For want of a comb, a ‘Cock was lost.

This could only happen at South Carolina.

You’ve seen him, petted him, perhaps held him. Ever since Mary Snelling got the idea to start bringing a live rooster to University of South Carolina athletic events, Sir Big Spur has been a sideline staple and a photo favorite.

He’ll still be there for this football season, baseball season and future games. But he’ll have a different look, and a different name, because of a bone of contention between the original owners and the new owners.

Make that, a comb of contention.

… The comb is the bright-red crest on top of a rooster’s head. It matches the color and function of the wattle, another lump of tissue that hangs below the chicken’s beak.

They’re each part of the birds’ heat regulation systems because, in an outstanding piece of trivia, chickens cannot sweat. The comb and wattle act as a sort of “air conditioner” in the birds’ circulatory system — hence the red — and the cooler blood then passes back through the rest of the bird’s body.

Throughout Snelling and Albertelli’s ownership of the birds, they clipped the combs. They felt it made them look more like USC’s namesake, the Fightin’ Gamecock, i.e., fiercer than the average chicken.

“Fiercer than the average chicken” sounds like the perfect motto for Carolina football.  But I digress.

Albertelli has had a contract with USC for the past five years, allowing USC exclusive rights to use the trademarked name “Sir Big Spur.” That contract ran out on Aug. 1 and Albertelli has no plans to renew it, or to let the Clarks use the name.

“A chicken is a chicken but a fighting gamecock is something different. This is dumbing down the Gamecocks,” Albertelli said. “Whenever a new coach goes to a school that’s been struggling, you always hear a statement similar to, ‘You’ve got to change the culture.’

“I don’t know what culture in our day and age means, but if it means making a gamecock look like a chicken, or not hurting him because it might make the chicken feel good, it’s not preserving what we’ve built. This is dumbing down our culture.”

Dumbing down the Gamecocks… is that even possible?

By the way,

Nichols and the Clarks have not come to a decision on a new name and aren’t sure how they’ll select one. They could just pick one — Snelling said she has heard “Thee Spur” as a frontrunner but Clark said no name or list of names has been approved — or perhaps have a fan vote.

Please cast your ballot in the comments.

(h/t)