3/17/2023 0 Comments Strange but true game![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() "This isn't about the money," Albertelli explained in a 2010 ESPN interview. They have also never paid Snelling and Albertelli for their efforts, aside from some help on travel expenses. The University of South Carolina has never owned or taken care of Sir Big Spur. The arrival of the rooster atop his remote-controlled Roost Roller, custom built by Albertelli, causes Williams-Brice to erupt as if Spencer Rattler has just tossed a touchdown pass. He has been there ever since, the job handed over through the claws of six different Gamecocks, from Sir Big Spur I to Sir Big Spur VI, all raised and trained by the couple on their 28-acre farm outside of Aiken. In 2006, at the request of the athletic department, Sir Big Spur made his football debut. But realizing football coaches don't stick around forever, Snelling and Albertelli changed the moniker to Sir Big Spur. Editor's Picksĭespite its dedication to hardball, the bird was bestowed a gridiron name, Cocky Doodle Lou, after then-head football coach Lou Holtz. So for seven springs, the rooster followed the baseball team, including three straight trips to the College World Series in Omaha. As long as the rooster wasn't allowed onto the field, Tanner was on board. During that meal, Snelling explained to Tanner she received a rooster by her father, who'd given her the bird on the recommendation of a friend who was known to have participated in some illegal cockfights, which at the time weren't too difficult to find in Upstate South Carolina. South Carolina grad Mary Snelling and husband Ron Albertelli of Aiken, South Carolina, had won a private supper with the baseball coach as part of a fundraiser. It was a dinner with Tanner that led to the rooster landing the gig in the first place. "But it seems like whenever he's here, we win. "When they started talking to me about a bird in the ballpark, I wasn't so sure," Tanner said back in 1999. It was head coach Ray Tanner's third season in Columbia, and his squad made a run to the SEC East division title. But as the innings and games and weeks went by, those fans not only embraced the high-stepping bird, they became downright ornery when he didn't show up. ![]() In that story, Cloninger detailed a feud between two South Carolina couples, the original Sir Big Spur handlers and the pair who took over two years ago, handpicked by the people with whom they were now battling.Īt first, the sight of a rooster strutting atop a ballpark dugout caught Gamecocks baseball fans completely off guard. "But the story that everyone is going to remember was about a chicken." "I have spent a career breaking news of coaching fires and hires and written a lot of real, in-depth stories that I am genuinely proud of," Cloninger said. Those in the building had known it for 24 hours. Sir Big Spur had become a stable, er, staple at every Gamecocks sporting event, from the Men's College World Series and NCAA Women's Final Four to College GameDay alongside Lee Corso and getting held aloft by football coach Shane Beamer after last year's Duke's Mayo Bowl over North Carolina.īut legally speaking, that Gamecock was now nameless. Those administrators were already aware of a standoff surrounding the symbolic bird that, as of the day before, was now preventing them from using the name bestowed upon that rooster for more than 20 years. 2, they were greeted by a story in the Charleston Post and Courier, written by longtime Gamecocks beat writer David Cloninger, titled "No more Sir Big Spur? Controversy over Gamecocks' live mascot ruffles feathers." When South Carolina athletic administrators arrived for work on Tuesday, Aug. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT Join us for this special investigative report, as we follow the trail of feed and tell-tale tracks of three toes forward, one toe back. When His Cockiness struts into Williams-Brice Stadium to take his place alongside Uga the bulldog for Saturday's Week 3 home game against border rival Georgia, the poultry peevishness that led to so many nom de plumes for he of the plumage seems to finally have been put to roost. to Sir Big Spur again, just in the beak of time for the college football season. Over the course of four fowl weeks, the Gamecocks' live mascot, a regal red-winged, black-breasted Old English rooster, went from Sir Big Spur to Cock Commander (sort of) to a bunch of other names we've already forgotten to The General. While the rest of the college sports world spent the summer of 2022 wrangling myriad issues that threatened to tear asunder the sports we love, those in, around and supporters of University of South Carolina athletics found themselves snatched up into the claws of a much different type of name, image and likeness debate. ![]()
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