COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) _ Someday soon, South Carolina officials will announce that Williams-Brice Stadium is sold out.

And once again the rest of the country will scratch its collective head.

"I have other booster directors from other schools tell me 'Our people wouldn't do it,' " said Jeff Barber, executive director of the Gamecock Club, South Carolina's athletic booster organization.

For the past four years, South Carolina has ranked ninth in the country in attendance at 78,140, keeping its name among Tennessee, Michigan, Ohio State and Florida State _ at least in the stands.

On the field, the Gamecocks have fallen to the bottom of college football at 12-32 during those four years with a current 21-game losing streak.

A defeat in the Sept. 2 opener against New Mexico State could signal a repeat of last year's woe-and-11 season.

How much can Gamecock fans take? Apparently plenty.

"I guess we're just the eternal optimists," said Robb McBurney, a long-suffering supporter who has watched his share of unbelievable endings and unexpected defeats.

But all that didn't stop him from paying $134 for season tickets this year.

"I think more than any other fans, we seem to have an unending kind of patience with the program," he said.

They must have.

The only bowl win in 10 tries followed the 1994 season, the Gamecocks' 101st year of football. The team has racked up 10 wins in one season only once _ in 1984. The most successful stretch was during the Great Depression with seven consecutive winning seasons from 1928-1934.

It's not that fans haven't grown angry and frustrated with their Gamecocks. They booed two years ago when Marshall kicked a game-winning field goal late in the fourth quarter. They groused all last year on the Internet and sports radio, blaming ex-coach Brad Scott for leaving the team without talent.

But like blossoms shooting up each spring, Gamecocks get caught up "in the promise of things to come," psychologist Dr. Ronald Kasper said. "There's a notion of something new and better ahead."

That sentiment does not apply at the state's other major football school. When Clemson fans felt they weren't seeing the championship football they had grown accustomed to with coach Danny Ford in the 1980s, attendance dipped from a high of 81,750 a game during one of Ford's final years in 1988 to a low of 66,845 for coach Ken Hatfield's last season in 1993.

Even after the Tigers replaced Hatfield with Ford assistant Tommy West, fans took a "Let's see" approach and never packed Death Valley with the same fervor.

Last year, with coach Tommy Bowden's fast-paced offense and confident attitude, Clemson averaged its highest attendance in nearly a decade at 78,302.

Coach Lou Holtz, hired in December 1998 to turn the Gamecocks from chicken feed into champions, plans to honor the fans with the team's opening game program Sept. 2.

"We're fortunate to have these fans," Holtz said. "They aren't, but we are."