Will the Real Death Valley Please Rise?

Will the Real Death Valley Please Rise?  

LSU and Clemson’s Claims 

By Denis M. Crawford, College Football Hall of Fame Historian 

Ok, try to follow along one of the more confusing opening paragraphs ever written for the College Football Hall of Fame. 

When LSU defeated Clemson 17-10 last year in Death Valley, the Tigers argued their 4-1 overall record against the Tigers meant that the Tigers were the true owners of Death Valley and that when the Tigers take on the Tigers again in their own Death Valley, the Tigers will be the true owners of both Death Valleys.  

Got it?  

Good…now please explain it to me.  

All kidding aside, from a historical perspective it does not matter if the (LSU) Tigers continue to defeat the (Clemson) Tigers this year and every year between now and Judgment Day. The original Death Valley is located in the Upstate region of South Carolina and not along the banks of the Mississippi River.  

Let’s look at the facts.  

Clemson, SC 

Memorial Stadium was first referred to as Death Valley by Presbyterian College head coach Lonnie McMillian and his players in 1946. McMillian’s Blue Hose usually opened the season at Clemson during the heat of late summer and often lost, including a 76-0 beatdown in 1945. McMillian had travelled through Death Valley, CA as a younger man and he found the desolate desert and searing heat painfully like what he and his team went through at Memorial Stadium. Clemson head coach Frank Howard learned of McMillian’s term and started to use it himself in the late 1940s around the press.  

Furthermore, in 1966 Samuel Jones, friend of Clemson coach Frank Howard, gifted the coach a large piece of quartz from Death Valley in California. According to the Clemson athletics website, Howard had the rock mounted on a pedestal and installed at the top of “The Hill” at the open end of Memorial Stadium. The first game with Howard’s Rock in place was a 40-35 victory over Virginia. The next year the tradition of rubbing Howard’s Rock for good luck began before Clemson’s 23-6 win over Wake Forest.  

Baton Rouge, LA 

LSU claimed the name Death Valley for Tiger Stadium following a 7-0 victory over Clemson in the 1959 Sugar Bowl, which also earned LSU its first claimed national championship. Tiger Stadium earned a similarly sounding nickname around the same time. According to articles from ESPN, The Advocate, and NOLA.com, LSU alum and collegiate boxing champion Thurman “Crowe” Peele opened a Shell station near Tiger Stadium. During game days the sound from LSU games would shake the walls and window of the station, so Peele gave the stadium the nickname “Deaf Valley” and referred to his service station as Deaf Valley Shell.  

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, headlines in Louisiana would state the nickname “Deaf Valley,” but it was not the official nickname, and it fell out of use in favor of the more popular “Death Valley.”  

Conclusion 

While both venues are iconic, and LSU is undefeated in Clemson’s Death Valley, the original home of college football’s Death Valley will always be in South Carolina. Either way, each Death Valley will always be synonymous with passionate fan bases, an intense homefield advantage, and great football memories.