The Art of Tailgating…..

One thing I can say about my friends is that they really know how to tailgate. Take this weekends UCONN-South Florida game for an example. First off, we were trying to get into the red lot behind our seats but for some strange reason we weren’t allowed to go where we wanted to park. Of course that’s probably because no one listened to me that we had to go in on the other side of Rentschler Field. So as we travelled the wrong way thru the parking lot at least once, we came upon an opportunity to sneak into the blue lot….So of course we did just that. Now in the history of the 3 years we have gone to the Rent, no one has checked our parking passes when we actually parked the cars….Of course sneaking in with 2 red passes and 1 blue presented us with a dilemma. Thank god for the nice people next to us, who just happened to have 2 extra blue passes…Also helps when you have two friends who work for liquor distributors who hooked the guys up with some flasks and peach brandy…..

Back to the art of tailgating…..Over the 3 years of tailgating at UCONN games, we have had our share of learning from our mistakes and from seeing others set ups. Usually during the week of the game, emails will go out and everyone will bring something..This way it doesn’t put the financial burden on someone to pay for everything.

But at this Saturday’s game, we were the talk of our section in the parking lot. First off you can’t miss us because of the green HardiBacker tent. Secondly, when your with us you can’t miss us because we tend to be a bit loud especially when ragging on our Iowa Hawkeye friend. So this week’s menu was deep fried turkey, homemade stuffing and mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and of course gravy… Yes, thats right, we deep fried a turkey. For those of you who have never had deep fried turkey, I highly recommend it.. It is the best tasting turkey I have ever had (my compliments to Chef Scotty Lima). The turkey frying gathered everyone’s attention. We had people coming over all the time asking what was in the fryer. When we told them it was a turkey no one believed us. I would have to think at least 50 people stopped by to see what we were doing….We even had one lady who was wearing her 1970’s couch pattern as a jacket come over at least 3 times. Of course as always on the menu, was beer and various hard alcohols courtesy of our liquor distributor friends.

During the pregame festivites we were even fortunate to have the UCONN band play in front of where we were set up…. Nothing better than listening to a bunch of drunks try to sing the UCONN fight song….As the day wore on the weather grew colder and our group of 12 dwindled down to 4. Now if you were at the game, you would have found a way to suck it up and actually stay for the whole game as this was one of the best games we have seen all year at home…..

As i sit here and write this, I only wonder can we top this weekends tailgate next weekend when UCONN plays host to Louisville at 7:45 PM (games on espn if you can’t join us in the parking lot).
Stay tuned for a post on the weekend to see if we play Top That Tailgate.