Meet the Clemson football fan who hasn’t missed a home game in 50 seasons

On Sept. 9, 1972, Robby Shealy walked into Memorial Stadium for Clemson football’s home opener against The Citadel.

He was 10 years old, surrounded by friends and family from his hometown of Chapin and full of good hot food from a tailgate near the old Fike Field House. And he watched from his usual spot, on the now-famous hill behind the east end zone, as coach Hootie Ingram’s Tigers won 13-0.

For a boy who’d been living and breathing Clemson football for years, it was, by all accounts, just another fall Saturday in the Upstate.

It also started the streak of a lifetime.

Nowadays, Shealy is 61. He still lives in Chapin, and he works in facilities management for the South Carolina Department of Administration. And dating back to 1972, he has missed zero Clemson football home games.

That’s 50 seasons of perfect attendance at Memorial Stadium.

Fifty.

Seasons.

A five-decade run of unbelievable consistency went final last year when Shealy attended Clemson’s Nov. 26 home finale against rival South Carolina.

The Tigers lost by a point, but one of their biggest fans won a moniker he’d been working toward for most of his life. Sometimes intentionally. Often unintentionally. But always with pride. Not only for Robby, who gleefully calls it a “milestone,” but for those in his life he’s shared it with.

“It’s incredible, really,” said his son, Bartlett.

Incredible. Historic. But also a bit routine? Trust Robby: Pulling off 50 consecutive seasons of perfect home game attendance wasn’t easy. Or easy on the wallet.

At the same time, he said, weekends in Death Valley weren’t some big fuss. They were the expectation — a way of life, if you will, and one he pursued gladly from childhood to adulthood to fatherhood and everywhere in between.

No wonder he was born on a Saturday.

“That’s all I did,” Robby said. “That’s all I knew.”

A streak begins

Robby attended his first game when he was 4, making the two-hour trek from Chapin to Clemson with an aunt and an uncle and his older brother for the 1966 home opener.

He didn’t pay a lick of attention as coach Frank Howard’s Tigers beat Virginia, preferring to slide down the hill on a piece of cardboard with his brother.

Still, a weekend tradition was born.

Home games doubled as family reunions. Robby had nine aunts and uncles on his dad’s side alone, and the Shealys would frequently roll 30 to 35 people deep at games, taking up seven parking spots and laying out epic spreads of Beaufort stew and chicken kebabs and hot dogs before shuffling inside Memorial Stadium to watch games that could make or break their weeks.

One can see how an elementary school boy became so infatuated. Robby initially attended games “off and on,” he said, but come 1972 he was an 11-year-old die-hard. The only issue was the team he rooted for. In a nine-year span from 1968 to 1976, Clemson had one winning season.

“We were 2-9 in 1975, and the Carolina fans would come up with this little rhyme: ‘Cows, pigs, chicken and swine. Poor ol’ Clemson’s 2-9!’ ” Shealy said, laughing. “Man, that pissed me off. We didn’t like Carolina, but we did lose a lot of games. I’ve seen 2-9 seasons, 3-8 seasons.”

Then, fortunes changed. Working off the foundation established by Howard, coach Danny Ford took the program to new heights. In 1981, with 33-year-old Ford at the helm and Homer Jordan quarterbacking, Clemson went 12-0 and beat Nebraska in the Orange Bowl to win its first football national championship.

Shealy still has his ticket stub from that unforgettable night at the old Orange Bowl stadium in Miami: Section BB, Row 11, Seat 8.

He was 20 years old and paid $15 for a lifelong memory.

“That was one of the best trips I ever went on,” he said.

The 1981 season overlapped with what Shealy estimates was a 10- to 12-year streak in which he missed zero games period as a teenager and young adult: home, away or bowl. But he doesn’t even try to count those up, he joked, because his late uncle set an unattainable family record.

Albert Shealy attended 402 consecutive Clemson home and away games from 1980 to 2014, which earned him recognition from media outlets and his local IPTAY chapter.

“I’ve just got the home streak,” Robby said.

That, he realized about 10 years ago, was nothing to scoff at.

Robby had missed plenty of away games and bowl games thanks to work, life and dad duties — he has two children, 28-year-old son Bartlett and 27-year-old daughter Betsy — but his Death Valley record was still intact.

So, about a decade ago, he made a promise.

“I’m gonna get to 50.”

‘What we connected on’

On Sept. 19, 1987, Clemson was hosting Georgia in a Top 25 matchup and Shealy, 25, was “sick as a dog.” He had strep throat and a 103-degree fever. But duty called.

“I still went,” he said.

That’s the closest he’s come to missing a home game since his streak started in 1972, a stunning lack of flat tires and lost tickets and family obligations that puts Murphy’s Law (“Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”) to shame.

Shealy, like many superfans, simply builds out his fall schedule around Clemson’s.

Some examples: He never works fall Saturdays. He and his wife, Andrea Dawn Shealy, got married during Clemson’s off week last October. Four years ago, he respectfully skipped out on a niece’s wedding in favor of a home game versus UNC Charlotte.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t be there.” (Clemson won 52-10.)

As you might imagine, Shealy is also a Rolodex of Tigers football history, casually rattling off plays and scores from decades ago like they happened in last week’s Orange Bowl.

Clemson’s 1977 home game against Notre Dame and quarterback Joe Montana will always hold a special place in his heart. As will a 1981 home win against Georgia and star running back Herschel Walker. And the players who made stretches of the 1970s and 1980s — his formative years as a young Clemson fan — so special.

Steve Fuller. William Perry. Terry Allen.

“I can keep going,” he said with a laugh.

Unsurprisingly, Robby’s son followed in his dad’s footsteps. Clemson is all Bartlett knows, too, dating back to Sept. 10, 1994, when he attended his first home game at 6 months old. He had his mom buy him a subscription to the recruiting website Rivals.com when he was 10.

“I’ve actually calmed down a little bit from what I used to be,” Bartlett said. “But, I mean, it’s been my life just like Dad’s. That’s what we’ve always done. That’s what we connected on.”

Which made the 2016 national championship season that much more special.

Robby and Bartlett didn’t have tickets, but they drove down to Tampa, Florida anyway and watched No. 2 Clemson play No. 1 Alabama from a parking lot outside Raymond James Stadium.

When Deshaun Watson hit Hunter Renfrow for a game-winning touchdown pass with 1 second left, it was a “dream come true,” Bartlett said, and a game he and his dad still get emotional talking about five years later. Robby always had 1981. Now they had 2016. Together.

“There was about a five-second delay,” Bartlett said, “but when we saw it on TV I picked up Dad and I think I probably ran 50 yards with him in the air. I just didn’t want to put him down.”

Reaching a milestone

Since he moved to Massachusetts with his girlfriend six months ago, Bartlett has missed a few home games. But he wouldn’t have missed Nov. 26, 2022 for the world.

Clemson was hosting South Carolina in its regular-season finale, and Robby, 61, was one game away from history. The Shealys arrived early at Memorial Stadium, like they always do, and set up their usual spread of food and drinks in Lot 10 for a noon kickoff. This time, they had cake. And a sign.

Robby was all smiles that morning as a streak he’d been chipping away at since elementary school came to fruition. He mingled with friends and family and posed for photos next to a large congratulatory banner, which confirmed the obvious: “HIS BLOOD RUNS ORANGE.”

Then he walked into Death Valley and made 50 seasons of perfect attendance official. It was a moment of pure joy — even though the game that followed, a 31-30 loss to the Gamecocks that eliminated coach Dabo Swinney’s team from College Football Playoff contention, wasn’t.

“I still don’t understand why they didn’t play Cade Klubnik against South Carolina,” Shealy said. “There’s no doubt we woulda beat them if we played him.”

He’s not holding onto the results of that game. But he is holding onto the banner. It hangs proudly in the garage of his Chapin home: a fitting backdrop for a man cave filled with the type of vintage team posters and memorabilia only the most seasoned of fans could acquire.

Robby’s home attendance streak ended up spanning 50 seasons, 324 consecutive games, 15 ACC championships, 10 U.S. presidents, eight Clemson head coaches and three national championships in 1981, 2016 and 2018. It’s an unbelievable run — and one that his son couldn’t be more proud of.

“I didn’t go to all of those games,” Bartlett said. “But I feel like I did, you know? Not necessarily like I’m taking credit for it, but him reaching that does something to me, too. Because it means a lot. It means a lot to him, so it really means a lot to me. … It means everything.”

As for Robby? He’ll always take pride in his streak, which is perhaps the easiest dinner party ice breaker ever. And he’ll always be a Clemson fan. But he also has big plans for the future.

“My wife and I want to do a little traveling,” Robby said. “And I’m getting a little older. … I want us to maybe take some cruises and stuff. I’d love to go out west. On my salary, it’s kind of hard to do that when you’re paying so much for tickets.”

So, yes, Robby’s 50-season streak is ending soon. It might end during Clemson’s 2023 season. It might end with Bartlett in the stadium and Robby not in the stadium — a Bizzaro World scenario they hadn’t even thought of until recently.

“I can’t imagine being at a game and him not being there,” Bartlett said. “That’s gonna be weird. But he says that now — he’ll probably be at damn near every game.”

“I don’t know any different,” Robby said.

“Think about that,” Bartlett said. “How would you feel if you’ve been there 50 straight years and then you’re sitting at home watching them in Death Valley?”

“Yeah,” Robby said with a laugh. “That’s gonna be hard. The last hour, I’ll probably be speeding up there just to make it to the game. I don’t know.”

Suddenly 51 straight seasons didn’t sound too bad.

“Maybe don’t print that yet,” Robby said. “I might still go.”