The Naming Of Death Valley

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That’s when McMillian, who had visited Death Valley, Calif., on his way to Los Angeles for the 1932 Olympic Games, coined Clemson’s Memorial Stadium as college football’s Death Valley. He noted that the stadium, which is located in a natural ravine and built of concrete instead of metal because of shortages during Wold War II, is brutally hot in early fall and one of the toughest places for visiting teams to play.

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As for LSU, Tiger Stadium is 20 years older and 20,000 seats larger than Clemson’s, making it the sixth largest college football facility in the country. But when it comes to which was the original Death Valley, an LSU sports information director from the 1960s says that honor belongs to Clemson.

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According to Bud Johnson, the SID from 1966-71, LSU only started calling itself Death Valley after the SEC Tigers swiped it from the ACC Tigers following the two teams’ meeting in the 1958 Sugar Bowl. LSU referring to itself as “Deaf Valley” before it became Death Valley originates from a gas station in the adjacent commercial area not far from LSU’s campus. Crowe Peel, a former LSU boxer and 1949 national champion, named his gas station “Deaf Valley” because of the noise that boomed from Tiger Stadium.

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