ANGELS IN THE BRONDFIELD:Tailgates Could Boost Crimson Community

Last weekend I made a trip that I had been putting off for months. My good friend at UMass Amherst often encourages me to escape the Cambridge bubble and journey across the state to spend a weekend at his frat, but I just as often decline, terrified that a few days away from Harvard spells a death sentence for schoolwork. This time, though, I was out of excuses.

“Just come up on Saturday,” he said. “We’re having a tailgate before our football game and you can head right back. Maybe you can even write a story about it.”

Yeah right. How could I possibly swing a Harvard sports column about my trip to UMass? But I figured it could be fun. I had always wanted to see how a classic frat on a huge campus approached the hallowed tradition of tailgating.

Pulling into the stadium parking lot I was prepared for chaos—a sloppy pregame ritual that would live up to the school’s billing as “ZooMass.”

Instead, I found tailgating at its finest. It is illegal to have kegs outdoors in the city of Amherst and, while my friend’s fraternity had loaded an SUV to capacity with 30-racks, the event presented little more than the essentials—a group of friends grilling burgers, listening to music, and swapping weekend stories.

No one was really talking football, since, just like at Harvard, nobody goes to the games.

“The games aren’t that fun, because our team sucks,” one tailgater succinctly explained.

But we don’t have that excuse. Despite a tough loss to Holy Cross in Worcester last weekend, the Crimson is primed for another strong football season.

And while not everyone is destined to become a Harvard football fan, a pregame ritual done right could offer something to all members of the community, avid supporter and casual observer alike.

The longer I spent with the UMass tailgaters, the more I became convinced that Harvard could replicate this phenomenon.

Perhaps it was the haze of grill smoke or the buzz of recently ingested burger grease, but I was inspired with the possibility of groups dotting the Soldier Field parking lot before games.

Of course, we have attempted our own tailgates. The H-Club dutifully sponsored a giant event before the home opener against Holy Cross under the lights last year, but the result was far from ideal.

Entirely overwhelmed and understaffed, the Crimson Crazies never had a chance to accommodate the pregame crowd, and the thought of shoving aside a dozen other people to earn a shot at a burger somehow dulled the luster.

Although H-Club clearly worked frantically, it could not deliver what a tailgate should be.

Tailgating engenders two fundamental tenets of the American football-watching tradition—laziness and gluttony in the face of athletes who are exhausting themselves to within the last inch of their physical ability.

So in order for such an event to be successful, it must provide a relaxed atmosphere and abundant food for each person, and neither can be accomplished in a mammoth, school-sponsored setting. Indeed, if we’ve learned one key element of pregame gatherings, it’s that they thrive on intimacy.

The question, then, is how to instill the art of the tailgate within our community.

Unlike UMass, most of our students don’t have cars, and as much as I may profess my love and commitment to the tailgate, the chances of me lugging a full-size grill and mountains of food across the river on Saturday morning are zero (see fundamental tenet #1: laziness).

The solution, though, is simple—our Houses are ideal venues for pregame gatherings.

The house system already provides us with more intimate groupings of students and the relaxed environment of a courtyard barbeque evokes tailgate perfection.

I would even encourage HoCo’s to move a stein club or two to Saturday morning (or the Friday opener), as the essences of the two events largely overlap.

While we are beholden to the same city ordinance that prevents Amherst residents from bringing kegs to tailgates, no rule would prevent the houses from indulging those over 21 in a few pregame beers.

Of course, only the river houses are close enough to the stadium to encourage actual game attendance, but we can welcome quad folk with open arms.

These events wouldn’t need to be exclusive to a house as long as enough of them played host to alleviate pressure on any one dining hall staff or house committee.

In addition, sponsoring such events would not prove to be a significant burden, as there are only about two weekends a season during which the weather makes an outdoor tailgate palatable.

There you have my plea. Support from the Houses could go a long way in promoting more engagement between the student body and our strong athletics.

I know it would be much easier to entice me to a tailgate (and eventually to a game) if I could find this rich Saturday tradition after a two-minute walk, rather than a two-hour drive.

Not everyone needs to become a Crimson Crazy, but we can all appreciate the good food and good community inherent in a well-executed tailgate. HoCo and house masters, this is your chance to call the play.—Staff writer Max N. Brondfield can be reached at mbrondf@fas.harvard.edu.