Behind the Scenes: Weekend Tailgates

Football season has arrived again! Which means, lots of food, friends, and fun! I have enjoyed being able to attend so many different kinds of tailgates throughout the years. In Kansas, we take this stuff very seriously and are always prepared on what/where I will be attending a football game and what/where we will be enjoying all the festivities before and after. Here in Louisiana it has been a little different.
For ULM, our second game was our opening home game. I was so excited as I prepared for this weekend to come, and then realized, I have a bunch of friends who are coaches, which means, recruiting season. I talked with the few who would be available and decided we would just wing it. I then realized, I do not really know where I am supposed to tailgate. Here at ULM, our tailgating area is called "The Grove", which is actually very cool, if you are a booster and have a spot already lined up. The open area is for ULM students, and as much as I wish I could still hang with them, I am too old, know very few, and probably wouldn't last long. After we walked around looking for someone, anyone, we knew, we failed and it was time to head into the game.

Weekend two was upon us and it was an away game. I decided that I would have people over and have the game set up on the TV. I cooked a little, mainly cheese dip and chips, grilled some burgers and enjoyed a "low key" day of hanging out and watching tv.

Weekend three was finally here and I was pumped. I was heading to Waco, TX to watch ULM play Baylor. As this weekend approached, we were making sure everything was in check and went to check on hotel rooms. Well apparently it was Baylor's Parents weekend and anyroom we could find was $160+. Um, no thank you. So again, plans changed and it was a football "tailgate" at home. This time though, I wasnt messing around. We had quite the crew, over 20 lbs of meat grilled, including ribs, boudin, sausage, lil smokies, and hamburger cheese dip. We had mulitple yard games and lots of fun. Unfortunatly, not many games turned out the way we had hoped, and some were very difficult to watch :(. But all in all, I finally got the "tailgate" that I had been waiting for all season.