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Eddie Wooten, I have a shirt with a bumper-sticker slogan you'll need to remember after this weekend.

We Are Carolina.

Oh, go ahead and rattle on about academics and achievements of your university. But c'mon, our two states' bragging rights should live — and die — with football.

Not basketball. Football.

Your Tar Heels — er, Tarheels, Rams, yada-yada, whatever — haven't played my Fightin' Gamecocks on the gridiron since 1991.

It's about time. And it's not because we're No. 7 in the country, and Saturday's game should be a beatdown in your wannabe football stadium in your J. Crew kind of alma mater town.

We need it. I mean, it twists my Cromer's Peanuts — a proud Carolina product since 1935, mind you — every time I hear someone in these parts say, "Carolina this'' and "Carolina that.''

But really, Eddie. How do you get riled up in pulling for a Tar Heel, Tarheel, yada-yada, whatever. And what is it with your Ram?

You got someone in a Ram suit prancing around the sidelines, proudly wearing your school colors of baby blue. Now, that's terrifying. And before the game, your laid-back football fans tailgate in Mom sweaters and eat Chick-Fil-A sandwiches on napkins.

Ooooooooooh.

Now, we at Carolina — that's right, Carolina — we know how to tailgate.

We turn an ocean of asphalt into a bustling city hours before game time.

We eat on Carolina tablecloths, camp out underneath Carolina tarps and listen to recorded Cock crows as we wear our $10.95 Cock hats from Cromer's.

Then, we march into our stadium to yell "Go Cocks!'' and watch our team storm in to the bombastic strains of "2001: A Space Odyssey.''

Yeah, we are a rowdy, rabid bunch. We are Carolina. And we love some football. Do you?

I mean, look at your stadium. It seats 60,000 and feels all Ivy League sweet at the corner of Henderson and East Franklin.

Well, our stadium is the Dirty Harry of college football.

From I-77, a few miles away, it looks like a big spaceship. But up close, it's a big concrete beast, room enough for 80,250 screaming fans, goaded by our beloved big-beaked mascot we call Cocky.

He ain't no ram. And he is beautiful.

So, Eddie, think about that "We Are Carolina'' T-shirt. I'll get it for you. Consider it a gift from me.

Jeri Rowe, a metro columnist at the News & Record, is a 1986 graduate of Carolina: University of South Carolina. Contact him at jrowe@news-record.com