Tailgating Is Great Sport

Tailgating is one of my favorite sports. It goes hand-in-hand with football and doesn't require much skill other than drink mixing, munchie consumption, and locating decent bathrooms.

I tailgate once a year with my family for a Notre Dame football game (my sisters are both Notre Dame graduates). In 2007, this meant renting an SUV and partying on the golf course adjacent to the Rose Bowl for the Notre Dame/UCLA game. This Thanksgiving weekend, the occasion was the Notre Dame/USC game at the Coliseum.

The Coliseum is a lovely venue but it's tough to coordinate a tailgate because it costs 40-100 dollars to park anywhere near the stadium and 25 dollars to squeeze into a parking garage that doesn't permit pre-game activities of any sort. Access to the prime parking areas are limited to those USC super fans who pay $2500 a year for membership to the Cardinal and Gold Club and get nice parking spots as a reward. For the rest of us, it's all about finding a nice patch of grass or friendly Trojans to party with. We opted for the latter and spent the afternoon with our longtime hairdresser Yvette and her USC clan.

Yvette has been cutting hair for our family for years. She married a mega USC fan a couple of years ago and invited us to join them at their tailgater. The party was ideally located across from Tunnel 19 and was easy to find thanks to its high-flying American, Marine, and USC flags.

It was a serious spread: full bar with top shelf liquor, salty and sweet snacks, burgers, chicken, sausage, and all the fixings. Our eight-person group put only a small dent in the amount of food and booze they had there. The other SC fans throwing the tailgater were in great spirits and quite welcoming despite us cheering for the opposing team. I attribute this either to the flow of alcohol or the fact that Notre Dame was no match for SC this year and we all knew it.

Tailgating puts people in a good mood -- revelry replaces rivalry when drinks are flowing. The scene is also the backdrop for unexpected reunions: In the women's bathroom, I ran into a gal I was a cheerleader with in high school; my mom saw a high school friend she hadn't talked to since they graduated 50 years ago; and one of my sisters met up with both work friends and fellow ND alums.

You don't even have to like football to enjoy a tailgater. Just show up, have some food and drink, and enjoy. It makes a rout like the one Notre Dame suffered much more tolerable.