300 Games!

Brad Loftis ’95 is set to attend his 300th consecutive Clemson Football game

The end of last season marked my 291st consecutive home, away and neutral-site Clemson Football game. The first game of the streak dates back to Tommy West’s final game versus South Carolina in 1998. The last away game I missed was at Duke in 1996, when one of my college roommates got married in Morganton, N.C.
If everything continues to go as planned, the Louisville game should be my 300th consecutive game. There were three games last year that I had to “pandemically attend” due to the severity of the attendance restrictions at some of the away venues. (“Pandemic attendance” means traveling to the venue and sticking my hand through the gate, after kickoff, while taking a selfie.) This was the roughest part of last season, but it led me to the brightest part of last season — and that was meeting Bryson Carter.
You may be familiar with his story, which was told by Madison Williams ’18 in her short film “136.” Carter is blind and had a consecutive game streak of 136 at the time of the 2017 documentary. I met him briefly at the Wake Forest game outside the gate, and thankfully, we got to spend the whole Virginia Tech game together outside the stadium. I watched the game on the stadium’s scoreboard and gave him updates.
Bryson is a remarkable man, and I already look forward to continuing to reconnect with him at future games. Our consecutive game streaks stand 99 games apart. He’s at 192, and I’m at 291.