The surprising history of tailgating

It is a vain struggle to tire out the young men and women who have just been dropped into the lawless world of college. Though these events may not have the effect desired by the Hopkins administration, I am more than happy to take advantage of them.

Tempted by the free food and the weird, almost cult like obsession all college students have for a free t-shirt, I have attended more than one of these alcohol-free social opportunities. While I’m not usually one to question the way someone chooses to give me food, I’ve never quite understood the University’s obsession with tailgates.

As someone who didn’t grow up surrounded by American football culture (I did get a lot of a different kinds of football culture though), the idea of driving to a place filled with loud drunk strangers and standing inebriated around an open flame, becoming louder and drunker, seemed a bit strange to me.

Though admittedly Hopkins does it a little differently than tradition dictates, I still felt that to truly enjoy the experience of being aggressively shoved as four other people and I all dive for that last small size t-shirt, I should learn a little more about my cultural heritage.

Thankfully, someone else had already devoted two years of their life to the study of tailgating. A University of Notre Dame anthropologist with a little too much time on his hands has deduced that this great American tradition started far before the first official football game.

In fact, what can be considered to be the first tailgate party occurred during the Battle of Bull Run, when civilians from both sides came together to cheer while picnicking. This was a far stranger and more disturbing origin than I was expecting to come across. To be fair though, they didn’t have television back then, so it was a little harder to casually observe atrocities over dinner.

The other aspect of tailgating on campuses that aren’t Hopkins — the sports — came into play (excuse the pun) in 1869. When spectators for the first intercollegiate game of football sat around and did the things people normally do at tailgates such as “decorating your space by putting up balloons, hanging a flag or using a particularly decorative tent” Wikihow tells me. Thus football and inebriated grilling were forever linked.

Jump forward to today, and you’ll find me carrying on the tradition by awkwardly standing in line, dwarfed by the two large football players having a loud conversation over my head. As I sit on the damp grass and pretend like it isn’t soaking through my pants, all the while making aggressively awkward eye contact with someone about to take a bite out of their hot dog, I think about the long history that tailgating has had, mired in war and alcohol.

I feel almost patriotic sitting there, doing my part to keep such a long standing and so very exclusively American tradition going.