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In a series that got its start in 1913 and now stands as the Southern Conference’s longest
running active rivalry, Furman holds a commanding 55-30-3 advantage over The Citadel. The
Paladins won last year in Greenville, 34-20, to avenge a 54-51 overtime loss to the Bulldogs in
Charleston in 2007. Despite the split the last two years, Furman has claimed eight of the last 10
games and is 22-8 (.733) versus The Citadel since 1978. In Charleston the Paladins have compiled
a 22-18-2 mark, having dropped two of their last three clashes with the Bulldogs.

The same year I arrived at The Citadel, a small band of cadets stole the Furman mascot, a high-strung and beautiful horse that cantered up and down the field during football games with a helmeted knight astride his lovely back. Though the cadets were successful in their abduction, their knowledge of horses proved haphazard and unlucky. The legend of this infamous encounter took on a life of its own. When I was a sophomore and on a bus heading to Greenville, my team captain Dick Martini explained to me why a Furman center had tried to decapitate me when I drove the lane: "We killed their horse, midget."

...I took Martini's memory of the death of the Paladin and added it to the history of a Citadel raid to paint the Furman campus a couple of years before the capture of the Paladin. A state trooper pulled up behind some carloads of cadets going 110 mph on I-26 and realized that he had stumbled onto a prank against his alma mater. Instead of pulling over the speeding cars tattooed with Citadel markings and stickers, the trooper simply radioed north, alerting the entire Furman campus to the danger of the approaching cadets.

When the cadets climbed a fence and made their way with paint buckets and brushes toward the center of the vast campus, they did not know of their betrayal until they noted the presence of a thousand Furman boys approaching them from the front and a thousand more approaching their flank. The beatings those Furman boys gave to those luckless cadets were still being talked about with awe in the barracks when I arrived there in 1963.

No doubt respect turned to admiration for
many one night in the early 1960s, when Bonner
rallied the student community and coordinated
the defense of the campus against a raid from
Citadel cadets.
Mark Kellogg ’67 writes, “I will never forget
the rather staid and slightly aloof Dr. Bonner,
in shirt-sleeves and a tie, standing on the patio
outside Daniel Lounge, actually leading the
counter-insurgent defense of the campus when
Citadel cadets attempted to paint our brand new
Williamsburg brick baby blue!
“No one ever demonstrated greater concern
for alma mater than did Dr. Bonner that evening.
It was he who asked that cadets whom we had
captured be brought to him for discipline —
after we had shaved their heads and stripped
them to their underwear. It was Dr. Bonner
who encouraged us to shake the trees where
Cherrydale
stands today to ensure that no more
cadets were hiding where we had dislodged so
many earlier in the evening.
“And no one took more joy (except perhaps
Coach Bob King) when, during the halftime
performance of the Summerall Guards at
Johnson-Hagood Stadium in Charleston, one
guard’s plumed helmet blew off in the wind to
reveal a shaved head with the remnants of an
‘F’ tattooed with purple shoe polish.”

CitadelGrad wrote:How will Forcier do on Saturday? After all, he is the guy who will take Furman to a national championship.

CID1990 wrote:The botched raid happened.

The Summerall Guard incident didn't.

CitadelGrad wrote:What happened to that Forcier thread on AGS? I bumped it couple of days ago, but nobody from Furman would comment. They were certainly happy to comment when the thread first appeared some months ago.

OL FU wrote:

CID1990 wrote:The botched raid happened.

The Summerall Guard incident didn't.

Does it surprise you that college urban legends exist when it comes to The Citadel and Furman

The horse story above isn't like I heard it. I heard that the Cadets kidnapped the horse and were going to return it after the game but things went awry and the horse was accidentally blinded. It was then euthanized.

OL FU wrote:

CitadelGrad wrote:What happened to that Forcier thread on AGS? I bumped it couple of days ago, but nobody from Furman would comment. They were certainly happy to comment when the thread first appeared some months ago.

Well I didn't see it. My guess is now and it was then that people got a little too excited. I do think that there is a good reason to be excited over the next two years about Forcier. But assuming something would happen this year was pre-mature.

And let's don't get too uppity about how people see the future. From everything I saw from most Citadel fans pre-season was that this was going to be the year of the Dog ( or maybe I listen to citdog too much). Well I guess it will have to be next year ................................. just like every year

CID1990 wrote:

OL FU wrote:

Well I didn't see it. My guess is now and it was then that people got a little too excited. I do think that there is a good reason to be excited over the next two years about Forcier. But assuming something would happen this year was pre-mature.

And let's don't get too uppity about how people see the future. From everything I saw from most Citadel fans pre-season was that this was going to be the year of the Dog ( or maybe I listen to citdog too much). Well I guess it will have to be next year ................................. just like every year

Actually, LAST year was supposed to be the year of the dog. This year I think we were more guardedly optimistic. I think we have been judging our chances by athletic talent alone, which has been a mistake.

OL FU wrote:Ugh and Congratulations

Cleets Part 2 wrote:

OL FU wrote:Ugh and Congratulations

happened yesterday..?