Champion-charged Battery

Many South Carolinians eagerly anticipate this week's college football openers. Yet Charleston is already a title town -- again -- in the game most of the world calls "football."

Too bad neither The Citadel, Clemson nor South Carolina has won a league football championship since the Bulldogs captured the 1992 Southern Conference crown, though the Tigers did finish first in the ACC Atlantic Division last season. South Carolina State has won two straight Mid-Eastern American Conference crowns.

And our Charleston Battery won another United Soccer League Second Division championship Saturday night. A loud crowd of 4,523 at Blackbaud Stadium on Daniel Island, along with a national cable TV audience, watched coach Mike Anhaeuser's team outlast the archrival Richmond Kickers, 2-1, despite playing the last two-thirds of the match one man short due to a "red card" disqualification. It was the third USL crown for the Battery, which also earned the USL-2 title in 1996 and the A-League title in 2003.

The Battery isn't the only local pro team with a championship tradition. The South Carolina Stingrays won their third ECHL crown in 2009.

And coach Steve Spurrier's South Carolina Gamecocks did win an unofficial state football title by thumping Clemson, 34-17, last November.

But baseball coach Ray Tanner's Gamecocks did much better in June by beating Clemson twice in the College World Series, then going on to win the national championship. He will throw out the first pitch Wednesday night at the Greenville Drive-Charleston RiverDogs game at Riley Park.

So when are our RiverDogs -- and those Citadel, Clemson and USC football teams -- going to start winning some titles of their own?