On Saturday afternoons in Clemson, more than 80,000 fans will cheer on their Tigers in a place they like to call Death Valley. The game day atmosphere, pageantry and traditions make Clemson one of the nation’s best destinations on a college football Saturday.

However, the real name to the place the Clemson Tigers call home is Memorial Stadium, named such in memory of the 493 Clemson alumni that made the ultimate sacrifice for our country while serving to protect our freedoms in wars ranging for World War I through the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

When Clemson opened its doors in 1893, it started as a small agricultural and mechanical school. But it also served as an all-male military school until it became co-ed in 1955.

More than 10,000 of Clemson’s alumni have served in the armed forces over the years. When the college completed its new football stadium in the summer of 1942, it named it Memorial Stadium to honor Clemson’s alumni who “have made the supreme sacrifice in the service of their country.”

Through the years, Memorial Stadium has been good to the Tigers. Clemson has won 75 percent of the games it has hosted there, including a current 22-game winning streak.

Memorial Stadium came to be when Jess Neely left Clemson to take the Rice job in 1940. Neely left the Clemson job to his longtime assistant coach, Frank Howard. However, before he left for Houston, Neely told Howard not let the alumni talk him into building a big stadium.

“Put about 10,000 seats behind the YMCA. That’s all you’ll ever need,” Neely said.

Howard wasn’t known for being a very good listener. Soon after Neely left, Howard began drawing up plans for a 20,000-seat stadium located in a natural valley a little west of Historic Riggs Field, now the soccer stadium at Clemson. By the end of the 1940 season, trees were already being cleared in the valley.

Memorial Stadium opened its gates for the first time on September 19, 1942. “The gates were hung at 1:00 p.m., and we played at 2:00 p.m.,” Howard later said.

Clemson beat Presbyterian, 32–13, in front of an estimated crowd of five thousand fans in that first game.

Through the years, Memorial Stadium has lived up to its “Death Valley” nickname. Prior to the 2020 season, the Tigers totaled 316 wins in seventy-eight years and have won 75 percent of its games (316-102-7).

Under Dabo Swinney, Death Valley has never been so good. Heading into 2020, the Tigers are 71-6 under Swinney, including a 60-3 home record from 2011 to 2019. Clemson had a 21-game home winning streak from 2013 to 2016 and entered the 2020 season with a record 22-game home winning streak.

The Tigers are 47-2 at Death Valley from 2013 through the beginning of the 2019 season.

“It is one of the best places to play in college football,” said Jimbo Fisher, who coached against Clemson during his time at Florida State and now at Texas A&M. “It is Death Valley. It will be loud.”

Through the years, Memorial Stadium has grown and changed its appearance. In 1958, 18,000 seats were added, and in 1960, 5,658 seats were built in the west end zone as a response to an increase in ticket demands.

With the west end zone stands, capacity increased to 53,000. It stayed that way until 1978, when Clemson added an upper deck on the south side of the stadium. In 1983, an upper deck was added on the north side, swelling the capacity to more than 80,000.

Over the years, Memorial Stadium has packed in more than 86,000 diehard Clemson fans.

“There will be a lot of orange. If you like orange, there will be a lot of that,” said Fisher, whose teams are 1-4 at Death Valley. “There will be a lot of happy fans. They are a great fan base. Tremendous fan base, a classy fan base. But very loud and hard to go play in. Like in [the SEC], it is like the venues you are going to play in, in our league. It is 80,000 something or 90,000 or whatever it is. They love their ball and they are passionate about it, that is for sure.”

Today, Memorial Stadium is one of the largest on-campus stadiums in the country, with crowds that swell to more than 81,000.

“We go to a lot of great venues for college football, but this doesn’t take a back seat to any place. In terms of the atmosphere, stadium, noise and facilities, this is a special place on a Saturday night,” ESPN analyst Todd Blackledge said.

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