1960s
1969
"My Carolina is a great way to connect."
- Janie Foster, '69
"My Carolina is living in M dorm in the honeycombs, going to the Big Bird, the Dairy Bar, and Cogburn's steak house. It's listening to the Swinging Medallions, the Supremes, the Shirrells, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Four Tops, Jay and the Americans, Dionne Warwick, all at the old facility downtown. It's Julius Cobb and the Soul Messengers, and Speed Limit 35 at Don's in Five Points. It's winning the Intramural Football Championship in '65, meeting Coach Bass, Dick Weldon, Don Zoma, and Bob Mauro. It's playing basketball at the old field house with Skip Harlica, Jack Thompson, Lynn Burkholder, Gene Spencer, Robert Clark, and Dewey Nettles. It's watching Ronnie Lamb accidentally kill the frog that we were supposed to dissect in Zoology lab. It's the first mini-skirt on a girl from New Jersey, who all the other girls disdained until the following year when they all had them. Listening to The Beatles' "Yesterday" being played loudly through the honeycombs. It's meeting my future wife, Judy Mcpherson Little, at the Opus where they had the coldest beer in Columbia, chunks of ice floating in the Busch beer. A huge picture of Barry Goldwater on a Heart with the caption "In your heart you know he's right." It's listening to Frank Sinatra at the Opus. The riots and going home to Charleston. Ann Dreher, Kathy Shiffley, Cheryl Missue. It's football games, the State Fair, Phi Delta Theta parties, Al Rivkins and John Fryga's parties, Phi Kappa Sigma's parties, Ray Burns, Aggie Nelson "Little Lord Nelson", Becky Brown/Strickland, and best friend Dave Strickland. I think I could write a book about all of the great memories. Go Cocks!"
- Charles Little, Jr., '69
"My Carolina was in the first broadcast journalism class ever, under the loving dictates of Dr. Richard Uray, who disliked Ovaltine intensely and cautioned never to go on the air 'cold.' We had 12 in the first of that segment's graduating classes... it means my first love... it means being away from home for the first time... it means football under Paul Dietzel and basketball under Frank McGuire, and the demise of the fieldhouse; the building of Carolina Coliseum... it means Capstone and friends... it means the start of life in the 'real world', for which 'My Carolina' prepared me so well."
- Carol Stephens, '69
1967
"My fondest memory of Carolina is asking my wife of 40 years for our first date as she rounded the corner (at that time) from South Tower beside the Russell House as she was rushing to a class. She was about 5 minutes late and she still runs on that schedule!! We both obtained our undergraduate degrees in 1967, she in Education, me in Business. Her name at the time was Willie Jo Parker and mine is Robert B. Carter. We still love the University and go back as often as possible, mostly to football games. I recently retired after 30 years with BellSouth in Atlanta and she is still employed, for few more years at least, as an assistant principal at Lawrenceville Elementary School in Lawrenceville, GA."
-Bob Carter, '67
“My Carolina is when the University of South Carolina said ‘Yes’ to me as a student and to wear the USC ring on my hand to symbolize the gift of a quality education and a love for this University.”
- Reverend John Culp, ‘67
1966
"My Carolina is a whole lot better school than it was back in the mid-sixties when I went there!"
- Lawrence Mintz, '66
1965
"My Carolina is the place that prepared me for life."
- James M. Hall, '65
"My Carolina is arriving on campus in the fall of 1961. In those days USC did not accept college board scores, so I went early to sit for the entrance exam. Coach Baskin paid for my first night at the old Columbia Hotel. I spent four wonderful years in Columbia enjoying being part of the Gamecock newspaper, AFROTC and fraternity life as a member of Pi Kappa Alpha. In the fall of 1965 two of my siblings enrolled as freshmen. Four other siblings followed them bringing the total of McCarthys to attend South Carolina to seven. Seven of nine members of a large Irish Catholic family are proud graduates of USC."
-Mike McCarthy, '65
"My Carolina is Preston Residence Hall, the Horseshoe in the evening, tailgating at Williams-Brice Stadium, and our great send-off parties for the incoming freshman class."
- Larry Nichols, '65
"My Carolina is Arthur serving pie at the Goody Shoppe; shagging in 5-Points clubs; Derby Day, Stunt Night, and Little Miss 500; burning the Tiger parade to the Statehouse; walking daily by the Maxcy Monument and looking for itto spin; afternoon bio labs; and Dr. Batson's Flora field trips."
- Dr. Ann H. Williams, '65
1963
"My Carolina is Sigma Nu Fraternity's bogus Clemson football team at the 1961 game. Not only was the Clemson crowd fooled, Carolina won the game. The national Sigma Nu Fraternity chose this the 'Prank of the Century' for the national fraternity."
- Benjamin B. Boyd, '63, '65 Law
1962
“My Carolina is living my first semester in the brand new J honeycomb dorm, living in Preston, living on fraternity row, snacks from the robot rooms, green beetles planting bushes and trees, 8:00 classes and grabbing donuts and coffee at the Russell House, Saturday classes, cheeseburgers and fries at the Gamecock Room, the Russell House barber shop, Shimmy’s Steak House, Cogburn’s Grill, S&S and Morrison’s cafeterias, Dairy Bar pimento burgers, late night coffee at the Hitching Post, pecan waffles at the Toddle House, Lourie’s, Grayson’s, the Campus Shop, ringing the chapel bell before the last big Thursday game, AFROTC drill on Davis Field, Slater food and coffee, Deans Tomlin and Clotworthy, over 4 cuts and you automatically fail the course, the infirmary and Dr. McNulty, standing in long lines during manual registration, political ads posted everywhere, physics, chemistry and engineering labs, using a slide rule, no air conditioning in dorms or classrooms, movies at the Russell House, 20 out of 60 students passing my first physics course, working as a page at the state Senate, sliding down snow covered hills on Russell House trays, The Gamecock, Garnet and Black, WUSC-AM, Y’ Camp, and graduation on the horseshoe.”
- Marshall Leach, '62, '64 MS
"My Carolina is a storehouse of memories of a time when everyday life was at much slower pace and things just seemed to make so much more sense than today. Our years there prepared us for our exciting and wonderful future made possible by being a college graduate."
- Richard Gamble Pugh, '62
1960
"My Carolina is very significant for me. I came from Atlanta in 1956 on a football scholarship and lived my first year in Preston College. The Russell House and the Roundhouse on Rosewood had just been built. At Carolina I learned discipline from Warren Giese and other fine coaches who kept up with us. My freshman coach was Weems Baskin and my line coach was Marvin Bass. I made the varsity in '58 and played with King Dixon and Alex Hawkins and some great linemen. My first game to play in was the Clemson game which we won 26-6. Frank Howard took his hat off and bowed to Coach Giese across the field when we scored our first TD; the first TD Carolina had scored on Clemson under Coach Giese. He was not bowing by the end of the game. All of my English classes were in Davis College, and all of my history courses were in the building next to Davis. We had phenomenal professors who actually knew their students. I wish I had never left the University and never left Columbia. I am now 70 years old and still coaching and teaching in Chattanooga, TN. I proudly wear my colors, jacket or windbreaker, to school each day and speak up for Carolina to my students. Yes, USC is absolutely the best experience I ever had. It was in Preston that I became a believer in Jesus Christ and that definitely changed my life. I love Carolina and all the great memories."
- Ken Akin, '60
My Carolina is my school and my family's too."
- Frank Hays, '60