Game Time!.
Finally, Football season is here. After a long hibernation, Auburn fans slowly emerge from their summer caves anxious to forget about the bitter dream that was last season. Just as important as the football season however, is the tailgating season. And this year looks to be as challenging as any.
Way back in the mid 90’s our illustrious Tailgating Crew started out on the Drill Field as novices. Sure we tailgated in college some, but then a home game was just that…at our house. We could walk to the games, and when we did travel to away games we were happy to eat pizza out of the garbage (Derek Roh’s famous quote: “I can’t tell if those are black olives or cockroaches.”) We just enjoyed seeing our fellow, recent graduates and we were glad to have an excuse to get together.
As we approached the new millennium our Tailgate crew had grown in size, but soon we faced our first challenge. Our gathering spot was now for RV’s only now. We were being forced out. We tried to find new spots, but we were unorganized and were forced to resort to the Intramural Field. Wile the Intramural Field was familiar ground in it’s proximity to our old college home , the Delta Chi House, it felt cut off from the rest of campus. So we searched, organized and eventually found a new home near Drake Medical Center. Our new home did not come without a fight: we battled with another tailgate crew that claimed Drake as their turf for the past 30 years. Like two rival army’s we tried to establish a beachhead by getting there earlier and earlier. It was as natural as evolution; eventually we prevailed and even learned to coexist with the old generation of tailgaters.
The Drake spot became ours; and we couldn’t have asked for better. We were in close proximity to shopping and many food choices. We had parking for almost everyone, even room to camp or park an RV once a year. We also had room for the kids that suddenly emerged from our tailgating crew: The Next Generation. We evolved into a group of Professional Tailgaters, with all the right tools, including coolers, tents, chairs, loveseats, trashcans, even grills. The Drake Spot was our Utopia; we have many memories filled with happiness, sadness and a lot of drinking. But things do not evolve in a vacuum and once again our Crew faces another challenge: Our spot has been closed off once again.
So, much like the first time we were evicted from a spot, we met this first Saturday in September at the Drill Field. While this time the drill field offers us more room, even space for The Next Generation to run and play we also face the same problems. Once again we are cut off from campus; very far from shopping, food choices and worst of all far from the stadium. We also have new problems with a lack of parking spaces…this threatens our very nature: For what is a Tailgate Crew with out a Tailgate. We made the best of the situation, although the group was small (I don’t know if that was because not everyone came to the game, or because our group had…gasp…fractionalized). The tailgate was short due to the early start, and the game even shorter, with almost all of the action in the first half. But it gave us a chance to see the team in action (even though it was against an inferior team) and it also gave us a chance to see the tailgate in action. I personally think that both need improvement. I would like to see the development of a passing game to compliment our running game, as well as and improvement in both the location of our Tailgate and the number of participants.
Both our Tailgate Crew and our Team have overcome challenges in the past, and hopefully this year will be one that we remember for its positives. Here’s hoping that we return to the glory of the Drake Spot, as our team returns to SEC glory. WAR EAGLE.
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