John Heisman was a church going man.

How much attention the coaching great, for whom the Heisman Trophy is named, paid during service ... well, that is up in the air. When Heisman, who coached at Clemson, left the Tigers bound for Atlanta and Georgia Tech, he left his bible behind. John Daye came across the bible deep in the Clemson archives while working on his recently released book, “Glory on the Gridiron,” a title he penned along with Fritz P. Hamer, and found something very interesting.

“He sat in church and drew up plays on the blank pages in his bible,” Daye said. “He drew up plays and even wrote some notes.”

The product of Daye and Hamer’s work, the book details the history of college football in South Carolina. The idea for the 160-page read came from an exhibit that Daye and Hamer helped set up at the state museum in Columbia last year.

“It was 100 years of football in South Carolina which engulfed both college and high school football,” Daye said. “After that, we decided to start with a college book and see how it was accepted as an outgrowth from the exhibit at the state museum which was called ‘Blood, Sweat and Cheers.’”

The book, which took just over a year to put together, is a great read for football fans living in South Carolina. Daye and Hamer take readers from the very beginnings of the game in-state, in the late 1800s, to modern day football. Along the way, their discoveries were plentiful. Surprisingly, Daye and Hamer found that football, as beloved as it is in South Carolina, was not originally welcomed with open arms.

“No it wasn’t,” Daye said. “It was a kind of off and on thing for a long time.

“What I think helped is they started calling for and playing for what was a mythical state championship. Newspapers embraced it and named a champion every year. The Citadel won some. Furman won a bunch, Clemson won some and Carolina won some.”

The book also chronicles the football team at the College of Charleston in the early 1900s as well as the teams that played in Orangeburg, primarily Claflin and South Carolina State. In fact, the book contains a photo of the 1899 Claflin football team.

“I knew a little (about football in Orangeburg),” Daye said. “In my research I found that Voorhees, Claflin, S.C. State and the South Carolina Area Trade School (Denmark Tech) had viable football programs. I found that Claflin goes way back in their history and had a good football team.”

Daye will be in Orangeburg today to discuss his book and sign copies at Swift Books in Prince of Orange Mall from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. The books retail for $19.99 and can be purchased at the bookstore or online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Books-A-Million.

According to Daye, the hope is that “Glory on the Gridiron” will be just the first in a series of books. There is the hope of a high school book as well as another college football book.

“We like Harry Carson and Donnie Shell (former S.C. State stars), and coach (Willie) Jeffries was a great help to us,” Daye said. “We did some interesting things with coach Jeffries and we could do a more modern-type book later.”

T&D Sports Editor Brian Linder can be reached via e-mail at blinder@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5553.

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