Sports obsession is a losing game

A 12.1 percent unemployment rate ... a 50 percent high school dropout rate ... a $1.4 billion dive in state-government revenues ... a 223-48 edge in rushing yardage for the Gamecocks over the Tigers.

Guess which leftover South Carolina statistic induced the most severe post-Thanksgiving nausea across our state Saturday.

Why should that stunning ground-game differential, the bottom line of the home team's dominating 34-17 victory at Williams-Brice Stadium, impose such child-like funks on so many seemingly grown-up Palmetto State residents, including this one?

Cultural conditioning.

OK, so tying one's mood to the fickle fortunes of a college football team is an irrational trait. For lots of us in these parts, it's also an irreversible habit. Thus, a significant chunk of South Carolina's population today either glowers over the utter failure of the Tigers or crows over the smashing success of the Gamecocks.

Clemson can still win its first Atlantic Coast Conference title since 1991 by beating Georgia Tech six days from now. Yet even if the Tigers achieve that goal, it would be tainted by this odious byproduct:

Gamecock fans, already loudly exercising bragging rights over beating the ACC Atlantic Division champs, could add beating the ACC champs to their obnoxious chorus.

Before allowing the giddy afterglow to cloud their memories, though, they should recall that South Carolina has still beaten Clemson only three times in the last 13 seasons.

And though Gamecock coach Steve Spurrier was the scourge of the Southeastern Conference at Florida, he's only 18-22 in league games at South Carolina -- not even as good as Lou Holtz' so-so 19-21 in his last five seasons in Columbia.

But Spurrier has won a fresh chance to do something no Gamecock coach has done since Paul Dietzel in 1970: beat Clemson two years in a row ("Pepsodent Paul" made it three in a row in that long-ago season).

So Spurrier has much more job security than Mark Sanford.

So, despite Saturday's debacle, does Clemson coach Dabo Swinney.

Then again, regardless of how many games Swinney wins between now and late next November, the "all in" allegiance he demands from the orange horde requires keeping losses to South Carolina few and far between.

Remember, Clemson threw Tommy Bowden all out as head coach with a $3.5 million buyout halfway through the 2008 season -- and he was 7-2 against the Gamecocks. That was an appalling display of skewed priorities -- and an appalling expenditure of what is, in essence, public money.

Also appalling: Some Gamecock folks want to shift the finale against Clemson to the season opener. Maybe their glee over Saturday's spectacle will shotgun-snap them to their senses. Maybe state lawmakers should take pre-emptive action to avert this outrage, the mere suggestion of which makes the Gamecocks look chicken.

And maybe $3.5 million isn't such a high-priced coaching buyout after all: Notre Dame apparently is on the verge of paying Charlie Weis $18 million to go away.

At least Notre Dame's not a public university.

At least Clemson got Swinney relatively cheaply, though by winning the division he got a pay hike from $800,000 to $1.7 million -- and by winning the league he would get boosted to more than $2 million.

At least lots of us can still afford to worry much more about sports stats that economic stats.

Many South Carolinians even deem the defection of young football talent to institutions of higher learning beyond our borders as a more serious menace than the defection of young intellectual talent.

Forget the brain drain. How can we stop the linebacker drain?

A more pertinent question:

How can we stop sports fanaticism's drain on our sense of balance?

Clemson fans facing 12 months of ridicule from garnet-garbed enemies, friends and in some cases, family members should find solace in our state motto: Dum Spiro Spero ("While I breathe, I hope").

Fans of both teams should find perspective in knowing that plenty of South Carolinians face far more ominous challenges than razzing from their rival's zealots.

So South Carolina beat Clemson Saturday -- for a change.

So what?

It was only a game.

It was only one game.

And the Gamecocks have still beaten the Tigers only twice in the last eight seasons -- and only nine times in the last 34.

Frank Wooten is assistant editor of The Post and Courier. His e-mail is wooten@postandcourier.com.