Tailgating is synonymous with beer and food, and the American tradition takes on a whole new cultural significance in the Deep South. The University of Mississipi, affectionately known as Ole Miss, celebrates game day with a larger-than-life tailgate that left me exasperated and utterly enthralled.
The tailgate begins the night before a game, when hundreds of tents fill a park in the middle of campus called The Grove.
Fraternities, sororities, towns from across the South, and student groups stake out their claim as early as possible to gain prime real estate among the dozens of spaces, neatly organized in careful streets and alleys throughout the park.
In the morning, the space floods with life, and by the afternoon, the park is teeming with students, locals, and alumni. My visit homecoming weekend was, as everyone constantly reminded me, unfortunately empty, as it was “cold” (about 20 degrees C), and Ole Miss was playing a non-rival school from halfway across the country.
Nonetheless, I had never seen so many people gathered on university grounds in my life—mass crowds worked their way between tents, mingling with people from all across the South.
Oddly enough, with the mass amounts of alcohol and public drinking, everyone maintained the oh-so-cordial Southern demeanour, and it wasn’t the total mess I was expecting and secretly praying for.
Heaps of tipsy college students roamed about between children playing tag and parents dutifully watching other college games on flatscreen TVs they had set up in their tents. I didn’t see any vomit, any ambulances, and the police seemed relaxed and generally amicable. Mid-afternoon drinkfest it was, but without the late-evening drinkfest issues.
I was slightly taken aback, however, by the food offerings at most tents. There were no grillmasters or open fire, which makes quite a bit of sense considering that there was straw covering the ground and large, mature oak trees above, making the park a natural firetrap.
As a result, everything seemed to have been cooked off-site and brought into the tents. This meant baked goods tended to rule over barbecue, and snacks over massive meals.
Everything else, however, remained distinctly Southern and downright American. Most attendees were dressed much better than I was—men in khakis and dress shirts, women in dresses. Their tents matched the style, with some hanging chandeliers, which I was assured was a distinctly Ole Miss thing to do.
In all, it’s how I imagine tailgating would be done if it were to be as classy as possible, almost purposefully elevating itself above the brash, overweight, and loud tailgater stereotype.
The food may not be hot-off-the-grill, the beer may be largely the American watery lager sort, but they both take back seat to the experience of it all.
Normally, festivals need to rely on unique, top-tier food or plentiful and unique beer to entice people to stick around, but Ole Miss tailgating fills the university with the experience alone. I can promise, too, that there’s no experience quite like it.
