Big 10 Football Tour

From what we learned during our short stay in Evanston, the Northwestern staff and the fans/alumni are making a huge push to make tailgating prior to Northwestern games a big deal.  From what we saw, they're doing a hell of a job getting it there.   It's clear to us that long after our Big 10 Tour is over, we'll be returning to this very place for many more tailgating functions!

One thing is for sure, if you're not tailgating at Northwestern; you're working out!  We have never seen so many early morning joggers in our life!

Our first stop was in the SPAC Lot, which we arrived in shortly before 7 AM.  We saw a bunch of females heading inside to what appeared to be swim practice & asked them if we were in the right place.  Their response, "Yes, but no one is here at 6:50 in the morning!"  At 7:00 AM, there wasn't a lot of activity.  By 7:05 AM, the place was bumpin!  What we liked most about this lot was that everyone was there to have fun; they weren't just sitting down and enjoying the lake breeze!  Flags were going up, bean bags were flying, and everyone was having a blast!

Shortly thereafter we saw a guy who appeared to be...The Joker?  We wanted to talk to some Northwestern fans, but this guy almost killed Batman in The Dark Knight!   So, we eventually got past the fact that he might have an exploding grill and said hello.  Somehow while hanging with this guy for many hours, we never even got a good photo of him (not nice to stare ya know), but you can see a pic of his outfit in our "Best Fan" section on the Northwestern Main Page.  Anyways, he's "the guy" when it comes to Northwestern tailgating.  Just a few minutes into the tailgate experience, he was introducing us to a popular Northwestern game known as "Caps" where two teams of two people throw beer caps into one another's beer while sitting down.

Two things made this tailgate spot exceptionally impressive to us.  1)  The lot was located right beside Lake Michigan and there was beautiful scenery all around.  2)  It was free!  I think this was the first time all season that we didn't have to pay for parking or find someone with a parking pass!

Business started to pick up and before you knew it, fans were tailgating everywhere.  Then you have the assholes who show up at 9:30 AM and think they should park right in the middle of everything.  So everyone has to drop what they are doing, and move everything because these lazy fans couldn't drag themselves out of bed early like everyone else.

Before we knew it, a stage was constructed and a band started playing.  Holy sh*t, it's Jon Bon Jovi!  Then reality set in; we were at a student parking lot at Northwestern University.  It was Bad Medicine, a Bon Jovi cover band.  Unfortunately, they didn't start too early and we didn't get to the point where we had too many adult beverages and started singing along to "Livin On A Prayer." 

Another illustration of how Northwestern is making a push for some solid gameday traditions.  The photo here shows Sara and Adrienne holding their "cheat sheets."  These small slivers of paper tell the NU fans just what to do/say during gametime.  Heck, they even go so far as to put specific chants for the opposing teams.  For example, Minnesota was in town so they had: "After a defenisve play: (theme to Ghostbusters) Doo...Doo...Doo doo doo...Goph-busters!"  Our personal favorite was that anytime Northwestern player Arby Fields got the ball - "Beef And Chedd-ar!"

Next up came the weekly flip-cup tournament.  This time we had 8 teams of 3 people participating in the double elimination tournament.  We actually saw the whole thing through and in the championship round, it went to the historic Game 7...with both teams having one loss.  Check out the videos below for the thrilling conclusion!

Finally it was time to head to the game.  Rather easily accessible was a free bus ride that could be taken to Ryan Field.  It felt like a 30 second ride, but maybe that's because we had just been drinking for 3 hours and there was a bunch of obnoxious people on the bus?!?!