Aug. 30, 2011

Dear Gamecock Fans:

It’s the start of another academic year in Columbia, and as our billboards and commercials say, “It’s Great to be a Gamecock.” And that truly is the case, as witnessed by back-to-back national championships in baseball and now our football team being featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the tag line, “Best Gamecocks Team Ever.”

I recently was at a function where a dad and his son, both wearing Gamecock shirts, approached me. The dad asked his son, “Why do you like the Gamecocks?” The boy, who I would guess was around 11 years old, responded, “Because they always win.”

That really caught my attention. While we don’t always win, there is no question we’ve made progress. Never before has our football team been the preseason favorite to win the SEC Eastern Division. In fact, until this season, we’ve never been picked higher than third in the preseason media poll! We are ranked 12th in both major preseason polls, the highest ever in school history. And, as of August 26, it’s been 1,000 days since Clemson has beaten us in football.

It has taken a tremendous team effort from our student-athletes, the coaches, the administration and staff, and you, Gamecock Nation, to get us to this point. While we can’t predict how this season will play out, we know going into it that we have a chance – we have closed the gap on our goal of becoming a nationally prominent program competing for championships.

While we have made significant progress, there is still much work to be done. This is not the time to sit back and become complacent. We need to keep pushing forward and we can’t do that without your support. We want the expectations that people have for our football team to become the rule, not the exception, and not just for football, but across all of our sports.

Our overarching objectives remain the same – to be a difference-maker in the lives of our student-athletes, to compete at the highest level, both athletically and academically, and for our fans and supporters to be proud of their athletics department.

It’s the Garnet Way.

Eric