Florida State Tailgate Wrap-Up:

      - Lot 1, College Park, MD 
 

Tailgate Quote:   
 

Bob:  Did you hear what time Bix need’s to be at the airport tomorrow?

Brian:  F’em, he just won 100$ let him take a cab. 
 
 

Overall: 
 

Well what can I say, for as excited as we were coming into this tailgate, the game didn’t quite match the build up.  But what can you do?  As everyone is painfully aware we closed out our Lot 1 Tailgate season this past weekend.  And boy does that suck.  No more breakfast sandwiches, Bloody Mary’s, Screw Drivers, PPK, LRC, Flip Cup, just the dreary fact that we have 9 more months until the next one.  What a downer. 
 

Anyway, we finished up the season strong.  There is actually a lot to talk about.  We finished up the flip cup season, we crowned the PPK champion again, we had another near international incident on the flip cup table, and we had the first 2 hand touch football game since back when beating West Virginia was as given as the trees changing colors.  Why we even had our first Tailgate injury since….well the last time we played 2 hand touch back in Morgantown.  There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere?  
 

Anyway, the good news is that for some of us (please be me!!!) this won’t be our last tailgate of the season, just our last one in College Park, and that’s nice.  There was a time, in fact a LONG time that when the season ended in late November, that was it.  No Bowl Game, no trips to warmer climates, just Final Exams, so I’m glad to report that even with the disappointment of this past Saturday, we are still light years ahead of where we were on that last tailgate we had as undergrads.  Back when there would be more yellow jacketed security guards in the student section than actual students.   
 

So though the dream of a Division Championship has been put to bed, actually I guess “Knocked the F out” would probably be a better description based on the final score, we can all take solace in the fact that things in this day and age are certainly better than the olden days.  And the same goes for tailgating.  We are light years ahead of where we used to be, the only difference is that I sometimes long for those old tailgates, they do have some degree of charm about them, but all things being equal, I’d rather have one with J’s burgers, Jen’s Chili, Shannon’s brownies and Deb’s cookies, than to be standing around a grill with no charcoal, and a pack of frozen Giant Brand Hot Dogs.  And I’d like to think, with the addition of the D7 Fund, as well as the financial resources that are available to us now that weren’t previously, we are still on our way up as Tailgaters.  Each year we can do a little more and more, so as we wind down the 2008 Tailgate Season, there is good reason to hope that the best days of D7 are still to come.  
 
 
 

Tailgate Highlights:

I’m having a tough time picking out a Tailgate Highlight.  In fact I usually do this section as one of the firsts, but today it’s the only one remaining. But the more I think about it, I think the highlight of the tailgate was the weather.  Yeah that’s right, the weather.  Sure it was cold, but doesn’t that make it all the better?  It’s easy to Tailgate in 80F weather, but when it’s cold you only have people that really want to be there. Plus you get to wear some of your Terp gear that spends most of the season tucked away in your closet.  I don’t think anyone who went to the Temple Rain game in Philadelphia will ever forget that day.  Though this wasn’t quite as unusual as that particular day was, it nice to have some degree of adversity.  I’ve always said, if you are playing meaningful football games when it’s cold, something must be going right, and I’m glad we got to have at least one game where you could see your breathe and the entire season still hung in the balance.  So yeah weather!!   
 

Tailgate Lowlights:

A couple things here, nothing major, but looking back when Wake Forest gave up that TD to Boston College with just over a minute left in the game, you could kind of feel the wind coming out of our sails.  We were tailgating with the idea that we could clinch the Division Title, instead we went from the inside track, to having to knock off one of the Conference’s traditional Powerhouses, and then go 300 miles north to win in BC.  That kind of sucked. 
 

Another lowlight was just knowing that this was the last tailgate of the year (in lot 1 anyhow).  You try not to think about it throughout the day, but it was there in the back of my mind (and probably others) the whole time.  It’s nice tailgating when you know you have four more games to go, but when you can see the end of the line, it’s a little bit of a bummer.  
 

Live from College Park Downs:

No time for horse racing today.  Love the game, but we had bigger fish to fry!   
 

LRC:

Someone did it.  I’m not sure who, but they are a genius.  No it wasn’t me, but somebody decided we should do a $10 LRC game.  It was everything we dreamed it would be.  But before I get into that, I just want to say that Jen won the first game of LRC and took home a nice tidy sum of $39.  I think that’s Karma’s way of saying thanks for the chili.  But then came the main event.  
 

When we upped the ante to $10 I thought we’d lose a lot of interest.  But even so, having 5 people play for $50 is more exciting than having 15$ play for $3 each.  So we gave it ago.  The volunteers started slow, but eventually we filled the table with 11 players looking to turn their $10 into $110.  Things went pretty normal, until there were just 6 chips left.  Then to say it got a little crazy would be quite an understatement.  Let me explain what happened and then go through the math with everyone.  Chris just rolled and kept his chip.  Good for him, but you wouldn’t think with 6 chips left that he had just rolled for the last time.  Mr. Leavitt was up next.  He rolled a CC.  Now how often do you see that?  All of a sudden we were down to 4 chips.  Then Aryan rolled a CC, again how often do you see that?  Then all of a sudden it was just J and Bix.  Then J rolled a C and Chris walked off with $110.  Again, I think Karma had a say in this since Bixler is the one who has to fly to every home game.   
 

But all things aside, let’s take a closer look at what happened.  The LRC dice consists of 3 dots, 1 L, 1 R, 1 C.  So on any roll you have a 50% chance of rolling a dot (a natural social of dot, dot, dot is a 12.5% chance or 1 out of 8 3 dice rolls will give you that combination).  You have a roughly 16% of rolling an L, R, or C.  Now I’m not the best at statistics.  I took it at Maryland and did all right, but I’m by no stretch of the imagination a math major, so if anyone wants to step up and correct anything, by all means, let me know.  But the way I understand it, Mr. Leavitt had a 1 in 36 chance of rolling C C.  Aryan had a 1 in 36 chance of rolling a C C, and J had a 1 in 6 chance.  Now for them to all happen at once you take 1/6 x the number of rolls.  In this case it was 5 straight so…. 
 

1/6 x 1/6= 1/36

1/36 x 1/6= 1/216

1/216 x 1/6= 1/1296 and finally

1/1296 x 1/6= 1/7776 
 

So unless I’m mistaken, when Chris rolled for the last time, he had a 1 in 7776 chance of winning, and he hit.  Kind of sad he only got paid off at 11-1 when you look at it that way.  
 

Punt, Pass, and Kick:

J wins the PPK, whoopdy do!  He had 36 parking spaces and scored a 12 in every single round.  Bix who had a chance to beat J blew his kick and finished lower than even me, who had no chance of beating J.  Congratulations on a successful season of PPK.  Is it me, or did it seem like we used to have more of a variety of winners back when we used to play behind Denton Hall?  
 

Coffin Corner:

I don’t know what it is about Surin and CC.  He can’t seem to avoid the spot light.  Surin created much controversy by fielding Todd’s punt which by rule should have been allowed to land.  We’ll never know what the ball would have done, but I can tell you Todd’s next kick made a 45 degree angle for the sidelines thus eliminating any chance he had left.  J also won controversially.  His boy Aryan, like the Georgia Bulldog that he is, allowed the ball to roll to him, instead of charging to get the best possible field position for the imaginary receiving team.  As a result J out did Jason by 2 feet.  Yeah!!  
 

Two Hand Touch:

Looking back I’m a little surprised myself, but for the first time in well a while, we actually played two hand touch.  The teams were simple.  The old guys (Class of 1994 Bob, Justin, Chris, Jason) against the young guys (Class of 1995 or later, Aryan, Todd, Brian, Surin), the game was to be the first one to 3, but that didn’t last.  J was the All Time QB and you had 5 downs to transverse the field.  The Youngins kicked off and the old guys returned it.  I’ll spare you the details of all the incomplete passes and botched routes, but the Youngsters got on the board first.  Aryan caught a TD pass from J over me.  Here is where Aryan wants me to write that he beat me, well if Aryan wants that in the records he can write his own recap.  J threw the ball up, and instead of being patient, I figured there was a chance J may be short and I put myself between the ball and the WR, unfortunately it went over my head and a TD resulted, my bad.   
 

However, that would be the only highlight for the youngsters.  The Old Guys answered on the next drive when one of us caught a TD (can’t remember that play).  Then the Youngins had a chance to win.  They drove down the field only to stall out at about the 10 yard line.  On 5^th and goal not only were we sure they wouldn’t score, we already drew up our game winning play.  Inevitably J failed to convert the 5^th down and the Old Team took over.  The play was simple.  Instead of running into each other, lets all stand still and have Chris go long, maybe with some iso we could complete a pass.  Well it worked, Chris caught the pass, made a move and waltzed into the end zone.  The Old Guys jumped for joy, though you could argue that they were celebrating the fact that the game was over more than the win! 
 

On a more serious note, or more hilarious depending on how much of a jerk you are, Justin somewhere along the line hurt himself.  Not surprising considering our age and the conditions of the field, but not until Tuesday did I learn that he broke his leg.  I’m impressed!  If I had broken a bone, I would have been down on the asphalt like Nancy Kerrigan, but Justin kept going.  Of course he’s now in a boot, but PPK season is over, so the timing couldn’t be better, unless of course you didn’t want to have a broken leg in the first place.  As a result, Justin I’m given you the first ever Anquan Boldin Man Award.  Enjoy it, you earned it…unfortunately.   
 

Flip Cup Results:

Here we are the last flip cup recap of the season.  There was a lot on the line today as the overall season championship was very much up for grabs.  In fact several people still had a shot if all things went there way.  For the first time in a while we actually have decent team names.  Surin’s lights made it easy to decipher between the red side and the white side, so the team names were a no brainer.  We got 5 rounds in on this day and as always there was some controversy, there was some tension, and there was suspense.  I’d like to say there was some fun had as well, but we passed flip cup being fun like 3 tailgates ago.  So let’s get on with the results.   
 

The First Series:  As mentioned above, nothing fancy about the names, just simply red vs. white.  Team Red was made up of Bixler, Snively, Myself, J, Deb (who I sometimes call Emily when I’ve been drinking too much), and Todd.  Team White was made up of Surin, Justin, Aryan, Jen, Jason, and Emily.  On paper this one looked pretty tight, and for the most part it was.  The Red’s were able to pull ahead and take a 4-2 victory, but it wasn’t a walk by any stretch, in fact it was close enough that everyone decided to run em back! 
 

The Second Series: Again same teams, except team Red added Jen P, and Team White added Mike C.  It wasn’t enough.  Team Red again worked the 2 for 1 sale for all it’s worth and walked away with another 4-2 victory.  I think it was at this point when I started to believe that I could actually hold on for the championship. 
 

The Third Series: Here’s where things began to shake up.  The teams were drafted for this round, speaking of which, I think the draft is a good idea that had a lot of success this season.  Sure it hurts a lot of feelings, but even when I go in the 4^th round I’m still pretty psyched someone picked me to be on their squad.  Anyway, Chris was one Captain and Jason..maybe? was the other Captain.  I knew we were screwed because when I looked across the table and saw how angry Jen and Deb were with where they got drafted, I knew they were going to come out with fire in their bellys and did they ever.  Bix’s Red team was made up of Bix, Myself, Surin, John F (yes you are reading that correct, John was actually at a tailgate this year!), Snively, Aryan, and Emily.  The other team was made up of Spurned Deb, and Jen, plus Todd, Jason, Justin, J, and B Lee.  It did get a little close, in fact it was game 7 close, but in the end the Whitey’s pulled it out.  And then came the 4^th series. 
 

The Fourth Series: Yeah I know it’s sad, but Game 4 this week had to be one of the most difficult 10 minutes of my life.  Let’s just say Team Red (Bix, Bob, John F, Brian, Emily, and Adam) lost 4-1 to the White Team (J, Surin, Deb, Todd, Rachel, and Aryan).  Looking back, I didn’t even realize we won 1.  As much as I’d like to, I don’t think this particular series will ever be forgotten.  And then came…. 
 

The Final Show Down:  If someone made a movie about flip cup, not all the writers in Hollywood could have written this script.  Actually they could have, but the movie would have been cast off as being too unbelievable. But the following is a true story.  I came in leading for what seemed like most of the Flip Cup Season, and after starting the day 2-0 I felt pretty good about holding on to that slim lead.  But then something funny happened.  I lost one series, and then another.  And then all of a sudden I was 2-2 and J was 4-0!  He had caught me and with just 1 series left on the day, this was going to be the deciding game.  For this historic match up it was Myself, Bix, John F, Snively, Emily, and Jen.  For the White Team is was J, Surin, Aryan, Todd (then David P), B Lee, and Rachel.  J’s team jumped out to a 2-0 lead and things looked glim, but then the Red team put it together, they won one, then two, then 3 games and all of a sudden the Red Team was just one victory away from the series, but J was not to be denied.  He rallied his side for one more win, and then it was game 7.  Unlike most sporting events, this match up actually lived up to the hype that is had, the 7^th game came down to the anchors and as fate hung in the balance, Emily was able to nail the final flip and it was over.  I don’t know what happened next but according to Shannon’s notes, I yelled “Nothing but hugs” I think what actually happened was that Emily looked up and high fived me, and I yelled, “There are no high fives on this team…nothing but hugs!  NOTHING BUT HUGS!!!”.   
 

I have to admit, I owe this season title more to the teammates around me than to my particular self.  I got plenty of help along the way.  Only in Virginia Tech did I feel as though I really played as an elite Flip Cupper, but I like to think my pep talks and motivation style helped me reach and remain at the top, but it is all about the team.  For anyone who closely followed baseball in the 90’s, I was basically Lonnie Smith.  Never a star by any means, but always on a great team.  So I would like to take this opportunity to thank anyone who ever bellied up to the table next to me and said to themselves “I want this guy to be on my team, because win or lose, I know he is passionate, cunning, determined, and probably most of all lucky.  Yes, I’ll battle with him!”.  I dedicate this championship to you!! 
 

So below is the final season standings.  As you can see once again we had quite a few people pass by the flip cup table.  In fact for 2008 we had 51 different people.  That’s pretty cool.  I didn’t think I knew 50 different people, but I guess I do.  By the way last years record for the table was 46.  Also just a quick look at some all time records, overall J is 25-13, I’m 25-16, Brian is 18-15, Justin is 21-14, Jason is 17-15, Jen is 21-13, Bix is 14-16, and Surin is 10-18.  I think it’s interesting that it seems the more games you play, the better the records are.   
 
 

 
 
 

Weather Report Card:

Well I rallied a little bit, but that would be like saying in Vegas “Instead of being down $10,000 now I’m only down $8,000.  Either way you are going to avoid calling your wife!  Luckily for me I still have two more forecasts that can help me out.  
 

 
 
 

The “Save the Terrapin (tailgaters)” Drive:

It’s been a while since I tallied up the D7 fund, but I am pleased to announce that since the Wake Forest Tailgate we’ve actually raised 50$.  That brings our yearly total to $99.50.  I think I’ll go a head and be a deer and throw in .50$ to make it an even $100 on the year.  So that is our budget.  We still have last years money to pay J for a new grill, and then the Pumpkin Carving money to take out, but that should still leave us with a nice sum to do some more stuff with.  If anyone has any idea’s let me know and I’ll give send you a check.  I know I have a couple ideas floating around, I just don’t know if I’ll ever get to them.  
 

Tailgate MVP:

I gotta go with two MVP’s for this weekend.  The first one is an unsung hero of D7, in fact Bix doesn’t even have him on the members page despite him being the one of us most likely to be famous, it’s Surin.  Surin wins it this week because he bought Christmas lights for the tent. Sure they weren’t long and didn’t give off any light, but it’s that kind of outside the box thinking that makes our tailgates what they are.  The fact that he came up with the idea and followed through definitely gives him the MVP award.   
 

However, he will have to share it.  Shannon came to her first tailgate of the year and won Co-MVP, you could only imagine what she would have done if she would have been able to make the whole season, but the reason I’m giving Shannon the nod as well is because she offered to help take notes.  I didn’t realize until I didn’t have to do it what a pain it is taking flip cup notes.  Shannon did a most excellent job and as a result I’m looking at the neatest notepad I have ever seen.  Thanks for the help Shannon, I appreciated it at the time, but as I’m writing this recap, I now appreciate it even more.   
 

These two should be a shining example to the rest of you losers! 
 

Honorable Mention (in no particular order): 

Jen gets the Honorable Mention, she could of had a legitimate claim to MVP, but I can’t name 3.  But Jen made Chili on a day that I was NEVER more happy to see chili.  Then to find out she got up at 1:30 AM (or came home early from the bar depending on who’s version of the story you want to believe) to make it.  Again, what a role model.  All three of you help make the day extra special and that’s what this section is about.   
 

Conclusion

God I don’t know what to say, just looking at the title of this last section makes me sad.  All I can say is that I had a great time this year, and I sure as hell wouldn’t be saying that if I had stood in lot 1 all by myself for 6 games.  We can’t always dictate, yikes maybe that should read we can’t dictate what happens on the field (though Milo sure tried!), but we can dictate how many stories we can tell, how many jokes we can make, and how many games though trivial in the big scheme of things are life and death while they are going on, we play.  Things will happen and as we get older the odds of us missing more and more games will gradually increase, so I’m glad at the age of 32 we can still look at ourselves in the mirror and say “For (insert your own # here) Saturdays I was able to clear my schedule, put everything on hold, and stop the world to simply hang out with my friends and have fun.”.  That doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it really is.  
 

I hate to end with a quote from a Tigers fan, but Tyson said it best when his alarm went off for the UNC game and his wife asked him why he was doing all this for a football game and he said “You don’t understand, this has nothing to do with Football.”. 
 

And I don’t think I could have said it better myself.  Have a great off season everyone, and with a little luck, maybe we’ll get one last Tailgate somewhere warm (crossing fingers) 
 

So until then, don’t forget:

• Next August someone needs to take out J’s kicking leg
• Bob W is the 2008 Flip Cup Champion; feel free to bask in his general goodness when you are around him
• Most of you owe me $5 because neither J or Jen committed a felony at the flip cup table this year
• If 6 hours of work, went as quickly as 6 hours of tailgating, I’d be a much happier person
• Chic-fi-let owes us a free meal
• Oh and don’t forget to check out Justin as Tiny Tim in this years X-mas pageant (well how about that, I guess I really am a jerk!)

 
 

That’s all I got, now let’s try to beat BC and gun for a 9 win season.  Hope to see you somewhere warm!