about coming in first place and being the first to do something. He's done all of those in his time at Carolina, including bringing home the university's first-ever national championship trophy. Perhaps most importantly, Coach Frye understands the importance of putting first things first.
Every year, tens of thousands of prospective students and their families visit the University of South Carolina for a campus tour. Here's the story of how the university's Visitor Center came to be, as well as a peek behind the curtains at some unscripted moments in the lives of campus tour guides.
“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world … is a garden.” When Frances Hodgson Burnett penned those words more than a century ago in her classic children’s book The Secret Garden, there probably were very few, perhaps not any flower gardens on the University of South Carolina campus. But we’ve made up for it in the past 50 years or so. On this short tour, you'll learn the history of several not-so-secret gardens on campus and what's planted in each one.
What building on the University of South Carolina campus was named for a Confederate navy commodore and commemorated on a picture postcard? It's a trick question! A high-rise residence hall was featured on a postcard in the late 1960s, and the caption on the postcard said the building was named in honor of alumnus Epaminondas J. Capstone, a Confederate commodore. But separate fact from fiction is the real story.
Fifty years ago, it wasn't uncommon to hear professors give the "look to your left, look to your right — one of you will have failed by the end of the semester" speech. But exactly 50 years ago, Carolina tried something different: a course designed to help freshmen feel like they belonged along with the academic tools they needed to succeed. It was called University 101, and it became model for hundreds of colleges across the country.
Women's college sports barely on the radar in the early 1970s, but Title IX changed everything by leveling the playing field for men's and women's sports at the collegiate level. Meet two of the first 18 women to receive athletics scholarships at the University of South Carolina, which is now a national leader in parity for its men's and women's sports programs.
Eighty-one graduates of the University of South Carolina have died in military service since the Spanish-American War at the close of the 19th century. In observance of Memorial Day, we remember three who died serving their country in World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War.
Pranks and pratfalls are part of life in any college residence hall, but one dormitory complex at the University of South Carolina seemed to have more than its fair share. Stories about life in the Towers, also known as the Honeycombs and the Veilblocks, are now almost the stuff of legend. Here are a few anecdotes from yesteryear about those long-gone dorms.
Sarge Frye knew how to make grass grow, and for five decades he made sure the University of South Carolina's athletic fields were green and trimmed. But much more than that, Sarge had a heart for people and connected with everyone he met. It's why his name continues to be synonymous with Gamecock sports.
Tom Jones was one of the university's longest serving presidents, and during his 12 years at the helm the university added scores of buildings and thousands of students. Significantly, Jones helped transform South Carolina into a modern research university and brought a spirit of innovation to its instructional mission.
Nearly 60 years ago in 1966, the Concert Choir at the University of South Carolina was formed, and from the beginning, it was a special thing. its founder, a Hungarian-born music educator named Arpad Darazs, turned the ensemble into the university's first internationally touring choral group and the legacy lives on.
Long before texting, Facetime and email were a thing, university students sat down with pen and paper to ask their parents for money, beg forgiveness when they got in trouble and invite someone special for a date. This quaint assortment of letters from University of South Carolina students of yesteryear covers all of those topics and more.
Built in 1840, the South Caroliniana Library was the nation's first free-standing college library. Here's the story of how it came to be and what it has become in the years since.
Jotaka Eaddy grew up on a dirt road in a small town in the Pee Dee region of the state. But she wound up pursuing big dreams when she came to the University of South Carolina, and that success propelled her toward even bigger goals as a professional.
When we think back to our college days, some of us remember old boyfriends and girlfriends or maybe former roommates that we still stay in touch with. And for some, college is where they met that special someone — the person with whom they fell in love and then, quite possibly, lived happily ever after.
When it was dedicated in 1855, the building we now know as Longstreet Theater was already a disappointment. The audience gathered could scarcely understand what was being said because of the poor acoustics. So how did this echo chamber eventually become the premier stage for live theater at the university? Sound engineering!
For much of the first half of the 19th century, students at South Carolina College were not pleased with the quality of food served on campus. In 1852, the wormy biscuits and rancid meat were too much to stomach, so the students issued an ultimatum — that ultimately gave them a case of indigestion.
JFK once had a bad night's rest in the President's House, and Burt Bacharach tickled the ivories there. Pope John Paul II addressed a crowd of thousands packed onto the Horseshoe. This trip down memory lane has us remembering some of the famous visitors who've come to campus over the years.
He loved fly fishing and bird hunting and wrote numerous tales about both of those sporting passions. And when he wasn't doing those things, Havilah Babcock was in the classroom, a favorite English professor for generations of students at the University of South Carolina.
Were there always so many squirrels on the Horseshoe? And how else has campus changed in the past 200 years in regards to insects, birds, snakes and such? Take a stroll with naturalist-in-residence Rudy Mancke to learn what's changed and still changing in the natural world of campus.
Like other universities across the nation, the University of South Carolina needed more land in the 1960s to keep up with skyrocketing student enrollment brought on by the Baby Boom. In a previous episode, we talked about the campus migration that created the east campus in the middle of the University Hill neighborhood. This episode explores the underpinnings of the campus expansion into Ward One and Wheeler Hill, which were largely obliterated by 'urban renewal' efforts that acquired more land for the university.
When students at the University of South Carolina elected a new Student Government president in 1971, the event made national news. That's because, just eight years after the university was desegregated, an African American student won the election, riding a wave of support from white and Black students who were tired of the "establishment" and "the system."
In the late 19th century, students at South Carolina College who were stalwart members of the institution's two debate societies felt that their clubs were threatened by the presence of fraternities on campus. They contrived a way to boot the Greek letter organizations off campus, but the ploy ultimately failed.
University Terrace Apartments began as a federal housing project, and became married student housing after they were acquired by the University of South Carolina. Alumni Joe and Missie Walker reminisce on what life was really like in their first humble abode.
When the Gamecocks take to the football field every fall, Williams-Brice Stadium roars with the full-throated spirit of 80,000-plus diehard fans, a battalion of marching band members, cheerleaders, baton twirlers and dancers and a hyperkinetic mascot, Cocky. It’s a far cry from the first football game played on the University of South Carolina campus in 1898 when a few hundred fans huddled on simple wooden bleachers beside a field situated where the Russell House Student Union now stands.
Since its inception more than 200 years ago, the University of South Carolina has had three different names and several nicknames. But Juliet was right — that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
The University of South Carolina experienced enormous enrollment growth in the 1960s and began expanding its campus in several directions. Its move eastward into the University Hill neighborhood greatly expanded the campus footprint, but also stirred tensions with the residents when construction on the high-rise Capstone House began.
Patricia Moore-Pastides and her husband, Harris Pastides, the 28th president of the university, lived in the President's House for 11 years with thousands of college students as their closest neighbors. Patricia has a few favorite stories about that experience.
The President's House on the historic Horseshoe has been home to every university president since 1952. Patricia Moore-Pastides, who lived in the house as university first lady for 11 years, talked with the now-grown children of those former presidents to find out what life was like for them during their years in the President's House.
In the long history of schoolteachers in South Carolina, Matilda Pinckney's story stands out. Born a slave on the historic Horseshoe at the University of South Carolina, Pinckney was later trained at a Normal School on the university campus and would go on to a 30-plus year career as an educator.
From its founding in the early 19th century, the University of South Carolina was keenly interested in building a library collection to properly educate its students. Since then, the library's holdings have become a treasure trove that includes rare books and special collections that attract scholars from around the world.
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 1954 that racial segregation of school children was unconstitutional. When South Carolina's segregationist governor spoke out against that ruling, the School of Education dean at the University of South Carolina courageously spoke up. The dean kept his integrity — but not his job.
In the spring semester of 1974, streaking became the latest fad to hit college campuses, and for about one week, the University of South Carolina held the record for the largest number of streakers — 508. Here are the bare facts of the event.
Nearly 150 years before the original Star Trek TV series came to be, South Carolina College built its first observatory to boldly go where no one had — wait, it wasn't that dramatic! But that 1817 observatory made way for another campus observatory building in 1852 and still another in 1928. That last one, the Melton Memorial Observatory, is still going strong today, offering spectacular views of the night-time skies on clear Monday evenings.
He was the University of South Carolina's first Black professor and the first Black graduate of Harvard College. But Richard T. Greener's accomplishments in the years after the Civil War far exceeded those "firsts." No wonder there's a statue in his likeness on campus.
Ninety years ago, the pathways crisscrossing the Horseshoe were dusty when the weather was dry and muddy when it rained. Then a young English professor devised a campaign to convert the paths into proper brick sidewalks without any funding from the state.
Dress codes and curfews persisted at the University of South Carolina until well into the 1960s, but in the waning years were mainly focused on female students. Kit Smith, a 1967 graduate, recalls the dire consequences of returning to campus 15 minutes late.
The Carolina-Clemson football game of 1961 was a close game that ended with an exciting goal-line stand, but this story is about what took place before the game ever started — what’s been hailed as one of the best pranks ever pulled in the history of college football.
University of South Carolina architect Derek Gruner says walking across the Carolina campus is like a visual lesson in American architecture from the past two centuries. Join us for a stroll and learn more about some of the university's most iconic buildings.
Buckle up for a time traveling excursion to 1840 and a sensory experience of 19th century life on campus.
Remembering the Days podcast Episode 14: What was it like in America and on the Carolina campus a hundred years ago during the Roaring '20s? Contrary to popular belief, not everyone was having a roaring good time, but that memorable decade brought lasting change to the university and the nation.
What began as "a wilderness of lofty pines and wild shrubs" in the early 1800s became a refined college quadrangle now known as the Horseshoe. Join us for a short walk among these shady trees — and learn how you can have your very own piece of this paradise.