Clemson Trivia
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This Clemson trivia quiz has 49 free questions with answers and covers the university, the town and, above all, the Tigers. The campus questions go back to John C. Calhoun's Fort Hill plantation, the will that founded an agricultural college, the fire that destroyed the main building in 1894, the years as an all-male military school, Harvey Gantt's admission in 1963 and the traditions that followed: the Tiger Paw, Tigerama, the First Friday Parade and Tiger Rag. The football half runs from Walter Riggs bringing the game from Auburn and John Heisman's first unbeaten season, through Frank Howard's 30 years, the rock that started as a doorstop, the coining of 'Death Valley', Danny Ford's 1981 champions, and Dabo Swinney's title teams of 2016 and 2018 with Deshaun Watson, Hunter Renfrow and Trevor Lawrence. There are questions on the South Carolina rivalry, the men's soccer titles and the town that used to be called Calhoun. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia pages for the university, the football program, the stadium and the people involved, and each explanation adds one detail worth remembering.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Clemson's entire senior class volunteered for military service when the United States entered which war?
The First World War
The First World War: in April 1917 the whole senior class offered itself for service together, and enrolment at the college dropped during the war.
Q 02Clemson's campus sits on Fort Hill, the former plantation of which US vice president?
John C. Calhoun
John C. Calhoun's daughter Anna married Thomas Green Clemson, who inherited Fort Hill; his will ordered that the house never be torn down, and it still stands at the heart of campus.
Q 03Before founding the college, Thomas Green Clemson served as US chargé d'affaires to which country?
Belgium
Belgium came through family: his father-in-law, then Secretary of State, arranged the posting in 1844, and as chargé he was the highest-ranking American diplomat in the country.
Q 04Thomas Clemson's will asked that the new school be modelled on which existing institution?
Mississippi State
Mississippi State is named in the will itself, under its older title; the same will created seven trustees who choose their own successors, a majority the legislature can never remove.
Q 05Which future governor led the fight to accept Clemson's bequest and later had the main building named for him?
Benjamin Tillman
Benjamin Tillman rallied farmers behind the bequest and sat on the first board; in 2020 the trustees asked the state legislature for permission to restore the building's original name, Main Building.
Q 06Many of Clemson's original buildings were constructed by which workforce?
Convict labourers
Convict labourers, most of them Black and some as young as 12, cleared the land, made the bricks and raised many of the first buildings.
Q 07Until 1955, Clemson was what kind of institution?
An all-white male military school
An all-white male military school until then, Clemson dropped compulsory cadet life in 1955 because enrolment was falling, and admitted its first women the same year.
Q 08Who became Clemson's first African-American student in 1963 after a federal court ordered his admission?
Harvey Gantt
Harvey Gantt, barred from South Carolina's white colleges, had been studying in Iowa on a state stipend; he sued, won, and enrolled without the violence seen in Mississippi.
Q 09Clemson's first Black student went on to become the first Black mayor of which city?
Charlotte
Charlotte elected the Clemson-trained architect to two terms from 1983; he then twice challenged Senator Jesse Helms and lost both times.
Q 10Which word left Clemson's name when the college became Clemson University in 1964?
Agricultural
Agricultural had been in the name since the founder's will called for a farmers' college; by 1964 the legislature accepted that the school now taught and researched far more.
Q 11Which future governor and US senator graduated from Clemson in 1923?
Strom Thurmond
Strom Thurmond left Clemson to become a schoolteacher before he turned to politics; the university's Strom Thurmond Institute was built in his honour in 1989.
Q 12Clemson's campus rests on the shore of which reservoir?
Lake Hartwell
Lake Hartwell is younger than the college: work on its dam across the Savannah River began in 1955, and the water rose to meet one edge of the 1,400-acre campus.
Q 13Which Clemson speciality was first cured in an unfinished railway tunnel in the mountains near Walhalla?
Blue cheese
Blue cheese liked the Stumphouse Tunnel's cool, damp air; when production moved to campus, the ripening rooms were built to copy the tunnel's conditions.
Q 21Which nickname for Clemson's Memorial Stadium was coined by Presbyterian coach Lonnie McMillian in the late 1940s?
Death Valley
Death Valley was his name for the place his teams went to lose: Clemson beat Presbyterian there with such regularity that the stadium's nickname stuck.
Q 22The 'Running Down the Hill' entrance began because the football locker rooms were in which building?
Fike Field House
Fike Field House was where the team dressed, so running down the hill was simply the way to work; with locker rooms now inside the stadium, players ride a bus round to the top to keep the entrance.
Q 23Who cleared the brush and trees from the site of Clemson's Memorial Stadium in 1941?
The football players
Q 14Clemson fans first spent Tiger Paw-stamped $2 bills in 1977 to protest which school's decision to drop their series?
Georgia Tech
Georgia Tech was ending the rivalry, so fans paid their way around Atlanta in marked $2 bills to show how much money they brought to town; the series resumed in 1983.
Q 15Which 'father of Clemson football' brought the sport from Auburn and later became Clemson's president?
Walter Riggs
Walter Riggs had played on Auburn's first team; he coached Clemson's first in 1896 and later led the whole college as president until his death in 1924.
Q 16Which coaching great led Clemson to its first undefeated season in 1900, his first year in charge?
John Heisman
John Heisman, the man the Heisman Trophy is named for, spent four seasons at Clemson; a few years later he led the campaign that made the forward pass legal.
Q 17Which coach took Clemson to its first bowl game, then left for Rice and handed the team to Frank Howard?
Jess Neely
Jess Neely won that Cotton Bowl and stayed at Rice for 27 seasons; the assistant he left behind kept the Clemson job for thirty.
Q 18Alumnus Samuel Jones picked up Howard's Rock in which state?
California
California is where the alumnus found it; mounted on a pedestal in 1966, the rock became a ritual a year later, when Howard said only players giving 110 percent could rub it.
Q 19Howard's Rock first stood above the field in September 1966, when Clemson beat which team 40–35?
Virginia
Virginia never beat a Frank Howard team: he won every meeting in thirty seasons, though this one, on the rock's first afternoon, was among the narrowest.
Q 20What happened to Howard's Rock in June 2013?
Vandals broke off a large chunk
Vandals broke off a large chunk after smashing its case; one man was later convicted of malicious damage to the rock but cleared of grand larceny.
The football players helped with much of the early work, and two of them staked out the field; in September 1942 the team opened the stadium it had helped to build by beating Presbyterian 32–13.
Q 24Which coach led Clemson to its first national championship in 1981?
Danny Ford
Danny Ford was only 33, the youngest coach to have won a national title as of 2023; his first game in charge, three years earlier, was a bowl win over Ohio State.
Q 25Clemson clinched the 1981 national title by beating which team in the Orange Bowl?
Nebraska
Nebraska lost 22–15 in Miami to a Clemson team that had not been ranked when the season began; the win sealed a 12–0 record and the first national championship for any Clemson team.
Q 26Whom did Dabo Swinney replace as Clemson's head coach midway through the 2008 season?
Tommy Bowden
Tommy Bowden resigned with the team at 3–3 and his receivers coach took over; in 2024 that successor passed Bowden's own father, Bobby, for the most wins by any coach in their conference.
Q 27Dabo Swinney's nickname comes from an older brother's attempt to say which two words?
'That boy'
'That boy' is how one of his brothers referred to the baby, and it came out as Dabo; his real name is William, and before Clemson hired him he spent two years selling commercial real estate.
Q 28Clemson won the national title in both 2016 and 2018 by beating which team?
Alabama
Alabama had beaten Clemson for the title the year before the first of those wins; the two met in the playoff four seasons running, and the last of them was a 44–16 rout.
Q 29Which Clemson quarterback threw the winning touchdown with one second left in the 2016 season's national title game?
Deshaun Watson
Deshaun Watson, trailing by three, found a former walk-on in the end zone; a year earlier he had lost the same final by five points.
Q 30Which former walk-on caught Clemson's winning touchdown in the 2016 season's national title game?
Hunter Renfrow
Hunter Renfrow had joined the team without a scholarship; his catch with one second left turned a three-point deficit into a 35–31 win.