Cashing in on the road: It's the 40th anniversary of Clemson's $2 bill tradition

Scott Keepfer | The Greenville News

Show Caption Hide Caption Clemson Tigers celebrating 40th anniversary of $2 bill road tradition Clemson Tigers fans have carried $2 bills to road games since 1977. Former IPTAY director George Bennett recounts the inception of this fun tradition.

CLEMSON – Long before the Clemson football team began making annual postseason trips to sunny climes such as Orlando and Phoenix and Tampa and Miami, there was Atlanta.

Each of the 41 games played between Clemson and Georgia Tech between 1903 and 1973 were played in Atlanta, and coaches’ wives as well as a good number of Tigers’ fans savored the visit.

“We weren’t going to any bowl games at that time, so it was our big game of the year,” said George Bennett, former executive director of IPTAY, Clemson University’s fundraising arm for athletics. “It was an exciting town – new hotels, a lot of new restaurants and all that.

“We were taking 15,000 to 17,000 people down there for that weekend. Our people would actually go down on Wednesday, and wives would shop and all that stuff and stay in those fancy hotels and all that, and people really enjoyed going down there.”

Clemson vs Virginia Tech: GameDay pumps crowd for prime-time showdown

But that tradition was thrown a curveball in 1977, when “out of the clear blue,” Bennett said, Georgia Tech called to say that it was dropping Clemson from its schedule and adding William & Mary.

The schedule change prompted one Atlanta hotel manager to quip, “Well, I hope William will bring Mary, because that’s the biggest crowd they’ll bring down here.”

It also prompted Bennett to conjure up a unique idea – namely, to coax Clemson fans into using $2 bills on their 1977 trip to Atlanta in an effort to demonstrate the financial impact Clemson fans had on the city.

Bennett approached then-coach Charley Pell with the idea and garnered full support. Bennett publicized the effort in IPTAY mailings, and the initial effort was a rousing success.

“We covered the city up with $2 bills,” Bennett said. “The Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote articles about it, and the waitresses in the restaurants were talking about it, and the cab drivers and bellhops.”

The next year, when Clemson played in the 1978 Gator Bowl, fans began stamping their $2 bills with orange Tiger Paws, further enhancing a tradition that continues to thrive.

Most Clemson fans now leave their marked money behind on all road trips, regular season or postseason, and the latest renewal of the tradition will come this weekend when Clemson fans invade the Blacksburg, Virginia, area for Saturday night’s nationally televised showdown between No. 2 Clemson and No. 12 Virginia Tech.

But bowl games hold the biggest sway.

“Now when we go to a bowl, the (bowl) committee when they come and talk to us, the first thing they say is, ‘Tell your people to bring the $2 bills,’” Bennett said.

Such instruction is no longer necessary.

“We don’t have to promote it anymore,” Bennett said. “It promotes itself now.”

From Boise, Idaho, site of the 2001 Humanitarian Bowl, to the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tennessee, to the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona, local businesses quickly recognize that they’re being inundated with $2 bills when Clemson fans roll into town.

The effort has resulted in several memorable moments for Bennett, such as an interesting conversation with a cab driver in Boise.

“Y’all are from Clemson, aren’t you?” the driver said.

“Yes,” Bennett replied.

“Y’all are going to give me those $2 bills, aren’t you?” came the reply.

“Yep,” Bennett said.

“Please don’t do that,” the driver said. “I need the money so bad, but if you give me those $2 bills, I’m not going to spend them.”

Then there was the time Bennett and his party overhead two waiters discussing their tips, which had come in specially marked multiples of $2.

“Clemson has their own money!" one excitedly told the other. "Clemson has their own money!”

Or the time in Miami when a man from Italy approached Bennett in a hotel lobby, essentially pleading for one of the $2 bills. Bennett readily complied, and the man responded by giving him a 100 Euro bill.

“My wife cashed that thing the next day for $129,” Bennett said.

Bennett shared the story with the hotel staff, and for the next several hours, employees searched diligently for the man, eager to make their own monetary exchange.

But he was never seen again, having slipped off in proud possession of his Tiger Paw $2 bill.

“We’ve had a lot of fun with it over the years,” Bennett said. “It has kind of identified Clemson people wherever they go, and they still get excited about doing it.”

THE GAME

No. 2 Clemson (4-0) at No. 12 Virginia Tech (4-0

Kickoff: 8 p.m.

TV: ABC

Radio: 105.5 FM (WCCP), 93.3 FM (WTPT), 97.7 FM (WORD)

Favorite: Clemson by 7½