Columns
Once the season is Over
Once the bowl trip is over
it’s time to get things ready for the off-season and ready for next year.
Here are some hints, from experience, that you should consider.
First of all, be sure
everything is clean for storage. I start with my Coleman items like the
Camp Kitchen, Road Trip Grill, Slow Cooker, Coffee Pot and utensils. These
all must be clean for storage. The grill responds well to hot soapy water,
as do most all tailgate items. My Igloo coolers (ice chests) also
are cleaned with warm soapy water. Be sure to leave the coolers with an
air space so that they completely dry out. If you don’t, things will
grow in them in the warmer weather. Look at your chairs too. Often
some friend spills some barbecue sauce on them and this can be cleaned a lot
easier now than next September.
Tents and canopies like mine
from Quick Shade must be checked for any stains or salt or outside elements.
You will find that a good inspection and proper storage will add a lot of life
to these shelters. More holes and damage come from improper storage and
poor handling than from fair wear and tear while tailgating.
Do you have Astroturf or a
similar rug for tailgating on a non-paved surface? If you do that needs to
be cleaned as well. Be sure to beat the material much like the old carpet
cleaning of olden days. Then take your shop-vac to the surface.
Clean out any dirt and clean up stains like the barbecue sauce mentioned above.
Don’t forget your flags.
They need to be cleaned, ironed and stored much like a shirt. If you have
cotton flags take extra care too. They can be washed in cold-cold.
The nylon flags need a little more gentile care.
The good thing about putting
everything in order is that you take inventory while you are cleaning and
storing. Items that need to be replaced can be recognized now rather than
at the first game. Why should you know about these items now? Hello!
It’s just after Christmas. Things are cheap. Take advantage of the
lower prices. Help your local retailer get rid of stock while you stock
up.
Another nice thing about
packing up for the season is that you get your mind focused on making next
season even better. You’ll have time to do your homework and talk with
your tailgating friends. Maybe you should even schedule a little gathering
over drinks and some new recipes.
Here’s what I suggest.
Have an indoor tailgate party. Make a pitcher of Martinis or Bloodies.
Serve some pre-meal snacks like stuffed mushrooms. Then fix your
Johnsonville Brats, or Frank’s Buffalo Wings. Find a recipe on our www.tailgatershandbook.com
site or here at TheTailgater.com
Recipe Archive.
At this social event you could
make plans, decide on how many tickets to buy, also decide how many parking
passes needed for what games. Make plans now that will help you get
ready to make 2008 better.
TV is Killing College Football
10-30-07
By Joe
Drozda
Over
exposure is killing college football. Sure
TV pay out money to air the games, but at the end of the day, there is less
money left in the till at the colleges than before all this hype from ESPN and
the others.
College
football is not pro football. It cannot compete on the game alone, because it
doesn't have the best players. The
pro players do nothing but play football and compete for dollars.
Sure there is the occasional dogfight, but they still rake in millions.
College athletes still must go to classes and compete for grades.
TV however, tries to depict college football just as they do the pros.
They talk about the players, the games and the big plays. They show the big stadiums and replays of the last game and
the last play and everything but what is good about our game. They depict the
fans all as undergraduates with body paint.
They miss the real items that make college football unique.
Now
TV has games scattered out throughout the whole week.
It's really depressing to watch a rain soaked game from VPI at night on a
Thursday. That campus is in the
edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It's
such a beautiful place! What do we
see on TV? No mountains, no campus,
no bands, just replays, shots of people in rain gear, and an event, in spite of
the great contest, that is ruined just for TV and a few pieces if silver.
What
ever happened to the 1PM Saturday game time?
That's the time allowing alumni from all over the state to drive in for
the game and still go home the same day. It
also allows Sunday for full rest and recovery.
Now, however, we get 11AM starts or 8PM games.
All this we endure for money. Worse
than the start times, we now get games played on other days.
Can you imagine a young person in business driving several hours on a
week night to attend a game and then driving home well after midnight so that he
or she can be at work that day? I
can't. The universities and their
presidents are allowing this to happen just for a few extra dollars.
College
football used to make a steady profit for the athletic department enough so much
so that all the sports were funded by it's excess.
Now, with over exposure on TV, colleges have to do more and more to drive
revenue, just to keep up. The sad fact that comes out time and again, the
majority of major college athletic departments are operating in the red or close
to it.
The
pendulum swings both ways. Mark my
word that the time has already come when fewer people watch all these incessant
games on every day and night of the week. The
day will come when TV people will desert us.
Then we'll go back to college football the way it should be, for the
students and alumni.
College Football Saturday vs. Pro Football Sunday
By Joe Drozda
9-25-07
College football Saturday is a wondrous time of socializing with friends,
taking a beautiful drive into the country, and remembering.
Pro football Sundays are made for TV with their endless commercials that
support them. Let's celebrate the
differences.
The trip back to campus averages 77 miles[1].
The drive is most often away from cities to a college town.
It is rivers of vehicles, carrying colorfully attired alumni, flowing
backwards from all over the state converging on that town where they spent those
fun five plus years to get through four years of college.
It's where they met their spouse, learned to sing the fight song and Alma
Matre, posted those messy signs on trees, ate pizza without gaining weight, and
did things that they won't tell their kids about until they are of age.
It's where they shaped their life forever!
The trip downtown to a pro game is the drive back to the city, past the
factories, refineries, and slums, to an expensive building designed to make
money for a few. Its less congenial
fans are angry about the money they spend to support an owner that has held them
for ransom, "If you don't build me a new stadium, I'll move the team".
They are also mad at the players who are overnight millionaires, even though
some can't even speak high school English.
They are mad that these players only live near the city during the
season, and then leave town the rest of the year not paying taxes or helping the
community unless there is a TV camera watching.
College
alumni, by contrast, travel to the same stadium that was there when they went to
school. It's a memory filled, old,
cavernous facility that probably is named in honor for those students that fell
in the "Big War". The university didn't threaten to move if they
didn't get a new stadium. They
celebrated the old one and made necessary improvements.
The players are students that will themselves some day be coming back to
games as alumni.
Pro
football has a few fortunate or corporate fans that probably don't even care
about the score of the game while sitting in skyboxes, sipping champagne, and
looking down at the commoners sitting in the regular seats.
These commoners drink warm beer as they look down at the players that
walk between plays and unsnap their helmets during the endless parade of TV
time-outs. These same players, upon scoring, dance like fools in the end zone.
College
fans wear colorful traditional clothes. They
are "dressed to the nines" in the same cashmere sweaters and
corduroys, year after year. In the
heat of early September they wear those indomitable khakis.
They sip Martinis and Bloodys at their tailgates.
They park next to the same people week after week and develop social ties
that last to the grave.
Pro
fans have to dress in the latest fashion that the media tells them is trendy.
After all, they have to look "in" to the others in the stadium.
Or they may dress like actors in a Mad Max movie and act the same way.
College
fans begin their tailgating with a blue sky filled with those puffy white
clouds, colorful flags snapping in the fall breeze, the sound of bands playing
off in the distance, and the cheerleaders coming through the stadium parking
lots to pump up the spirit. Everyone
seems to be excited about the game and smiling. The cheerleaders are very pretty
and wholesome looking. They wear
sweaters with the college letter on the front.
They look like the children of your neighbors. They never grow old.
The
pro fans park in a downtown garage. Tailgating
is limited and often cluttered with over-eaters and excessive drinkers.
Instead of having a cocktail, people drink beer.
Instead of caviar or breakfast casserole, they have burgers or a whole
pig. The cheerleaders are never
outside at a pro game; probably because they don’t want to get arrested as
streetwalkers. After all, they
specialize in cleavage and suggestive dancing, not wholesomeness.
Getting ready for the season
8-20-07
Your season tickets have arrived, you've made some calls to line up some
social things, you've clipped a few recipes, but have you really started to get
ready for the season? If not,
here's some help from somebody that's been doing it for many years.
Get ready by doing the brainwork and the physical things too.
Start with brainwork.
First of all get everything out and check it. Look at the tickets. Have they changed since last year? Are you in the same parking lot?
Have the parking and tailgating rules changed? Look into all this. You
can usually go on line to check for new tailgating and parking rules.
Check out game times too. With
all the over-coverage on TV, games now range from 11AM starts to 9PM.
Heck, some poor schools are being forced to play games on Thursdays.
Check to see if you need hotel reservations or if there is a convenient relative
or classmate near the game. You
also may want to plan the first game's menu.
Next check your equipment.
Get out your chairs, coolers, tables, tents, grills, boom boxes,
Astroturf, bean bags (corn hole boards), flags and poles.
Put everything up as if you were going to have a tailgate party now.
Do a real dry run. Check the grills and their gas cylinders.
Do they light? Check out your accessories too.
You don't need surprises the day before the game.
Right now there are sales in all the tabloids for tailgate gear.
See what you need to replace and add so that the first game of the season
is a success for tailgating.
Make a wish list.
List things you see that would allow you to be a better tailgater.
When I started years ago, you couldn't buy a flagpole, you had to make
it. You couldn't buy a canopy tent.
We strung tarps between vans. We
used a lot of bungie cords and PVC. Here
are some things to consider:
1.
Camp Kitchen
- a complete foldable kitchen of stainless steel that folds into a suitcase.
Coleman makes the best.
2.
A 10 by 10 canopy
tent in your school color. These
travel in a bag and can unfold and stand on their own four feet.
3.
All terrain cooler
- with huge wheels that won't bog down in a gravel lot on on any tailgate
terrain. Igloo makes them.
4.
Gas grill on wheels -
the best is a Road Trip Grill by Coleman.
5.
Roof rocket -
You'll have to make this yourself. It's
a PVC tube with school colors that hold your flagpoles, Astroturf etc.
You'll need a luggage rack on your vehicle or forget it
Lastly
you must remember food safety.
Plan for it as much as you can. A
study by the Children's Hospital of Boston found that they had a 59% reduction
of food born illness with the use of hand sanitizer that with people that were
reminded to wash their hands. This
could be huge for your tailgaters. Always
remember to keep cold foods cold and hot foods hot. If you are not careful,
little friends like Ecoli and Salmonella can visit.
Especially in the second half of the game when those little friends make
themselves known in an unfriendly way.
Merry Christmas, S....ers Full!
Hot Water on Demand
One of the dreaded events of one of my big outdoor tailgate extravaganzas is when the health department person comes by and requests to see the sanitation procedures. I've always had to tote large insulated containers of hot water to prove that I could wash my hands and the serving utensils.
This season, I won't suffer with dirty hands or dirty dishes at a tailgate because Coleman has done it again with their Hot Water on Demand™ Portable Water (propane) Heater. It delivers hot water anytime, anywhere (outdoors) by just connecting the hose to 5 gallon water container and adjust to desired temperature. In 5 seconds, you have hot water for beverages, washing, cooking, etc. For less than $180.00 you can have food safety and all the hot beverages you can hold.
Packing Up for the Season
The college season is winding down and it's time to think about packing things up for the off-season. Here's an item I think everyone with more than the basic tailgate equipment will need to move that seasonal gear back to the storage shed. It's the Rubbermaid Trail Tracker, and it hooks right on to my lawn mower. I love it because it saves me so much effort. There are no more whole day events of packing. All I do is take about three or four loads, without sweating, and I'm done., The only problem is that my wife has found other uses for it (and me); like finally hauling off all those fall tree trimmings to the burn pile. This spring, I've been informed, we'll be hauling off the sod from edging.
The Trail Tracker very light, but will hold 600 pounds. It won't rust and can be put together, even by me, in an hour or so. To check it out click here now.
Keeping Warm
Here's a great new idea for keeping warm on those cold Saturdays in the fall. It's the Coleman Road Trip™ Fireplace. Click our link for Coleman to find one.
The Road Trip™ Fireplace packs into a convienent carrying case and sets up easily. Be sure to split your firewood and have it in short enough peices for ease of operation. Coleman has some fire starters too. I'd use them to start things off quickly.
The Only Grill You'll Need
Have you ever watched a pilot or sterawdess walk through a busy airport, easily pulling four days worth of wardrobe as they chatted with a coworker? Sure, every college football fan has, but do you wonder how this relates to tailgating? Check this out, I found a grill that you can wheel right out to your car/mini van/suv as easily as an airline pro does their travel case. It's the Coleman® Road Trip™ Grill.
My grill, during the off season or when I'm not using it to cook on my deck, stands neatly in my garage. Then on game day, I wheel it out to the Park Avenue and set it in the trunk. When I get to my space at Memorial Stadium, I set it up in seconds, screw on a small gas canister, and im cooking right away.
Yes, I said cooking on my deck! This grill is good enough to use on the patio too, but tailgaters everywhere love it because it brings the comfort of the large gas grill, easily to the game. Every time I set my grill up, people drop by and marvel at it.
My Road Trip™ Grill can use the large gas tanks or those easy to buy and store, little guys. I've tried the other, so called, tailgate grills, but for your money (the grill and wheeled carrying case are usually well under $200) this is the best bet.
Finally, a tailgate friendly coffeemaker !
For years I have been searching for a coffee maker that would work for tailgating just like the one I use at home. Hooray! Coleman has designed and produced the "perfect" solution. It's the their Camping Coffeemaker, but it should be called the Tailgater's Coffee Maker. No longer do you have to try to percolate coffee with the chance of burning it or under brewing.
Nothing tastes worse than some Irish Coffee with hot water instead of coffee, unless it's coffee, that has all the richness boiled away and now tastes like the pot that sat on the warmer for six hours. For those early games, you know, those breakfast tailgates, you gotta have coffee. After all, a person can only handle so many Bloody Marys!
This coffeemaker has a removable swing-out filter basket, a solid steel base, a very comfortable decanter that's easy to use to pour. It also allows you to sneak a cup while it's brewing because it has one of those "pause-n-serve" things. I use mine on either a two or three burner camp stove. This tailgater friendly coffee maker is sold for around $37.00. Click here to find out more.
Candy as good as Godiva, maybe better!
Every year-or-so, I'll run into someone in a tailgate lot that has a unique idea or product. Last fall, at the Purdue and Minnesota game I met a man (Dennis Mc Intosh) that may just make the best chocolates in America. They taste as good as any I've ever tasted, and I've tasted a lot. (See Purdue )
Dennis and wife Sharon, read from the stacks of letters from school children that have tasted their candy.
Dennis McIntosh, a very successful figure in the cellular telephone business (10th largest in the US) started out selling phones for $300 a week. Eventually he built a company with 200 employees. Smelling deregulation, he sold to the big guys just before the industry changed (in the mid 90's) to allow every one who wanted to, to sell cellular phones. Dennis, enjoyed building the company, but was tired of Houston's big city rat race. He also wanted to do something that he could say was "the best there was". That's where Wolf's Homemade Candies comes in.
During the sale of his cell phone operations, Dennis met a man at SW Bell who grew up near Attica, Indiana. This fellow always raved about "the best candy in the world" and was then actually trying to put together a partnership to purchase the candy company and return to Indiana. When things fell through, Dennis took over and made the purchase. He spent a whole year ('96) working beside Jim Wolf, the former owner, learning how to do things just right.
Wolf's Homemade Candies in Attica, Indiana
There is another reason that Wolf's candy is out of this world. Space shuttle Endeavour Mission Specialist and Indiana native, Dr. David Wolf, always new that his name sake candy (no relation) was as good as it gets. Tired of Russian candy, he took Wolf's Homemade Candies to the MIR space station. Next Wolf's candies were abroad Space Shuttle Discovery for a new delivery to MIR. Everyone, I'm told, thought Wolf's were the best "out of this world candies".
This is the enrober where coating takes place. All chocolates in the finer candy operations are tempered by heating to a melting temperature and then adding more chunks of chocolate to cool the mix to a lower controlled temperature. Tempering makes the final product hard without white lines or streaks. This is the place where the hand formed creams, caramels and cheweys get their chocolate bath. This operation is labor intensive, but makes a much better product.
Since become the "outer space favorite" Wolf's Homemade Candies are shipped, in their space age packaging, everywhere in the universe. If you want to find out more, go to Wolf's Homemade Candy.
The Off Season It's a big wait till September and the start of America's greatest past time, college football. What do you do to get past these months of waiting? Do you prepare for the Spring Game? Do you go to NASCAR, or the Indy? I don't think so!
College football's lure is the excitement of the crowd, your crowd. It's the excitement of your team's game-to-be. It's blue button downs, with khaki pants, Weejun loafers, pretty girls, and it's good friends that reappear every other weekend from all over the country. It's the sound of the band playing the fight song and the singing of the Alma Matre with a backdrop of beautiful fall trees and blue skies. It can not be replaced by a substitute. But, there is something that tailgaters can do, and that's to plan for the kick-off.
Start now by getting out the 2003 schedule and putting all the dates on every calendar that you use. Then sit with your spouse and the calendar to see if you want to invite any non regulars to attend any of the games. Get out your address book and think of someone that would really enjoy a college football day. Call them and make the invitation.
How about tickets. Usually season ticket orders are due by late spring or early summer. Put the deadline on your calendars. If your friends have accepted the invite, be sure to tell them that you are getting tickets for them (so they don't fink out at the last moment). Order your season tickets. If possible (some colleges aren't sold out) order for these friends. If your college sells out on season ticket packages (ala Notre Dame, Nebraska, Tennessee, Ohio State and more) start looking for the spare ducats you'll need through other sources. If you start now, you'll find tickets for any game you want.
Next you can start to plan some tailgate parties. That however will be for the next column. For now, look for bargains on tailgating equipment in the sale tabloids........
Packing for the Off Season
That season ending college football game is a sign that winter is approaching and the need to once again use the garage for the odd purpose of holding a couple of vehicles. My problem is how to get all that stuff clean and neatly stored away and still have room for everything. Knowing that tailgaters tend to have all the gadgets they need, even if they have to make them themselves, my solution is simple, go top the people that make all the regular tailgating stuff and see what they have.
Let's start with Rubbermaid and their ActionPacker line. I like these extremely heavy duty packers because they can be purchased in the size you need to fit in those storage areas and they also protect your tailgate supplies and equipment. A third purpose is that they can be used while tailgating. We use an ActionPacker in our trunk for all our recurring tailgate expendables like napkins, paper towels, plastic utensils and paper plates. We also use it for table cloths, spatulas, ladles, wicker baskets, and more. Then when we're packing for that trip to campus, we just grab the ActionPacker. It's second real use is that it is so sturdy, a person can use it as a bench seat and it can be a good protector against rain.
There are other storage problems that some may have. Does the garage, basement or storage locker have shelves? If not try these other items pictured below. There are links to shelving and also cabinets that you could use. We recommend them.
Going Bowling
It's either time to pack things up for the off season or prepare for one last "Tailgate" at a bowl game. I'm going to tackle the road trip first and its requirement to keep things simple.
The first simple rule is to remember to use tailgating equipment that can serve other purposes. An Igloo Duffel Cool is a soft sided bag that is insulated. It can not only be your cooler, but a soft sided suitcase that fits in the overhead compartment on your flight. Take two of these, one for food and one for drinks.
The second rule is to plan a menu that doesn't require extensive cooking. Unless you plan to buy a throw away grill, why not serve foods from the deli section of a supermarket? You can pick up any hot items on your way to the stadium and pack them in cardboard box or paper bags that will keep the warm for quite a while. If you by chance need to warm something, just wrap it in foil and put it on the engine of your rental car. Just lift the hood and find a warm/hot spot. There used to books available on how to cook a meal while driving, really! So just heat things when you arrive.
Needless to say, rule three is to use disposable paper plates and plastic utensils that can also be purchased at the grocery. Don't make too big a deal of it and enjoy yourself. Use the trunk of your vehicle for seating or serving and try to find other fans to drive in tandem so that you can have more fun and more surfaces to use.
Cold Weather Tailgating
It's raining outside, the furnace has kicked on again and in three or four days you have a tailgate party planned with friends at the stadium. What are you going to do? Can you tailgate this time of year? How cold is too cold?
All these questions race through the minds of all tailgaters (or at least their wives) in the late fall. The real question is what can you do to pull off a great tailgate party again, in spite of the weather. The solutions are simple and require very little money. Just remember that feeling cold is the problem. So follow these simple steps.
1. Block the wind - wind is a cooling agent
2. Stay dry - being wet always makes the feeling of cold become more pronounced.
3. Get sunshine if possible - sunshine always provides warmth and a feeling of well being
4. Have a good heat source - to help the sun heat
To block the wind start by finding the wind direction. Then park so you can use your vehicle as an anchor for your wind break. A wind break can be a tarp or large sheet of heavy plastic. To hold the tarp down you only have to park the car wheels on it. It will remain stationary. Last season for the season ending tailgate, in a driving rain, we used a van and a car and two EZ-UP shelters (some call them tents or canopies) and a large tarp with a half dozen bungie cords for final fasteners. Under the shelter, out of the wind we made sausage and pancakes before the game and afterwards we had Johnsonville Brats. We were probably one of the few groups that really tailgated, but we were dry and well fed.
For your heat source you can count your stove or grill for some heat, but also there are all kinds of heaters by Coleman that will do the job. These butane heaters throw off enough heat to keep a few climbers warm on Mt. Everest so I think they'll work at the parking lot. Also try the Coleman fireplace. This is a woodburner on legs so it wont damage a paved parking lot. If you are on gravel, build a bonfire. Everybody loves a fire. The last time I did this, we were still surrounded three hours after the game with people sitting around the fire. Some guy even drove off to a store and came back with marsh mellows. It was great!
Too Much Exposure
Once again, college football powers are diluting our beloved game for TV money. Last week there were games on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and all day and night Saturday. Our public is becoming saturated with a product which, because of so much exposure, seems less and less exciting. How long will it be before the audience is so small that the networks won't want to cover college games? How long will it be before we have to contract upon ourselves? How long before we have to take down those new sky boxes and live on realistic budgets?
College football, is and has always been the Saturday game. It's the time for trips back to campus. It's fall trees, blue skies, pretty girls, the alma matre, cashmere, weejuns and blue buttondowns. College football is for fans who support the team because they are alumni, friends, and soulmates of the university. Most of these fans go back to campus no matter what the prospects are for the team. They go because it's their team. And those kids on the field are their team. But, left to TV we are compared to Pro Football in sound bites.
Here is what the public sees... Our players aren't as fast and talented as the pros. Our cheerleaders don't look enough like Hooters waitresses, like the pro's do. Our college presidents don't appear as garish as the pro owners do. So we are treated as farm teams of the pros. We can't compete in the terms of TV.
It's time for the NCAA to get a handle on college football programs and place some limits on TV appearances. These should be NO Thursday games. There should be NO 11:00 A.M. starts. There should be no stopping of the rhythm of the game for TV timeouts.
If you have feeling on this subject, lets hear from you this week. We'll develop this story as we go. Click on Talk to us.
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