—The Daily Collegian Friday, Oct. 20, 1978
Tailgating with style from kegs to banana flambe
By MICKEY EDWARDS
Daily Collegian Staff Writer
By car and camper, they come to see
the Nittany Lions play football. Kegs and
cooking grills transform the area around
Beaver Stadium into the University’s
biggest weekly party a fest of food,
drink and friends gathered for a tailgate.
“Tailgating is the only thing I know
that can turn a three-hour football game
into an all-day affair,” State College
resident Dick Monsell said. “The better
Penn State plays, the longer the
tailgating goes on after the game.”
But tailgating starts well before the
game’s final whistle blows. Barry Jones
of the Rec Hall Ticket Office said cars
begin arriving at 9 a.m. when the
parking areas open.
As 18,000 vehicles close ranks around
the stadium, the early birds enjoy
brunch and booze in University fields.
What used to be “Just sandwiches
and Kool-aid before the game” has
become a major part of the college
football scene during the last few years.
The University community is well
represented at tailgate outings. Most
numerous are alumni, but students,
parents and faculty also attend. Each
group has its own customs and levels of
sophistication..
homecoming
The brothers of Phi Delta Theta
fraternity, for instance, bring lunch to
home games, rather than eat at their
Burrowes Road fraternity house.
Tailgating beneath the fraternity’s
billowing banner at one game was
brother Scott Lonsdale, who said
tailgating has been going on “ever since
the station wagon and the pickup truck. ’ ’
Tailgating has come a long way since
the days of the fold-down station wagon
door. More elaborate hardware and
cuisine have evolved, and the folding
picnic table, patio chairs and back seat
cooler share the occasion with that
pinnacle of America’s approach to the
outdoors the recreational vehicle.
From Winnebago kitchens, come such
delicacies as lobster thermidor, shrimp
and prime rib, served with champagne
at candlelit tables.
Most tailgaters, however, find less'
exotic fare quite suitable. Traditional
picnic spreads such as potato salad,
cheese platters, deviled eggs and sand
wiches are part of many pre-game
meals. Other students just carry a
quarter keg in the trunk. .
Joe Boris, a teacher at State College
High School, called tailgating a
“Saturday ' subculture .. . probably
endemic toall.football games.” ~
£ Tailgating is a, free-form-, activity,
[".which ’ may- partially' acfeoUht for ’ its
There seems to be no limit to
the variety of tailgating one can do
before or after the game.
“It makes a football game a social
Give a child the gift of Life,
Support the MARCH OF DIMES^r
event,” alumnus John McKeever of
Boalsburg said. He and his wife, Carol,
tailgated with firends during most of the
second half of the Lions’ runaway vic
tory over Texas Christian.
Altoona Campus Director Carson W.
Veach, who was here for All University
Day, called tailgating “a good way for
people to socialize and meet the Penn
State family.” He added that alcohol
belongs in the radiator this time of year,
however.
Joseph Carney, whose sons Daniel and
Thomas attend the University, drove
from New York to see the game.
“Today, to be a pareht, you have to
make an appointment to see your
children,” he said, and tailgating is an
occasion when the whole family can get
together.
Carney said he thinks tailgating got
started when somebody had car trouble
after a game. While some of the party
worked on the car, others went but to get
food and beer. When they returned,
tailgating was born.
The University’s tailgating tradition
dates back to 1960, when the new Beaver
Stadium was completed. A few alumni
say something like tailgating occured in
the Nittany Lion Inn parking lot ad
jacent to old Beaver Stadium, which was
located near Chambers.
In those days, most alumni attended
cocktail parties at fraternities. Waning
fraternity membership in the ’6os led to
the present form of football parties.
Mike Levin (lOth-business logistics)
said as ties and jackets gave way to
“Levis and rebellion” in the late ’6os,
more people got “out of the game and
into the party aspect.”
Fans come from as far away as Ohio,
New York and New Jersey to see the
Lions, according to Bellefonte KOA
campground operator Ernie Saulsbury.
A University graduate, Saulsbury said
as many as 200 groups stay in county
campgrounds during a football weekend.
Overnight parking for motor homes is
available near Shields for a $lO fee.
Barry Jones'at the Rec Hall Ticket
Office said 15 to 30 groups stay there on
weekends.
..Those \yho tailgate regularly observe
forms of etiquette that may escape the
attention of the npvice. Roaring pff the
parking lot in one’s van after the game,
scattering dust onto fellow tailgaters’
jdesserts, is seen as bad tailgating
manners fay the regulars.'
And for some, even a tailgate dessert
Is sophisticated; Dessert at alumni Bob
and Lani Burke’s camper one Saturday
night, for example, was banana flambe,
concocted by food service graduate
student Peter Bqrdi.. For “Little Peter,”
whipping up a London broil or Bloody
’'Maty soup over a charcoal fire posed no
’ ■''" Lam y urke described'tailgating as an
.“exbrciS'4';'iri') f h'umairt.ity,V’ >' aly'Wdy; of
meeting friendly peoples, as .the., coals
glowed in the gathering darkness of
another football’Saturday.
viij&n
- * (.iSSi
This classic 1934 Model T pickup dates back to the days when lailgaters actually had tailgates on their vehicles. The motor homes and other recreational vehicles in vogue
today, on the other hand, traded their tailgates for all the comforts of home. ;
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