Anatomy of a Scandal Smothered by Misinformation
Before the Woke Era, the Fighting Gamecocks of the University of South Carolina had a rowdy weeklong pep event called “Cocks Week.” Kind of like a collegiate Mardi Gras where anything goes and often did. No longer. But there was one Big Thing back in the day. Almost came out. It’s a complicated story. It involves a rivalry prank between USC and Clemson in 2012. Somebody’s bright idea to steal Clemson’s honorary mascot that year, who just happened to be a prominent state politician with a rumored penchant for rowdiness even after graduating from Tiger U. many years before. Not to get too lurid about it, things happened. The way sometimes things, uh, happen. At some point in the wee hours, the grapevine reached the campus police, who intervened and ended the proceedings. There was no immediate hubbub. But there was gossip and soon an urban legend memorialized in the form of a poster seen in dorm rooms, connected by whispers to a Polaroid somehow smuggled from police files to persons un