Tailgating: Worth it, or Nah?

graphic by Leia Bisgard

Ahh, the tailgate. The age old tradition of binge drinking before a game that you don’t even care about. As a huge part of SU’s social life, sports culture, greek life culture, or even just as a celebration of nice (read: somewhat decent) weather, it’s easy to get swept up in all of the glory of tailgating. Don’t get us wrong, tailgates are fun. They’re a great way to show school spirit and make some good old college memories. But with that being said, once you’re actually in the belly of the beast, two four lokos deep and freezing your ass off, tailgates can inspire some truly horrifying moments. Let’s set the scene:

For starters, it’s 20 degrees. You’re wearing a cut up t-shirt with Otto the Orange on the front, and a pair of jeans that you split down the middle when you hopped that broken fence to get into 507. In other words, a perfectly sensible outfit for the tundra that is Cuseland. It’s also 11AM and you’re already chugging the shitty vodka-cran you threw together in a Gatorade bottle. Blunts are burning, Natty Daddys are flying through the air, Body is blaring from a speaker in the middle of a random dirt patch that everyone has somehow decided to convene in. So far, so good.

Here comes part two. Soon enough, after hammering back some random alcohol that you’ve been handed, you decide you need to pee and all hell breaks loose. You have only three viable options: find a bathroom somewhere (impossible), go home (improbable), or squat in the middle of the action (impressive). Naturally, you choose to climb behind a couple of conveniently placed trees, and squat. What a relief, you think to yourself, knowing full well you’re going to have to go again in 15 minutes or less.

Now comes the hardest part: finding your friends again in the crowd. In a drunken stir, you’ve already violated the most essential rule there is to tailgating: never pee without a partner. Now you have to pay the price. You turn around to search for your people and walk by what appears to be somebody’s father slapping the bag. Yeah, that is definitely someone’s dad, and he definitely has his hand on a some girl’s ass. Hello 911, we would like to report a crime. Oh but would you look at that, it just started snowing. That’s okay, you can’t feel your body anyway.

Understandably, the rest of the story is blurry. You wake up hungover at 8PM, not entirely sure how you got back home, and laugh at yourself for believing you would get work done after a day drink. For some reason you’re also covered in mud from head to toe, and wearing huge sunglasses that don’t belong to you. Your head pounds as you stand up, and your brain seems to have a flashback of you crouched down at the receiving end of an ice luge on repeat. You check your phone to see the never ending list of drunk texts you sent, including the selfies you texted your mother, and you vow to never drink again. Sound familiar?

Like we said, the tailgate is really just a tradition that makes day drinking seem kinda-sorta appealing before a game no one cares about. Unless, of course, you actually bought a ticket to the game, and then slept through it. Either way, ain’t no gameday like a Cuse gameday, no matter how you’re celebrating. It’s messy, but you gotta love it.