Clemson is huge on traditions from Solid Orange Fridays, to the Welcome Back Party to Rubbing the Rock, the list seriously goes on and on and on! One of my favorite traditions here at Clemson would definitely have to be First Friday. First Friday is a celebration held the day before the first home football game to welcome the much awaited football season. First Friday includes a parade full of all the student organizations, big names of Clemson, the Tiger Band, Beauty Queens and much much more. Directly after the parade a huge pep rally is held out on Bowman Field (for those of you not familiar with Clemson's campus, Bowman Field is a huge open grassy area right in front of the center of campus. For me First Friday isn't just the mark of the beginning of football season, its also the mark of the beginning of Fall too!
This years First Friday was pretty sweet for me. When I got done with classes Nichole and I went to a pool party at our apartment complex, and then headed to campus to watch the parade. In the four years that I have been here at Clemson I have never missed the First Friday parade. This year I decided that I wanted to bring Dusk along for the adventure, and to be honest I was kinda nervous cause he has never been around a huge number of strangers in one place. He did really well though, he got pet by several people and got a bunch of "aw, puppy" or anything along the lines of that and he handled it really really well! He also enjoyed the parade very much, he especially loved watching the Tiger Band! He sat with ears perked and his eyes were glued to them until they were out of sight.
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| Dusk at the parade, watching the Tiger Band! |
To end my great night Cole came into town and he and I went out on a dinner date to Brioso's, one of my favorite restaurants in Clemson and caught up and then Deidre came to town too! We ended up staying up til 3 in the morning chit chatting. Oh and did I mention that we needed to be up before 8 to go to campus for the football game?!
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| Deidre was begging Dusk to take a picture with her... |
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| The adorable picture that was a result of the said discussion! |
Saturday was gameday! Cole, Deidre and I drove to campus around 8 to tailgate with several different groups. We had tickets to sit on the hill, which was awesome we ended up down at the gate, which is literally right behind the goal post! To make it better Clemson seriously spanked Ball State, by half time the score was 45 to 10.
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| Welcome to Death Valley |
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| Deidre and me with Howard's rock! |
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| Cole and Me with Howard's Rock, A huge tradition at Clemson. |
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| Deidre and Cole were really excited for the game to start |
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| The Tiger getting ready to run down the hill |
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The hill, where the most exciting 25 seconds of college
football take place! |
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| Cole getting high fives from players while they ran down the hill |
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Another tradition, balloons rising through the air
while the tigers run down the hill! |
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| The Central Spirit Flag Runners singing the alma mater. |
(all photos from the game were taken by Deidre*)
The only negative of the day was it was extremely hot, and I got pretty sun burnt so we left at halftime and went back to one of the tailgates. Once the game was over and we hung out for a little bit Cole, Deidre, Loren, Cole's friend Mason and I all went out downtown to eat dinner and to get Spill the Beans ice cream (seriously the best ice cream on earth!). All of us were seriously so exhausted from all the sun, alcohol and lack of sleep that we seriously fell asleep before 10 pm. All in all it was a great weekend!! I am excited to do it all again at another home game!
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