Twin brothers, 70, are die-hard Gamecocks fans and fixtures at USC radio call-in show

Rickie and Robbie Smith slip into their usual barstools at Backstreets Grill just after 5:45 p.m.

It’s Thursday night before South Carolina heads to Vanderbilt and the Smith twins, 70, are greeted as they have been for most of the last 23 years attending football coach call-in radio shows — with a few high-fives and a bucket of Coors Light.

“You guys must own Coors Light,” quipped Jane Suggs, wife of USC radio color commentator Tommy Suggs.

Rickie is the elder of the two by four minutes. The two are identical, though Robbie’s beard and shaggier hair helps to differentiate. It’s a look he’s kept consistent in the nearly five decades since leaving the prim and proper regimen of the military.

South Carolina football coaches have hosted call-in shows on-location since Lou Holtz’s inaugural season in 1999. Short of a medical emergency or car trouble, the Smiths have been to every single one.

“If there’s a coach up behind the mic with the host, they’re there,” said Liz McMillan, executive director of Gamecocks Sports Properties. “And that’s the way it’s been forever.”

That college football call-in shows, and more locally those at South Carolina, have evolved into a must-see event each week during the fall is a relatively new concept.

Brad Scott hosted his radio show from the confines of his office in Williams-Brice Stadium. Men’s basketball coach Eddie Fogler did the same.

But following Holtz’s hiring, those in and around the athletic department saw a live show as a chance to let fans interact with the man leading their program.

The now-closed Pulliam Ford on Two Notch Road jumped at the opportunity to host, converting its showroom into an event space for the program.

A small stage for Holtz and play-by-play man Charlie McAlexander was added in the center of the room. As were high-top tables and bar stools for patrons. A popcorn machine, too, ran in the corner of the space.

South Carolina pitched the idea as a chance for fans to rub shoulders and ask questions of their head football coach. The early response was, well, limited.

“They advertised it and anybody could come,” Robbie said. “But I guess nobody wanted to go to Pulliam Ford and stand around in the showroom.”

The football coaches show has since bounced from Pulliam Ford to Buffalo Wild Wings in The Vista, before eventually settling at Backstreets in 2021 — just in time for Shane Beamer’s first fall as head coach.

Rickie and Robbie have been there every step of the way, often accompanied by their pal, Ricky Stackley, who attended shows with the twins for years until his death six years ago.

The Columbia natives graduated from Airport High School in 1970 before enlisting in the National Guard. They returned to the Midlands in 1977, taking on a handful of different jobs over the years that included running a liquor store and coaching youth baseball.

Rickie, better known around town under his moniker “Rickie Damn,” spent 25 years in the marketing business for a handful of local radio stations.

That nickname is a story in itself.

Working for 95.3 The Rock in 1988, Rickie and the station pieced together a chicken wing eating contest to promote the grand opening of D’s Wings at Portland Plaza. The winner would receive a trip to Cozumel, Mexico.

Almost 600 people showed up by night’s end.

“Let me ask you something, man,” a rep from Tracks Records asked Smith that day. “I go to all these 100,000-watt radio stations, they never have (this many people). Your little 6,000-watt radio station, what is your damn secret?”

“I don’t have a damn secret,” Smith retorted.

The name stuck.

“Everybody knew me as ‘Ricky Damn,’ ” Smith said, years later. “I started signing all my proposals that I sent out to advertising agencies all over the country, Ricky and put ‘Damn’ in quotations.”

Beamer is the most publicly recognizable face at Backstreets on Thursday nights in the fall, but the Smiths and the entourage of friends they’ve made at call-in shows over the years are a close second.

The queue of folks lining up to stop by the twins’ table isn’t quite Don Corleone-esque, but it’s not too far off.

Servers and bartenders assisting tables in other rooms swing by to say hello. Beamer winks in their direction. McMillan, too, always checks in for a quick chat after she’s helped ensure the radio wires and headsets are set up as needed.

“Once in a while they’ve had a surgery or something, but they’ve let me know they weren’t gonna be there,’‘ McMillan said. “Which helps me, because I’d be worried to death about them if I didn’t know what was going on (and they weren’t here).”

The Smiths have long been staples at football shows over the years, but have expanded their pallets to basketball and baseball.

When former men’s basketball coach Dave Odom forgot the legal pad he wrote notes on during the show, he’d toss Rickie the keys to his car. Rickie would gleefully grab whatever was left on the front seat and bring it back inside while Odom stayed on-air.

Ex-football coach Steve Spurrier, too, always made sure to offer the twins a fist bump and brief conversation during his radio appearances.

“We’ve had some stories over the years we’ve been coming out,” Rickie said. “... But this is a tribute to everybody that comes in.”

South Carolina has had four different football coaches in the time since Holtz was hired. The call-in show itself has shifted between three different venues.

The constants in that time? That’d be the Smiths — and their bucket of Coors Light.