SUjagTILLiDIE
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The assault on tailgating
You can take my ticket, but you can't take away my tailgate!
By Rick Reilly
ESPN The Magazine
Archive
Scott Boehm/Getty Images
Outside Soldier Field in Chicago, Bears fans are being forced out of the parking lot after kickoff.This column appears in the Nov. 2 issue of ESPN The Magazine.
Of all the gates -- Watergate, Monicagate, Spygate -- there is only one gate this country can be proud of: the tailgate.
A parking-lot spiral, a cheese brat whispering sweet nitrates and a decent ticket in your pocket. Buddy, that's more American than deficits. So why is America trying to kill tailgating?
Look around: Outside Soldier Field -- home of the Chicago Bears -- fans are getting kicked out of the parking lot once the game starts. Heresy! A lot of Bears fans can't afford tickets ($245 for a nosebleed), but they love pulling into the south lot (for which they pay $46), opening up the camper van, putting one satellite dish on the tailgate and one on the roof and living and dying for their Bears. Tailgaiting is a tradition that's been in place for 90 years, and now it's forbidden? Why don't they just clean our Weber grills with the American flag!
In Arizona, the Cardinals did the same thing. And this coming off a Super Bowl year! These are Cards fans who stuck with a toothless team through a barren 21-year wasteland until it finally made the Super Bowl last season. Now they're getting the bum's rush? Blasphemy! And the Cards have banned postgame tailgating, too. So waiting in lawn chairs by your car with your friends while the traffic clears is now forbidden. Get in line and waste gas like everybody else!
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=reilly_rick&id=4577871&sportCat=nfl
You can take my ticket, but you can't take away my tailgate!
By Rick Reilly
ESPN The Magazine
Archive
Scott Boehm/Getty Images
Outside Soldier Field in Chicago, Bears fans are being forced out of the parking lot after kickoff.This column appears in the Nov. 2 issue of ESPN The Magazine.
Of all the gates -- Watergate, Monicagate, Spygate -- there is only one gate this country can be proud of: the tailgate.
A parking-lot spiral, a cheese brat whispering sweet nitrates and a decent ticket in your pocket. Buddy, that's more American than deficits. So why is America trying to kill tailgating?
Look around: Outside Soldier Field -- home of the Chicago Bears -- fans are getting kicked out of the parking lot once the game starts. Heresy! A lot of Bears fans can't afford tickets ($245 for a nosebleed), but they love pulling into the south lot (for which they pay $46), opening up the camper van, putting one satellite dish on the tailgate and one on the roof and living and dying for their Bears. Tailgaiting is a tradition that's been in place for 90 years, and now it's forbidden? Why don't they just clean our Weber grills with the American flag!
In Arizona, the Cardinals did the same thing. And this coming off a Super Bowl year! These are Cards fans who stuck with a toothless team through a barren 21-year wasteland until it finally made the Super Bowl last season. Now they're getting the bum's rush? Blasphemy! And the Cards have banned postgame tailgating, too. So waiting in lawn chairs by your car with your friends while the traffic clears is now forbidden. Get in line and waste gas like everybody else!
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=reilly_rick&id=4577871&sportCat=nfl