The Best Tailgate Activities in Sports

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The college football season is good for two things: causing controversy regarding the rankings, and getting fat and giggly at the tailgate. For this article, we concentrate on the majesty of the tailgate.

Please don’t think this is simply a matter of parking your car in the parking lot and sauntering over to buddies to merely wait for the start of the game, because it’snot.

The tailgate is as much a sport as golf and as much a pastime as baseball. In a sense, it’s right up the alley of the American sports enthusiast.

Don’t go treading into this mass of party goers unaware, because you want to have the best time in the few hours you have before kickoff.

As you will see, a good amount of tailgating involves making yourself feel better.

Here’s how.

Grilling

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File this under the “no duh” pile of things to do at a tailgate. In fact, if you ain’t grillin’, you ain’t chillin’…or tailgatin’ (the former seemed to flow better). 

Charcoal grills work best for this event, but we will take what we can get. As for what to grill, that’s the beauty of an open grill—you can slap pretty much any dead animal on that thing and it will become a halfway decent meal.

A nice brisket or ribs would be dynamite, but the cook gets screwed in the end with having to tend the grill all day. Burgers, dogs and some carne asada taste great off the grill and any dummy can cook them.

Helpful when the cook has to take a second to go tinkle or pound some brews.

Corn Hole

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Hooray for games that involve the bare minimum of brain cells and athletic ability. This is somewhat of a theme at a tailgate.

The key is to look like a champ while also maintaining a red cup in the other hand. Corn hole allows for epic moments of pressure-filled competition without all the work of being an actual athlete.

That’s a win, win.

Toss a Football

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Ah yes, the best way to aggravate others while simultaneously increasing your own self-confidence. Bully.

Every bro around will either bring a football or soccer ball to the tailgate. Both are annoying and take up space, causing you to impede upon the good time of others.

Unless you are the ones playing with it, then it’s all fun, frivolity and woo-hoo.

It’s also the moment you can show off that cannon of yours and remark at how you would have totally made the college team if it hadn’t been for that one coach who ignored you in your prime.

Heartbreaking stuff.

Antagonize

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Let me be clear. There is no need to get aggressive here, because I have seen far too many drunken frat boys became massive jerks with this one.

The key is to make fun of fellow patrons supporting the opposing team. They may be some cute men or women walking by that need some added attention, or some group flinging those damn footballs around. Either way, you have to get your digs in and keep it lighthearted.

Is your opponent a Tech? Talk about their inability to converse and make sexy with other human beings.

Is your opponent a State? Best to keep the trash talk to SAT scores, but use small words.

Social Media

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The best part of tailgating in the 2010s is the inclusion of social media. Is your friend striking out with some lovely ladies? Is your other buddy stumbling around like a fool?

How about that buddy by the grill, is he on fire?

Well, call 911, dummy. The other guys, however, should be the feature of your next great Instagram masterpiece, and send them here, because we all want to see.

Finda a Porta Potty

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All this talk of eating and drinking has me thinking I need to make like a human and relieve myself.

What’s that you say, nobody knows where the Porta-Potties are? Inevitably, there is a discussion on where these damn things are, how far away they are and what kind of line there is to get to the front.

Also inevitably, all the answers to these questions make the trek to the portable bathrooms seem like a jaunt across the Atlantic to find some lost parchment paper buried in the sands of time.

You aren’t Indiana Jones, which brings us to the next best event that happens. 

Holding it.

Get It Together

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Someone has to be the DB, or “designated buzzkill.” Tailgates can be so fun that some halftimes are greeted with the admission that, “we all should have stayed by the grill.”

Well, the game is where it’s at and you simply must show up, no matter how long you have held the Beer Pong table.

That means someone needs to start the massive cleanup and last-minute moments of fun before the clan moves like a sloppy mess into the stadium.