South Carolina Gamecocks Football Countdown: 45 Days

Our countdown to the 2014 college football season continues as just 45 days separate us from kickoff between the South Carolina Gamecocks and Texas A&M Aggies at Williams-Brice Stadium on August 28.

Who wears #45: Brandon Sturdivant, FB
Sturdivant, who transferred from York Tech before the 2013-14 school year, is a graduate of Nation Ford High School up in Fort Mill, SC. He played some tight end in high school (sixteen catches for 270 yards in his sophomore season) but has been installed in the fullback position here in Columbia.

Gamecock football in 1945
Record: 2-4-3 (4-1-1 Southern)
Coach: Johnnie McMillian
This season was significant for a few reasons. One, it was the last season before Rex Enright returned from U.S. Navy duty and was Johnnie McMillian’s only season at the helm. Two, it would be the year of only the second tie, and second 0-0 game, between the Gamecocks and Clemson.

Also in 1945:
–World War II comes to an end as Japan surrenders on September 7 of that year, a month and a day after U.S. forces bomb Hiroshima.
–1945 is considered the final year of the Holocaust as Auschwitz is evacuated, ending one of the deadliest mass killings in world history.
–FDR, Franklin D. Roosevelt, is sworn in for his unprecedented fourth term.
–In the midst of war, Americans headed to the movies as a brief diversion from the world’s events. The Bells of St. Mary’s starring Bing Crosby, Anchors Aweigh with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, and The Valley of Decision with Gregory Peck were some of the major box-office hits that year.
–Top song in 1945: Les Brown and Doris Day’s “Sentimental Journey”.
–And on April 20, 1945, Steven Or Spurrier was born in Miami Beach, FL.