A history of one of college football's rich traditions: tailgating | Loran Smith

If you distinguish tailgating from picnicking, which accompanied football in the horse and buggy era, then you likely assume that tailgating officially began with the coming of the pickup truck. It makes sense that folding down the tailgate and spreading out food and drink brought about the term tailgating.

In 1921, the Graham Brothers started selling 1.5-ton trucks through Dodge dealers, the forerunners of the everyday pickup. Ford Motor Company came out with its modified rear body for its popular Model T in 1925. Soon after that, station wagons with rear tailgates began to make their way into the marketplace. Then there was always the boot of the car to accommodate picnicking and outdoor excursions.

Trying to determine the origin of tailgating is like trying to identify the first coach to run the spread formation (the spread is not a latent system when you consider that in the early 1950s Southern Methodist coach Dutch Meyer wrote a book about the spread… no telling where he got the idea). There's nothing new under the sun you know. Once the forward pass became standard, the spreading of the offense to flummox the defense became commonplace in football. While coaches were innovating to gain advantage on the field, fans began making the picnic basket the centerpiece of pregame festivities.

The advent of the pickup truck and the tradition of dinner on the grounds along with the popularity of college football, no doubt, coincided at about the same time. The college game had taken root prior to the “roaring twenties,” and would continue to grow and expand into what we have today: grills and cookers in place with tailgaters doing their thing in an all-day exercise to get everyone in the mood for the big game, accompanied by assorted snacks, chips and dip, libations galore and, of course, a wide screen TV to keep everybody informed about what is taking place around the country. Fall Saturdays have become a happening. Tailgating today has energized momentum — it has become a colossus with no backsliding insight.

Before the pickup truck, there were other indications of pregame hoopla that might cause a historian to take a different stance. If you search the Internet, there is one notion that tailgating dates to the Battle of Bull Run in 1861 when Union civilians brought picnic baskets and shouted, “Go Big Blue.” That observation is duly noted by the American Tailgaters Association. That, to most, however, would be a big stretch, not so much that people gathered to watch death and destruction, but orchestrating in concert with the action, with a modern-day football yell — I am not a believer.

It has been written that the first tailgating scene came about in 1869 when Rutgers and Princeton played that very first game of football. Rutgers fans wore scarlet colors to separate them from other fans, and that sausages were grilled at “the tail end of the horse.” Rutgers gets credit for starting football. Tailgating? No horse’s rear end could influence the tradition.

If you are not ready to accept the pickup-truck theory (something could be said about the invention of chuck wagon by a former Texas Ranger, Charles Goodnight, in 1866, confirming that, for work and play, food has been portable for a long, long time), then you have to say that tailgating could have originated when Eve offered the apple to Adam. We can't go back any further than that.

The Green Bay Packers take credit for coining the phrase “tailgating” during the team's first year of competition in 1919. According to the Internet, “fans backed their pickup trucks around the field, folded down the tailgates for seating. Naturally food and beverages were brought along.” Only one issue with that notion. If the pickup truck wasn't put into serious production until the mid-1920s, where did the Packer fans find those pickup trucks?

With the passing of time, the pickup truck would give way to the hatchback and more recently, the SUV. Across America today, you find SUVs accompanied by wide-screen televisions and spacious tents — with a generator for power. Under the tents are food spreads that would make any sophisticated chef envious and the finest wines to make the pregame social as memorable as the game itself.

You're likely to get a lot of debate about the history of tailgating, where it originated and how it was established. In my own case, I've concluded that with the University of Georgia, my alma mater, the first game in 1893 was also the first tailgate party. Georgia defeated Mercer University 50-0, but a player on the team told longtime Georgia historian John Stegeman that the scorer was wrong, noting that the scorekeeper missed two touchdowns when he went across the street to buy some booze.

What we do know about tailgating is that it has become almost as important as the games themselves. It has gone high tech. You may see someone during the long day, before night kickoff, preparing chateaubriand for guests. Some of the most impressive cooking devices can be found at tailgate parties on today's college campuses. The menus are as varied and inviting as in an upscale restaurant in big cities, although most tailgating menus are often dictated by local tastes: Maine lobster at Boston College; brisket seared by mesquite wood at Texas A&M; shucked oysters at an Auburn game; ferried upstate by a Mobile alumnus; stromboli at Ohio State; parmesan crisp potatoes at Idaho State; a Sonoran hot dog at Arizona; anything Mexican, beef or chili at Texas; bratwurst and cheese curds at Wisconsin; fried chicken at Notre Dame; boiled crawfish at LSU; and, as you might expect, Rocky Mountain oysters out West.

in the Southeast, you find a lot of beer and barbecue, boiled peanuts and corn on the cob. There's beer, wine, and spirits unlimited. With some tailgaters. you have the same “call brand” options you have with the bartender at The Ritz. In the old days, according to the old timers, moonshine was a staple of tailgating gatherings.

Tailgating tastes from the basic to the elite can be found at college football games every fall. There are pimento cheese sandwiches, fried chicken, hot dogs, burgers, and deviled eggs. Food that can be brought to the campus for the day, without spoiling, has historically been a criterion for tailgaters, but that is not a big concern any more since generators allow for refrigeration and power for the most sophisticated of grills.

One thing has become standard. Tailgating and technology have made it possible that college football fans can enjoy the tailgating experience without tickets to the game. All you have to do is park your SUV, sedan or van — pickups remain in style — and hook up your flat screen TV. You can enjoy food and drink right up to kickoff, and then take in the game via one of the plethora of networks that cover college football on Saturday.

“Ole Miss,” says Archie Manning, Hall of Fame quarterback for the Rebels, “has a stadium that seats only 62,000 but over 100,000 show up at The Grove to tailgate."

Ohio State estimates that 120,000 to 130,000 show up to tailgate, with 104,829 moving into the stadium for the game — meaning there are about 20,000 to 30,000 without tickets but come to campus for tailgating.

“During the game,” says Richard Mormon of the Ohio State police staff, “you can ride through the RV lots and find countless fans watching the game on wide screen TVs. You know they're in the group of fans without tickets but, nonetheless, came to tailgate.

At Alabama, where Bryant-Denny stadium seats 101,821 it has been estimated that 135,000 to 140,000 show up each home game to tailgate. “We have no way of knowing accurately,” says former Tide Athletic Director Bill Battle, “but we know that thousands of our fans come to tailgate with no ticket access to the game.”

At Michigan, which has long had the biggest college football stadium in the country, there are 109,901 seats. While there is no official estimate regarding how many fans tailgate at The Big House, the “guess” from athletic officials is “that it is in the thousands.”

We hear that there is a hint of college football losing fans, especially with students sometimes taking a day off, depending on the strength of the schedule, but you wouldn't be able to tell it by visiting most college campuses in the fall.

The spectacle of college football and its rich traditions have been in place for over a century. We all know how important the performance of the band has been and continues to be. Mascots are beloved and adored. Beautiful coeds with the school logo painted on their cheeks catch the eye of all cameras. A stroll through the campus remembering your first day at school, your first football game and the place where you met your spouse will bring passionate flashbacks to your conscience forever.

Homecoming was once the biggest Saturday on campus in the fall. It still has its place, but the escalating interest in college football has made every Saturday a homecoming in recent years.

Let's not forget the bands that thrill us pregame and at halftime, and, of course, the cheerleaders. Every school likes to showcase its cheerleaders, which brings front and center a priceless story by the late Erskine Russell, a funny and charming raconteur. The head coach of the Georgia Southern Eagles, Erk said the origin of the cheerleading began with Lady Godiva who, as history tells it, rode nude down the streets of Coventry, England, in the 13th century to protest taxation on the poor. Erk said he researched her famous ride and discovered that historians failed to note that she rode side-saddle.

“The folks on the side of the street she faced as she rode by,” Erk said with a grin, “began to yell, ‘hooray for our side.’”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: A history of college football tailgating | Loran Smith