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Georgia Tech Tailgate Wrap-Up:

            - Lot 1, College Park, MD

Tailgate Quote: 

“A buddy of mine went to SMU (Southern Methodist University), he said there isn’t much there, just a whole bunch of Catholics.”

                                                                                    -J

Overall:

In his defense, it had been a LONG day by the time J dropped that line, and I wasn’t going to use it because we were all a little “punchy” by that point, but it was too classic to not bring it up.  So there is your opening quote.  More on J later.

Well there it was, the first pre-dawn tailgate of the year.  The pre-dawn tailgate sucks.  It is hard to leave Denton by 4:30 am which is what I would have to do in order to make it by 6:00, but I did my best.  J however was right on time and actually tailgated by himself for almost 20 minutes.  But as much as it sucked to get up that early, there is also something about it that makes you feel alive.  There is nothing like watching the grey mist turn into daylight with a nice cold beer in your hand (as long as it’s your first beer of the day and not the last one from the night before).  But as much as pre-dawn drinking flips it’s middle finger at the idea of “adult responsibility”, the pre-dawn tailgate unfortunately goes by way too quick!

For the first 2 hours it was just J and I swapping stories about “The Hills”, “Newport Harbour”, and numerous other MTV shows that two 30 year old guys should have no interest in.  But luckily our pre-teen slumber party was broken up by the early arrival of Surin, Juanita, and B Lee.  Once they arrived it started to feel like a legitimate tailgate.  Shortly afterwards Mary, Shannon, and Matthew arrived and then Snively made his appearance and before we knew what happened Lot 1 was rapidly filling.   I often don’t give Maryland fans enough credit for getting up early for these noon games, but this tailgate was the quickest that all the parking spots to our left and right were filled.  So quickly, we didn’t even have time to save a spot for Mr. Leavitt, sorry about that!

As the crowd started to grow J finally fired up the grill and went to work making some nice “Lot 1 Burgers” which is really more of a breakfast sandwich, but I like the sound of Lot 1 Burgers.  As always they were awesome, and quickly consumed.  After the grilling was done it was post time for the first D7 Horse Race of the afternoon.  I think we ran about 3 or 4 races and during the second to last horserace who do I see out the corner of my eye?  Why it is, Derek and Sarah Taylor!  Derek quickly figured out we were gambling and jumped in for the last horse race which, as everyone knows, takes place at the Double Up Downs.  I mention this not because this is Derek’s first tailgate in 27 years, but because Derek had 4 3’s in his hand and possibly could have scored one of the most decisive horse racing victories ever.  After the kill round, he was still alive, but the 8 horse proved too much, and so to date we still do not have our first ever un-split pot. 

As is the case with all noon starts, the time started to get away from us.  A decision was made to rally up for a quick game of LRC and then move on to flip cup.  Not that this recap is about me in anyway, but I just want to point out that I am so cold at LRC, that I don’t think anyone who has stood within 2 people of me have won either.  So make a mental note for the UVA game come dice time.  The LRC winner was Dr. Leavitt who after paying off all his sons debts on the day I believe walked about with $1.33 in net Leavitt family winnings. 

After that we jumped into 2 series of flip cup, I’ll get into that more later because apparently the flip cup games are far too competitive to just lump in with the rest of the tailgating stuff.  So overall the GT tailgate was much too quick, way too hot, and awfully successful, but really anything short of a raid by the Maryland Gambling commission is going to be considered a successful tailgate. 

Tailgate Highlights:

“They may take our beers, but they will never take our freedom!!....on second thought take our freedom and return the beer please.”.  Luckily, and this goes for the whole year, there has been a very low police presence in Lot 1.  Not once this year have we been lectured or warned to stop playing drinking games.  After the College Park police released their tailgating policy for the upcoming season, most of us at D7 figured we were going to be in for a long year.  But not only has that not been the case, this is the most police freedom we have had in maybe 4 years! 

And I’m not putting down the College Park police, I’m sure there are other problems at tailgates across the campus, but I don’t think there are any in lot 1, and with the lack of police presence, do you feel any less safe there?  Of course not.  Now we just have to hope we didn’t jinx the remainder of the season, but if the first 3 tailgates of the year are any indication, we won’t be needing lookouts anymore for flip cup.

Tailgate Lowlights:

I’m pretty sure my calendar in the kitchen says October, but after yesterday I’m not sure someone didn’t flip it to that to confuse me.  For all I know we could have been tailgating for the first day of two a days in August.  I will get to the weather report card in a minute, but when the botched forecast is the tailgate Lowlight, I think you can pretty much figure out how the grade is going to work out. 

Flip Cup Results:

The good news is that at least I now know people read the tailgate recaps.  The bad news is that now I can’t make stuff up!  Well for Georgia Tech we were only able to get 2 series of flip cup in and the results were anything but decisive.  Now on to the hardest part of the tailgate recap.  This week featured “The Dirty South” vs. “Team Northern Aggression”.  On the Dirty South was Me, Brian, Jen, Erin, Jen’s Mom, Justin, and J.  On Northern Aggression was Shannon (briefly), Jason, Surin, Brian Lee, Juanita, A couple people from Calvert County maybe???  I don’t know, but in the future I’m writing this down because I really don’t want to leave anyone out, and when I think back on these I can only remember who was on my left and who was on my right.  My short term memory is terrible, throw in some alcohol and I’m like Reagan during the Iran Contra hearings. 

Well regardless of if I remember you or put you on the right team, afterall you know who you are, the first series went the distance.  Tied 3-3 in the match to forever determine the intergalactic championship of Flip Cup, team Northern Aggression rolled to an anti-climatic win to bring it home.  Since we still had time, and the Dirty South was still bitter, we played again and this time there was no need for a game 7.  The Dirties took out their aggression on Northern Aggression and put them away in 5 (not unlike the 1983 World Series!).

But in honesty, I will say this.  I, as re-cap writer, vow to do better with the flip cup results section in the future.  This I promise, so if I were you, I’d bring my best stuff to the UVA tailgate because from now on, no one will be able to hide behind the mask of anonymity.  Oh that would be a good movie title!!

Weather Report Card:

Hmmm, yeah, about the weather, sorry about that, but if it makes you feel any better I’ve probably suffered permanent damage to the skin on the back of my neck.  But I will say in my defense how was I supposed to know our hottest home game of the year wouldn’t come until October.

The “Save the Terrapin” Drive:

I was pleasantly surprised by the take home of the Save the Terrapin fund.  Maybe I wasn’t paying attention, but I was not expecting to see more than maybe $10 in there at the end of the day, but I was wrong.  After it was all said and done we raised $24.25 which brings our yearly total to over $100, or $104.25 to be exact.  Our goal of $300 maybe in trouble, but still, we have only had one true 6 hour tailgate to date, and we have a couple more home games to go, so you never know, but even if we don’t reach $300 it still good to have anything at the end of the year.

Tailgate MVP:

I’m going with J for the tailgate MVP.  He was first man in, and among the last to leave.  I was going to dock him points because I had to drive him home, but since he let Mary leave early which was a nice thing to do, I won’t hold it over him.  J, and Mary also has a share in this MVP too, brought all kinds of cookies and baked goods and also provided the life saving breakfast sandwiches, I mean Lot 1 Burgers. 

Honorable Mention (in no particular order): 

I guess I could do myself for Honorable Mention, I mean I did have to drive 80 miles to get there at 6:20 am which is still pretty good by the way.  I didn’t really provide anything else to the tailgate, other than bringing the table which loading by myself is quite the task, but other than that I don’t really think I was worthy, but what the hell I’ll do it. 

Conclusion

Well we were back home in Lot 1 for this one and things felt like old times.  We got to see some D7 friends we haven’t seen in a long time and we also had our first Shannon and Matthew sighting of the year (by the way thanks Matthew for bringing the munchkin, and the little donuts too, and by the way, I do recycle jokes when I’m looking for filler, no need to point that out). 

The only down side to the tailgate was the lack of time to really kick back in relax.  Sure J and I got to from 6:30 to 8:00 Am, but it’s much better when the whole gang is there for the duration.  We will hopefully get to have this come the UVA game, which is now looming on our schedule as a huge match up.  This tailgate will be on October 20, 2007, it will be a classic with a special treat for all who’d like to participate, however details can not be released until the day of, in order to protect the innocent.  Until then, don’t forget:

• Notre Dame would be a nice place if it wasn’t for all the Quakers who go there
• There still may never be a 4 horse derby winner
• Writing flip cup recaps is as stressful as working air traffic control
• And the leaves on the trees are turning colors not because it’s fall, but because they are burning to death.

Now let’s BEAT UVA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!