53 for 53

Clemson has now traveled to Chapel Hill, North Carolina 53 times... and lost each and every one of those games. It's not even just 53 games in a row, it's 53 losses in 53 tries. They didn't win a game back in 1837 or something; they've simply never won at North Carolina. They have been a perfect 100% at losing. If only they could have done that at the free throw line, where they were 1-7, that might not be true anymore. North Carolina, conversely, made 31 of 36 free throws. So they took 29 more free throws and still missed fewer than Clemson did. But that's neither here nor there, as this got me to thinking about other long losing streaks in sports. Who has shown ineptitude at its finest?

Well, there's been the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who lost 26 games in a row to set the NFL record. But that wasn't just any 26--it was the first 26 games of their existence, including an 0-14 first season. Then there's the Division 1-AA Prairie View A&M Panthers, who managed to pick up right where Columbia had left off. After Columbia finally won in 1988 following a then-record 44 straight losses, Praire View A&M promptly started a losing streak in 1989 that did not end until 1998, adding up to 86 consecutive games. Of course, there is also Cal Tech, whose women's basketball team did not win a conference game for their first five years of existence, and had lost 50 straight overall before winning on January 13th, 2007. However, that was not the longest streak broken at the same school that week; in fact, it wasn't even close. On January 6th, 2007, the men's basketball team won a game over Bard College after 207 consecutive losses! It wasn't all good news, though: the game was non-conference, so their streak of 245 conference losses still stood, as it had for the previous 21 years.

So there are just a few streaks that are glorious for all the wrong reasons. I'm sure there's plenty equally horrific ones I didn't mention, but I just wanted to name a few. Now, imagine you were a fan of one of these teams that went several years without winning a single game.