Tailgaters enjoy the show—on and off the field

A little before 10 a.m. on Saturday, just as the Crimson football team sat down for a final motivational speech and the University of Pennsylvania band tuned up, Darlene Sadoski unfolded a card table from her trunk and unpacked her picnic basket.

In her regular spot behind Harvard Stadium, she set the table complete with crimson tablecloth, yellow flowers and candelabra. She assembled bowls of tortilla chips, shrimp cocktail, salami, York Peppermint Patties and Cheese-Nips.

Darlene has tailgated with her husband Don since 1964. A “Harvard 1968” banner hangs on the car marking the year Don graduated.

Two and a half hours before kick-off, it’s just Darlene, Don and Don’s parents. But before the day is done, they expect 40 friends and relatives to stop by from as far away as Maine and Iowa.

“We’ve got it down to a system,” Darlene says as she opens a box of Triscuits.

To drink, there’s a bottle of Ernst and Julio Gallo merlot and a thermos of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. Don’s mother has brought a Tupperware container of her usual toffee-and-chocolate cookies—the same ones that she says once won her the title of “most valuable player” at an especially uneventful Harvard football game.

For almost a decade now, the Sadoskis have held their tailgates with the Giardi family, whose son, Michael R. Giardi ’94, was the Crimson’s star quarterback in the early nineties. Now Michael does color commentary for 830 AM radio along with Don and Darlene’s son Steve Sadoski ’95, who keeps stats.

They join a host of faithful alumni and their families whose tailgates support Harvard at every home game. Today’s game between the Crimson and the University of Pennsylvania matches two undefeated teams for the Ivy title, and alums have turned out in full force. Men wear crimson ties and vests, and women are wrapped in crimson scarves; some display vintage “Harvard Fight Fiercely” buttons from the fifties. They’ve come for the football game, but even more, they’ve come for the party in the parking lot.

The Sadoski and Giardi families have continued tailgating although they no longer have a direct connection to the football team.

“We particularly enjoy college sports,” Darlene says. “It’s still an innocent game.”

“There’s a special feeling among the Ivy players,” adds Don, who played for the Crimson as an undergraduate.

Soon friends start arriving. When Michael’s aunt pulls up, she brings enough platters to fill three card tables.

Diana Giardi Orlando got up at 5 a.m. to cook all this food. Today’s spread is larger than usual because it’s the last home game and she is expecting more visitors, although she’s used to turning out full force for the home tailgates.

The menu stays largely the same: chicken cutlet, chicken nuggets, buffalo wings, sausage and peppers, meatballs, pepperoni bread, ravioli, shrimp casserole, and “chicken parm,” and cake for desert.

“I used to do chicken divine, with cream of mushroom soup,” she explains. “But it’s a lot of calories so we stopped making it.”

“I keep saying this will be my last year,” she says.

“You’ve been saying that for years,” Darlene responds.

Later, Michael and Steve arrive and share their pre-game analysis before heading up to report for 830 AM radio in the pressbox.

“I don’t know what tailgates are like in the Big 10, but this is one of the better tailgates around,” Michael says.

When it’s in full swing, two dozen people hover around the tables, eating from red plates with red utensils and cleaning up with football-print napkins.

By 12:15, with kickoff just 15 minutes away, the group scrambles to pack up the platters and lock them away in the trunk. They’ll be back after the game and plan to stay until dark.

After The Game

In the game, Harvard came back from a 14-0 deficit to win 28-21. Students charged the field, joining the players in raucous celebrations.

After the team left the stadium, kids tossed footballs with their parents down on the field and gulls swooped to pick up French fries and popcorn in the stands. Out in the Harvard parking lots, celebrations got underway almost immediately.

One truck with a Harvard banner blared fight songs off a Harvard Glee Club record from the 1950s.

Robert T. Shaunessy ’59 was the captain of Crimson football his senior year. His wife Elaine asks him to turn down the volume so people can talk, but Bob isn’t paying attention. He has been playing this record for more than four decades.

“I used to play this before the game to get excited,” he says, leaning over the steering wheel to crank up the stereo.

President Lawrence H. Summers dropped by the cheerleaders’ tailgate, where the squad feasted on an eight-foot sub and cookies. His 11-year-old daughters had seen them on the field and wanted autographs. Summers reciprocated and took photos with some of the cheerleaders.

Nearby, Steven Ranere ’69, who played on the last team to enter the Harvard-Yale game undefeated in 1968, served his own homemade wine and sausages. He assumed his party would go until the stadium gates closed at 8 p.m.

Across the street in the parking lot of Harvard’s business school, the atmosphere at the University of Pennsylvania tailgates was more somber. But even hours after the game, some faithful remained beside their grills, eating leftovers and second-guessing the game.

Family and friends of a Penn player hand out Irish coffees at Kevin Walsh’s tailgate.

Kevin is practically a professional tailgater; he graduated from messy charcoal grills years ago, for example, and now brings a propane tank to power his grills and his handwarmer. He has no connection to Pennsylvania, but he came to support his buddy’s nephew, Rob Milanese, a senior who plays wide receiver for Pennsylvania.

He tailgates all the time at New York Giants and Yankees games and boasts about his “eat ’em then beat ’em” theory; at most of his tailgates, he serves food inspired by the day’s opponent, buffalo burgers for the Bills, cheese steaks when the Giants take on Philadephia.

The trouble today for Pennsylvania was that no one wanted baked beans in Beantown, so they ate hamburgers and chicken instead.

“Since we couldn’t eat ’em, we couldn’t beat ’em,” he says.

Rob, one of Penn’s key wide receivers, leans slumped against a car, talking with his grandparents, who postponed their trip to Florida for a week so they could come to the game today.

“I think it’s great,” Rob says of his followers at the tailgate. “It’s good to see people support [the team], especially after a big loss when they’re cheering me up.”

As it gets darker, the parking lot empties fast. Soon Rob’s grandparents will head to a hotel before their morning flight to Florida. Rob will go to stay with a friend in Boston. And Kevin will pack up his three-person fold-up couch, put the trash in his trunk and pull his truck out of the lot until the next tailgate.

—Staff writer Andrew S. Holbrook can be reached at holbr@fas.harvard.edu.