Let me be the first to say it in public: Thank you, Larry Moneta.
Thank you for saving Duke’s undergraduate population from itself.
Why the 14-year-old passing out in a Porta Potty was the straw that broke the camel’s back—and not the junior doing coke off the hood of a car (UNC Tailgate, 2004), or the time there were nine EMS calls (Richmond Tailgate, 2009), or the general appearance of every single Tailgate since tailgate underwent its malignant conversion into Tailgate—is beyond me. But still, better late than never.
Let’s get your objections out of the way first. Yes, I’m a crusty graduate student. Yes, what I think about Tailgate should have no bearing on its future. Yes, you should be able to have your good times the same way that I had mine.
But:
1. I’m an alumnus, and I care about my alma mater;
2. I’m old enough that not all of my decisions are awful ones, and I’m young enough that I still remember what it was like to have fun;
3. So maybe I’m in a fairly unique position to contribute here.
If you don’t buy that, more power to you. Moneta’s going to cancel Tailgate regardless. (And regardless of how many students come to a Main Quad protest Tailgate this Saturday.)
Some historical perspective may be in order.
Tailgate—as we know it, with costumes, spandex and beer showers—is not a grand historical tradition on the level of the Magna Carta or even Krzyzewskiville. Around 2000, a small number of students (mostly athletes) started wearing costumes during their Blue Zone tailgates. When I showed up in the Fall of 2003, Chronicle columnist Jonathan Ross actually wrote, “Football games are huge at most Division I schools, with tailgating and parties and all that, but here, they’re almost an afterthought.”
In the summer of 2004, thanks to visiting fans’ complaints that students vandalized their cars and the efforts of heretofore unrecognized Tailgate heroes Ted Roof and Joe Alleva, student tailgaters gained exclusive use of the back lot in the Blue Zone. Perhaps not coincidentally, most alumni remember 2004 as the year that tailgating became Tailgate. Following a “ruckus” (The Chronicle’s words) at the final tailgate of the year, the 2005 tailgating season was marked by the official participation of University administrators, who monitored the situation in the Blue Zone and passed out free hot dogs. Green-shirted student leaders wore shirts emblazoned with the legend “Don’t Fumble the Tradition” and herded students into the football game before kick-off.
Tailgate 2005 was somewhat different than Tailgate 2010. It was held in the back lot of the Blue Zone, a larger space than the first lot. There was free food and water. It was supervised by University administrators and cops, rather than just cops. Student groups were permitted to bring grills into Tailgate, and many of them did, including my own fraternity. I have no idea if any of this reduced hospitalizations, fistfights or cocaine abuse, but I do know that I brought my own younger brother to one of these Tailgates and that he didn’t wind up passed out in a portable toilet.
Still, Moneta and the rest of the Student Affairs people decided that Tailgate, as it stood then, was “extremely unsafe,” and essentially made the decision to stop supporting a centralized Tailgate in favor of a more protean vision of tailgating. But the administration’s official pull-out was not the death-knell for Tailgate. Instead, it just moved from the back of the Blue Zone to the front lot where it is now. Since then, with occasional changes—off-and-on (mostly off) official University support, a guest policy, a cars policy, a 30-case-per-vehicle policy—Tailgate has looked pretty much the same.
Looking back on it, Tailgate 2005 seemed both fun and safe, with decentralized clumps of students freely mingling around grills and baby pools filled with beer. Actually, it seemed an awful lot like a tailgate at any other school in the country. Tailgate 2010, meanwhile, looks like a cross between a riot and an orgy, which is 75 percent awesome, but also 25 percent dangerous. Especially if you’re 14.
The major difference between the Tailgates of my “youth,” and the current Tailgates appears to be the active involvement and presence of University administration, rather than just the imposition of limits and restrictions.
Obviously, this makes sense. Adolescents (and here we include anyone younger than, say, 22) are neurologically programmed to make poor decisions. Put a thousand adolescents in an enclosed space, allow them to police themselves with no input from real adults, and you’re going to get a bad result. It’s like “Lord of the Flies,” except with beer.
So here’s some unsolicited advice, for Moneta and the rest of the undergraduate leaders who are apparently going to hammer out a Tailgate plan this Spring: More free food and water. More involvement by University administrators. More grills. More T-shirts with clever slogans. More incentives (basketball tickets?) for students to behave themselves and actually attend football games.
The tradition may be fumbled, but the game is not yet lost.
Alex Fanaroff is a fourth-year medical student. His column runs every Wednesday.
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