Just call him Sir

Carolina has finally joined the ranks of its Southeastern Conference counterparts Auburn, LSU, Tennessee, Mississippi State and Georgia.

The Fighting Gamecocks now have a live mascot, Sir Big Spur, to watch over the gridiron action from the sidelines.

The old English black-breasted red gamecock is a feisty 13-year-old bird owned by USC alumna Mary Snelling and cared for by her longtime boyfriend Ron Albertelli, a self-proclaimed "damn Yankee who came South and never went home."

Snelling is from the Graniteville area, where Albertelli says cockfighting is still relatively popular.

Albertelli said that about 12 years ago, one of the cock farmers gave Sir Big Spur to Snelling's father as a gift that eventually found its way to Snelling. Since Albertelli's father raised chickens on their farm in Winchester, Mass., Snelling and Albertelli began to raise the young gamecock on Snelling's 24-acre farm in Aiken.

Not long after Ray Tanner was hired as USC's baseball coach in 1997, the two Carolina fans decided to bring Sir Big Spur, then named Cocky Doodle Lou after then-football coach Lou Holtz, to baseball games at Sarge Frye Field.

"We just thought it was a neat thing," Albertelli said. "We were trying to help Ray make the baseball program something different."

"They (Snelling and Albertelli) have been great fans," Tanner said, adding that the famous rooster is "part of the energy that you bring to the ballpark ... having the gamecock, that brings a different energy. He's not there all the time, and a lot of people are coming to see if our bird's there. It's great."

Cocky Doodle Lou was a hit with fans from the first time he strutted on top of the first-base dugout.

Albertelli said adults and kids alike approached the couple at ball games wanting to touch and take pictures with the garnet and black bird.

While the cock was welcome at baseball games, he didn't have permission to be at Williams-Brice until this summer. That's when, Albertelli said, representatives with the university's athletic department extended an invitation to Cocky Doodle Lou for Carolina football games because it was what the people wanted.

"We had held focus group meetings at the end of last year to try and improve game-day presentation," Athletics Director Eric Hyman said.

A live mascot was "one of the ideas that came up through the marketing department" he said.

Since Holtz was no longer coaching the Gamecocks, Albertelli and Snelling renamed the bird, christening him Sir Big Spur, in part because of current coach Steve Spurrier and as a throwback to Cocky's deposed costumed predecessor, Big Spur.

The bird now sits on his own roosting pedestal in the northeast end zone corner near the student section.

Albertelli said he and Snelling travel with Sir Big Spur to every football, basketball and baseball game they can make it to in their motor home, making it three times to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.

While they've been dealing with the bird for more than a decade, Sir Big Spur has had his feathers ruffled by Albertelli on more than one occasion.

About three years ago, Albertelli admitted that he wasn't paying much attention, and Sir Big Spur was so agitated he dug a claw into his handler's left arm, causing it to swell "like the Pillsbury Doughboy."

While he attacks his handlers every once in a while, Albertelli said that "he's very docile, when you know how to handle him."

"He puts up with it (the handling), but he doesn't like it. In the beginning, he didn't put up with it worth a damn," Albertelli said.

The trick is pay attention to his mannerisms, he said.

"When the feathers come up around his neck, he's like a pistol that's been primed. It doesn't take much to pull the trigger."

Albertelli and Snelling are bringing the famous gamecock with them to Memphis, Tenn., for Carolina's game against Houston in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl. Albertelli said he is talking to bowl officials to have Sir Big Spur on the sidelines of that game, too.

Sir Big Spur is 13 years old, becoming a Williams-Brice fixture well into his golden years, as the typical gamecock lives between nine and 12 years.

Albertelli said they have a 5-year-old gamecock getting used to being around people right now, and that he's likely to become Sir Big Spur II when the original heads off to the cockpit in the sky.

"We've got six sets of (hens and cocks) bred from him," Albertelli said, "So this madness can perpetuate."