Where I Come From: U of L Tailgating Traditions
by Mike Rutherford on Jul 7, 2010 7:02 PM EDT
in EA Sports NCAA FB 11
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This is the kind of post where we're going to struggle.
As you might expect, a basketball school which has tasted the vast majority of its gridiron success in the past 20 years isn't exactly drenched with tailgating traditions. We have the Card March, we have the party train and we the shenanigans of the student lot, but a fall road trip to Columbus or Athens or any other place of similar ilk reveals just how different the world outside PJCS and the world of big-time tailgating are.
My personal tailgating traditions are a sad shadow of U of L's. I had never owned season tickets up until about a month ago, and therefore most of my pregame rituals were based on the person or people who were taking me to the game.
I suppose my biggest contribution to tailgating is a how to (tailgate) speech I gave my junior year of college which served as the (unwanted) catalyst for my selection to the university speech contest finals. The bulk of the speech escapes me, but I do remember comparing myself to Einstein and Jordan, and I remember a rule about not being able to drink more beers than the total number of losses between the two teams playing after the halfway point of the season.
I like to drink beer (but if it's a big game I'm cutting myself off at least an hour before kickoff to avoid any game time spent in football's worst bathrooms), I like to eat food, I like to throw the football if there's one around and I'm a pretty solid cornhole player. Basically, I'm the most boring tailgater in college football.
Pick me up in the comments section. Make up a story if you have to.
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My Favorite Tailgating Memory = '06 Florida at Auburn Football Game
The only tailgating experience where the girls are as attractive 8 hours before kickoff as they are in the 3rd Quarter after downing 3 flabongos of beer, 2 bourbon teas and a cup of some frozen floating-fruit-in-a-cooler mixture that some brunette in a sun dress forced you to consume. Southern girls + sundresses + football tailgating atmosphere = America
Bonus: Cheeburger Cheeburger = Excellent Hangover Cure
Most of our group, including myself, didn’t even have tickets to the game. The tailgate was the event and hundreds of fans w/o tix watched the game on jerry-rigged flatscreens outside the stadium. We saw 5 or 6 coeds passed out, face down, within 300 yards of our designated tailgating/stalking area. A 7:30 pm Saturday night kickoff time does come with certain medical risks. The SEC tailgating scene is in a league of its own.
by UL is my hot hot sex on Jul 7, 2010 9:23 PM EDT reply actions
a PJCS tailgating tip
i have a small bladder, and i mean really small. for every one beer i drink, i pee twice. so for those of you just like me (and I know you are out there) if you are tailgating at the fair and expo lot try to park close to the port o pots, they are hard to come by so spot them early and pick your spot wisely. park too close and your wife and her friends will complain of the smell and your buzz will be ruined. park too far away and you have spend the day walking by yourself back and forth to go the bathroom. and most importantly! time the last restroom break before the walk to the stadium perfectly. if mistimed you could find yourself screaming at a traffic cop holding you up on central and floyd screaming. DAMNIT COPPER, IM ABOUT TO EXPLODE!!!
by Cambroni Cardinals on Jul 7, 2010 10:27 PM EDT reply actions
Tailgating is fun
but it’s not like some transcendental experience. I’ve done it at ye olde Cardinal Stadium, Commonwealth, Autzen, Bryant-Denny, Hangar Field/Roy Kidd Stadium and I gotta say it’s all kind of the same. All have a some pros/cons but ultimately you have your scenes-1) old alumni 2) whacko fans who don’t even know what college is or where campus is 3) fraternity/sorority scene 4) cool college kids (that was me) 5) reg’lar folk 6) etc. Everyone loves to drink and there are good looking women in every corner of the world. So what’s new. I will say that tailgating at a college game is way cooler than the scene at an NFL game. Ever done that? Oh the horror.
So I hope you get some good kick back from EA Sports because this is getting kind of ridiculous. What’s next? ‘When I fell in love with our crew team…’
Maddie in PDX
"There are good looking women in every corner of the world" = true
But the percentage increases heavily at certain football tailgating events. It’s like the difference between the Jersey Shore and Destin. They both have a beach but the visual landscapes are much different.
by UL is my hot hot sex on Jul 8, 2010 3:32 PM EDT up reply actions
I'll buy that
but my postulate still holds. People wouldn’t normally think the city I currently live would be associated with good looking women, but they would be very wrong (it’s called stereotypes). It’s nice to see some different ethnic backgrounds which you don’t normally do at a tailgate in Columbia, South Carolina.
Having said that places like Thailand have beautiful women working at 7-11 so I get your point.
MnPDX
Student Tailgates...
As a bunch of speed school students, we couldn’t think up anything better to do with our time than go all out with a few of our tailgates. For the Miami game in ‘06, we had a beach tailgate: “Hurricane Season Ends Today”, so it was safe to go out to the beach…(we had a great sense of humor). We bought 3,000 pounds of sand and dumped it in the student lot, had tiki torches, inflatable palm trees and hawiian shirts. Come to think of it, sand may still be there. We surely didn’t clean it up.
In 2007, for homecoming we did a pirate tailgate. We literally built a pirate ship and towed it in on a trailer. Had t-shirts made that said “Go Carrrrrrds” with a cardinal head and crossbones on them. We had a band play on the ship (yes, a band), and built compressed air cannons that shot 20oz. bottles of gatorade (filled with water) 200+ yards. I’m surprised no one died that day. Good times.
Good god, that's great
Speed students know how to have fun (ever seen them and the medical students at graduation?).
I was in a group of speed students as well (fraternity, actually). When I was tailgating, starting Fall 2000, UofL tailgating happens at the fair & expo center, period. This was before Central Ave made it to Crittenden, so we walked across the road, through the gas station/Burger King area, hurdled the guard rail, and walked down past the cabooses to the stadium.
The tailgates started fairly small with our group, but my rush class was the first of several large (20+ pledges) classes, so we went from throwing a football to building a massive trailer capable grill, and massive portable sound system. As the Cardinals got better year after year under John L, then Petrino, our tailgates got larger and more themed. Sights at Fair & Expo section include soapy slip n’ slides, jello wrestling, pissing under the bridge (which is now heavily watched, I hear), swimming pools in the back of pickup trucks, couples making out… and near the end of my undergrad days, several cornhole boards.
The student section and tailgates aren’t as great as they used to be (I went back as an alumni a couple times), and the actives didn’t even want to tailgate for some games. UofL’s tailgating level suffered as well under Krags… doesn’t help that the current college generation seems apathetic and not as passionate about anything compared to how it used to seem.
Now that I’m older (though I’m technically a student again working toward my M.Eng), I go for cheaper parking and something more relaxed. My daily game ritual is driving/parking near Jim Patterson stadium, drinking $1 beers and eating $1 hot dogs while listening to the band the Alumni Association has playing. The tailgates there aren’t bad for the post-college crowd, and walking from the baseball stadium to the football stadium over the bridge is somewhat inspiring (esp. when the winning teams are recognized on those black squares on the sidewalk). I’ll be at Jim Patterson this season, so feel free to hang out there and say hello if you ever do too.
By the way Mike, I blame the “blah”-ness on the long satisfying weekend. And if there aren’t great tailgating experiences yet, then we can always put a few STRONG ones together this season.
are the guy who flunked the qualification test
I heard about you from some of the other alums
Yours in FS&C…
qualification test?
I didn’t rush with any other fraternity… wasn’t going to rush one, but hung out with Br.’s Braden, Casebier, and Nickel studying during my first semester.
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