re: Clemson and LSU Bands Who stole from whom?

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was under the impression Princeton had used TIger Rag since the 20's. Anybody able to shed light on that?

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A number of sports teams, including the Detroit Tigers, have used various arrangements of Tiger Rag over the years. I am not sure that anyone knows who actually used it in conjunction with a sports team first. But we do know that LSU used it for some period of time before Clemson first used it.

On the subject of which stadium was first called Death Valley (at least as between LSU and Clemson), in all likelihood it was Clemson. But also in all likelihood the use of Death Valley for LSU was unrelated to Clemson's use. Clemson's use of Death Valley didn't become widely used until the 1950s, even though the Presbyterian College coach called it that in 1947. It wouldn't surprise me if the first use to describe Tiger Stadium was without any knowledge of or exposure to Clemson's use, since it is likely the widespread use of the moniker for both stadiums came at about the same time.

It is a myth/misinformation that got started somehow LSU wasn't called Death Valley, but rather Deaf Valley, before the 1980s. I was a freshman at LSU in 1972. I heard it called Death Valley, never Deaf Valley, while I was a student. In fact LSU has been called Death Valley for as long as I can remember, and I have been following LSU since the late 1950s. I doubt anyone who attended LSU during that time was simply mishearing. That said, there was the Deaf Valley Shell Station on the corner of Perkins and College during that era (the early 70s).

If someone were to search the archives of the Advocate, States Item, and the Times Picayune, it shouldn't be that hard to document that the use of Death Valley well predates the 1980s.