September 2008

By Joe Connor

 

For years, I have always wanted to partake in arguably the best college football experience in the fruited plain – the Southeastern Conference (SEC). From the Louisiana Bayou to the Tennessee Hills – and, oh, those lovely Georgia Peaches! – I’ve long felt I’ve been missing out on one of sports’ and tailgatings’ most unique experiences. So last season, I finally took the plunge, visiting six premiere football schools in the 12-team SEC, and doing so in a very unique way.

 

Long before football Saturday’s became as commonplace as barbecues and beer, Rudolph Diesel had run his diesel engine on peanut oil. When gas prices started heading northward a few years ago, a select few Americans like myself decided to put old Diesel’s engine back under the aroma of French fries. In late 2005, I added a second tank to a 1984 Mercedes diesel I had just purchased and before long, I was cruising my California highways on freedom fries, also known as used vegetable oil.

 

But the light bulb really went off in my head when I convinced corporate sponsors to join my delirious quest to see a different baseball game in a different ballpark for more than seven months in 2006. Last year, I was back on the road again, only this time to some of college football’s premiere venues. Here are my favorite experiences from my SEC visits of a year ago (and corporate-sponsor willing, I’ll see the remaining six in 2009 because this season I’m hitting the PAC-10 and the Big 12!).

 

 

I always wanted to go to visit the place where Van Morrison made out with his girlfriend on the grass behind Tiger Stadium. After all, it was during a teen dance that I’d very first puckered the opposite sex, during “Brown Eyed Girl” to a brown-eyed girl back when I was a pimple-faced, insecure doofus growing in Hartford, Connecticut (yet I now reside in San Diego – yep, blame it on the weather). But it wasn’t really until I moved to Florida after college, and got immersed in SEC football following the Gators, that visions of tailgating down on the bayou danced in my head.

 

The day after Thanksgiving last year I had my sights set on the Louisiana state capitol as the Tigers hosted Arkansas on the final weekend of the regular season. The previous day I had been in Texas Stadium watching the Dallas Cowboys thump the hapless New York Jets, and it even snowed in the first half! But at the very same time – down on the bayou – throngs of Tiger fans were tailgating. On Thanksgiving. In the Louisiana sun.

 

I arrived on campus around 9 a.m. for the 1:30 kickoff and the place was beyond a mad house. All LSU had to do was beat Arkansas and they’d punch their ticket for a chance to play for the national championship. I’d never seen so many middle-class men holding up fingers, willing to sell their second son and right kidney for a chance to buy a ticket to scream “Geaux Tigers!” I took up shop near “the mounds,” which some also dub “the cleavage,” a fantastic tailgating spot because of its live oak tree providing shade, plus close proximity to the band route into the stadium with mound-top viewing points.

 

Built more than 5,000 years ago by Native Americans, the Indian Mounds are on the northwest side of campus and researchers believe they may have been symbols of group identity where peoples living in scattered bands congregated from time to time for religious and ceremonial purposes, and to feast, dance, and select mates! I guess you can say then that it’s only appropriate this special place continues these traditions!

 

While most fans (and normal humans) had turkey for Thanksgiving, diehard Tiger fans had pig – and they had carved the hell out of a huge hog by the time I arrived at one tailgate spot. Besides the pig, the Cajun grub on the menu, plus the views from the mounds of the band, made LSU my favorite SEC stop by far.

 

Arkansas stunned the Tigers, sending LSU fans into a hissy fit, but because West Virginia lost at home to Pitt one week later (a game I also attended), the Tigers not only played for the national title, they won the whole damn thing. Funny, this game of college football!

 

 

I made my first football pilgrimage to Athens last September 8 as Steve Spurrier’s Gamecocks visited Sanford Stadium. On football Saturday’s this town of 100,000 becomes the second largest city in Georgia – and for good reason. Not only do the Bulldogs have a rich pigskin tradition, they also know how to tailgate – no matter the weather conditions. When I visited it was a blazing hot day, yet there was a sea of red and army of tailgating parties every which way I turned. And apparently, it was easy to spot the veterans from the rookies. Some three plus hours before game-time, a Georgia fan sat passed out in his easy chair, his plastic beer cup miraculously still clinging to his hand. Most amazingly, he sat in a circle (and underneath a canopy/tent, thankfully), while all around him “Who Let the Dogs Out” blasted from a sound system. South Carolina upset the Dawgs, and had Georgia won, they might have played for the national championship (but see No. 3!). Instead, rookie was drowning his sorrows in his beer.

 

 

Up until last year, the craziest tailgating I had ever experienced on the water was partying on a boat before a Jimmy Buffett concert in St. Petersburg. That was until I visited Knoxville where the Tennessee River flows through town like your favorite cold frosty. I walked along the banks of the river for nearly a mile – and was mesmerized. Boat after boat – and tailgate party after tailgate party – Tennessee Volunteer fans were everywhere! The designation, “Volunteer Navy,” is fitting indeed. Tennessee pounded Georgia, which would be the Bulldogs second and last loss in ’07 (and my Georgia buddy tells me I’m now banned from ever attending a Georgia game – home or away!).

 

From a sheer size standpoint, I don’t think I witnessed more people tailgating in more places than at Alabama. I mean, there was tailgating going on everywhere! I found my spot on the huge green beneath Denny Chimes, a huge bell tower on the north side of Bryant-Denny Stadium. There fans, young and old, had ample space to throw the football – and throw back a few. As kickoff neared, I roamed through some other areas with campus parties winding down, including at a frat house across from the stadium with a message for then-Arkansas coach Huston Nutt: “Bama ‘Bout to Bust a Nut.” Alabama won a thriller in overtime over the Razorbacks, then I slept two hours in my car at an Albany, Georgia truck stop and somehow made it to a 1 p.m. NFL kickoff in Tampa the next day (yes, I am insane)!

 

 

One of my greatest, juvenile drunken mayhems as a college student was toilet-papering Elizabethtown College on Halloween with my fellow beer-swigging freshman goons. At Auburn, they have a street corner for toilet-papering trees – Toomer’s Corner, but only when the Tigers win. Gigantic oak trees hover over the corner and a 150-year-old Toomer’s Drug Store lies across the street. So, it’s only appropriate (I guess) that I tailgated with “The Toomerheads” before an 11:30 kickoff on the same day I visited Tuscaloosa (let’s just say I bolted at halftime). The tailgating was fun, but didn’t have the same buzz as LSU, Georgia, Tennessee or ‘Bama. Auburn ended up losing to upstart Mississippi State, so I think the tree was safe for at least another day.

No. 6: University of South Carolina (Columbia), Joe says “Rain, rain, go a way, come back another day”

 

Every trip has at least one disaster day – and that day for me was last October 4 when the Gamecocks hosted Kentucky for a rare Thursday night affair in the South Carolina state capitol. For starters, a coolant line that heats my vegetable oil tank ruptured, putting me behind schedule. Then when I arrived in Columbia it started to pour. Did I mention pour? More like a monsoon. Even worse: I couldn’t find my tailgating friend or my tailgating spot. Nope, instead I got into a big argument with an arrogant, unhelpful drunk loser – and let’s just say, I lost my Irish Catholic temper. But I did have fun at the game! The Gamecocks beat the Wildcats and I made it safely to my hotel. The next day I was off to Louisville for another football game. So me, complain?