A conversation with "Baseline Jesus," Gamecock superfan Carlton Thompson
Alan Piercy, a lifelong Gamecock fan and Carolina grad, is the author of the upcoming book, A Gamecock Odyssey: University of South Carolina Sports in the Independent Era (1971-1991), due for release by USC Press in November 2023.
Some’ll win, some will lose
Some are born to sing the blues
Whoa, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on
– Journey, Don’t Stop Believin’
Carlton Thompson rarely sits. He roams along the baseline of Colonial Life Arena like a hillbilly preacher – enraptured and evangelizing. His seat a few rows behind the basket is perhaps the least used of all 18,000 in the 20-year-old venue.
He stomps his feet, cajoles the crowd, implores the student section, jives with the pep band, and launches his threadbare Gamecock flag airborne to distract visiting free-throw shooters. He is a whirling dervish, constantly rocking to a thrumming house music beat only he can hear.
To watch Carlton Thompson over the course of a ball game is to leave simultaneously impressed and vicariously exhausted by his tireless energy and antics.
It has been this way for 55 years, ever since he attended his first Gamecock basketball game, which just happened to be the very first game ever in the old Carolina Coliseum, on Nov. 30, 1968.
“I remember that opening night, and I remember how the Coliseum smelled, like a brand-new car with all the new seats.”
He was then a 15-year-old sophomore at Branchville High School in Orangeburg County, about 50 miles southeast of Columbia. “My brother was a freshman at Carolina, and we had camped out all night for tickets, which you had to do in those days. We had great seats, in the first or second row, right under the basket on the baseline,” adding of those baseline seats, “I just always wanted to be down there ever since.”
He recalls walking into the arena for the first time that night, “The freshman game was going on, and Tom Riker was the center, and he was right there with his red face and arms spread out wide, and that was the first thing I saw when I walked in. It was a memorable night.”
The Gamecocks won their Coliseum debut that night, downing Auburn in thrilling fashion, 51-49, on a last-second jumper by sophomore John Roche in his first varsity game.
“That got me hooked that night, it really did,” Thompson reflects.
He recalls listening to games with his dad by radio when tickets were unavailable.
“My dad and I would ride in his pickup truck back in those days to get closer to Orangeburg so we could pick up the AM station there. We would often park at the ancient Cattle Creek Campground and listen to the broadcasts with Bob Fulton. I especially remember the night in 1969 when we beat Dean Smith’s second-ranked Tar Heel team with the great Charlie Scott in the annual North-South Double-header in Charlotte. Those were the best of the McGuire teams.”
Now 69, Thompson is still at it. He still wears his trademark scraggly locks and beard, though they may be more salt than pepper these days. “I quit cutting my hair the year I got married in ‘73,” he says, “and grew my beard around the same time.”
That look, combined with his messianic zeal and constant presence behind the basket, led to the “Baseline Jesus” moniker.
He says older fans still refer to him as “The Stomper,” an earlier nickname, for the way he used to stomp rhythmically on the retractable metal bleachers at the Coliseum to liven up the crowd. “It really got the fans going,” he recalls.
Because of his ubiquitous presence at other sporting events beyond basketball, the more holistic “Gamecock Jesus” has gained favor of late.
Whatever the nickname, Thompson is one of the most recognizable and beloved fans in the modern history of Gamecock sports. His prominence is Rushmorian, on par with the likes of now-deceased mega-fans Bill “Oot-Oot” Golding, R.J. Moore, and David Williams.
He has become a talisman of sorts. A recent two-month absence from basketball games during a bout with COVID had fans buzzing. “Where’s Baseline?” threads appeared frequently in online Gamecock chatrooms.
People notice. People care.
When the Gamecock men’s basketball team made it to the Final Four in 2017, fans set up a GoFundMe page to send Thompson to the event in Arizona. The fundraiser called for fans to give back to the man who had given so much of himself over the years.
“He’s always been there for us and our team, and now it’s time to give him something in return,” the post implored, “Please donate! Go Cocks!”
Donors raised over $8,000 to fund Thompson’s trip, “enough for him to take along his sons and a few friends,” his wife, Judi, reflects.
Such is the place Thompson has carved in the hearts of Gamecock faithful with his energy and “never say die” determination to inspire.
The uniting power of sports
The months leading to Thompson’s first appearance at the Carolina Coliseum in 1968 were turbulent ones. In February, the Orangeburg Massacre unfolded just up the road from Thompson’s childhood home in Branchville.
Three were killed, including two South Carolina State College students and a middle-school-age child, Delano Middleton, who sat on the steps of the freshman dormitory awaiting the end of his mother’s work shift.
Two months later, rage and grief over the April assassination of Civil Rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. fueled protests across the country. Two months after that, yet another assassination took the life of presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee, Robert F. Kennedy, fueling another spasm of protests and violence.
Through it all, the Vietnam War raged in Southeast Asia, as political and ideological fault lines threatened to rip the country apart.
Meanwhile, the Civil Rights Movement played out in Branchville, much as it did in other communities across the American South, in the form of a newly desegregated high school. Thompson says sports played a key role in easing tensions between white and black students in those days.
“We got along well. Our sports teams got better, and the kids got along great. Our parents had some problems. They came from a whole different world, and this was all new to them. But I think sports had a big part in making all that go well.”
Thompson sees a correlation between those times and our own, reflecting on the rabid following and community coach Dawn Staley has built around her women’s basketball program.
Indeed, South Carolinians’ awesome love of sport has transcended thoughts of race in a city once known more for its Confederate monuments than its women’s basketball scene. The community has rallied around Staley’s program, and the Gamecocks have led the nation in attendance for a decade.
“Sports are very uniting,” Thompson says.
A career in caring
Thompson followed his brother Cal to the University of South Carolina, starting in 1971. He laughs about his circuitous path to a degree. “It took me a while,” he says.
He placed his studies on hold when he and Judi married in 1973, and they soon started a family. In the mid-to-late 70s, he worked as a nursing assistant at the State Hospital, and eventually returned to school, earning his Registered Nurse (RN) degree from USC in 1982.
Thompson worked for 33 years in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Columbia’s Dorn (Veterans) Hospital, retiring as the senior RN on staff in 2017.
“So many former patients I’ve taken care of at the VA over the years remember me and see me at games, or their parents or their children will come up to me and say, ‘Do you remember me?’ and they look so different when they’re healthy and well and walking around. When I took care of these people, they were very sick in ICU. It’s the most gratifying thing.”
Throughout the years, he continued to follow his Gamecocks, hardly ever missing a men’s or women’s basketball game and attending other sports when his schedule increasingly allowed over the years. He has been a constant presence, in particular at volleyball games.
“I love volleyball because I like the way they celebrate every point, and they taught me to do that.”
Thompson has traveled to Omaha, Nebraska, for the College World Series, far-flung Super Regionals in California, and, of course, that magical men’s basketball Final Four in Arizona in 2017.
Making memories and building relationships
Pressed to name his favorite Gamecock memory from over a half-century, he says it’s difficult to narrow down but points to the 1997 SEC Champion men’s basketball team.
“That great team with Melvin Watson and BJ McKie and the others. We beat Kentucky in overtime here, then beat them on senior day up there. That was special.”
He has formed relationships with coaches and players over the years, citing former Gamecock women’s basketball legend and member of the South Carolina Athletics Hall of Fame, Martha Parker, among others. Thompson says Parker, a graduate of USC Medical School, also worked at the VA, and the two have remained good friends over the years.
One of his favorite memories involves another former Gamecock All-America, Shannon “Pee Wee” Johnson.
“We went to Charlotte to see Pee Wee when she played for Orlando (of the WNBA) versus Dawn Staley’s Charlotte team. It was a close game, back and forth, and it was Pee Wee against Dawn.
“I was yelling and carrying on, like I always do, and the event staff came up to me and said, ‘You’re going to have to cool it – you’re being too loud.’” He laughs, “And I said ‘too loud, at a basketball game? That’s my job!”
“And guess who won in the end? Pee Wee did, and that silenced that crowd like you wouldn’t believe.”
After 55 years, Thompson hasn’t slowed down. “I still love it,” he says, and now that he has retired, his attendance at Gamecock events has only increased.
His sons are grown now. Greg, the oldest, is an attorney with the district attorney’s office in New Orleans, and Nick is a musician in Columbia. He and Judi celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in May.
Asked what he hopes will be his legacy at South Carolina, he says, “I didn’t play sports, but I figured out at an early age that fans can influence the game. I just want fans to realize they can help win, and I have tried to be a part of that.”
Amidst a new health challenge, the community rallies
In a recent interview with Judi Gatson of Columbia’s WIS-TV, Thompson revealed that following his bout with COVID he continued to feel fatigued, making him wonder if something else was going on.
“I just felt totally drained,” Carlton told Gatson, adding that tests later resulted in a diagnosis of prostate cancer. Of greater concern, it had spread to his bones.
“Prostate cancer is very aggressive, but it’s very treatable if you catch it in the early stages [via a Prostate Specific Antigen, or PSA lab test]. But I never did that, and I want to encourage all guys, all men, to do that screening to prevent cancer.”
Thompson is undergoing chemotherapy, which has been difficult, but he cites his wife Judi for taking care of him and the outpouring of love from Gamecock Nation for keeping his spirits high.
“She [Judi] makes sure I’m taking my medicine, she brings me breakfast every morning, and makes sure that I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do. I don’t know how I would survive without her.”
Women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley has led the way in rallying the community in support of Thompson, collecting cards and letters of encouragement and delivering those to Thompson’s home.
Staley sent Thompson a personal message of love, prayers, and well wishes from her team. “We can’t wait to see you throwing that Gamecock flag up, catching it, stomping your crocs back into Colonial Life [Arena].” It is a sentiment shared by thousands.
Thompson shared that Staley has taught him to truly believe, adding the cards and letters and encouragement from Gamecock Nation have given a whole new meaning to “Forever to thee.”
[Win South Carolina-Florida football tickets]
If you would like to send a note of encouragement to Thompson, you can mail it to the USC Women’s Basketball office listed below, and special deliveries will be made to the man himself, Gamecock Jesus.
USC Women’s Basketball
Attn: Gamecock Jesus
1051 Blossom St.
Columbia, SC 29208
