With the advent of "The Tailgate Guys" and other hands-free tailgating services on The Plains, independent pre-game festivities on campus are quickly becoming passe.
It may be destruction of private property rather than the convenience factor that is causing this Auburn tradition to lose ground.
Courtney Ritterbush, a senior in hotel and restaurant management, learned this lesson the hard way two weeks ago after the Auburn vs. Louisiana Tech game.
Ritterbush lent her friend a tailgating tent, which was set up behind Parker Hall on Friday evening.
"They went through Saturday fine," Ritterbush said. "Sunday I got a phone call at about 10:30 in the morning because they had gone to the site to clean everything up."
Ritterbush said that her friend went on to tell her that he would not be bringing any stuff back but it was no longer there.
"Fifteen or 20 other people were walking around, looking at pieces of tents that had been bulldozed down," Ritterbush said. "It wasn't just tents that were ruined, either. Grills had been ruined. I'm talking about $300 grills. If there's a night game like that, something that starts at 6 or 6:30, they can't expect you to come right afterward and clean up every piece of tailgating equipment. That just doesn't make sense."
Some equipment had been shredded up, while more had simply been thrown in the garbage. Ritterbush and her friends had been under the impression that noon was the cutoff point for taking down tailgate sites.
The official gameday section of the AU Web site contains a wealth of information regarding the 4 p.m. Friday set-up time, acquisition of permits for large tents, roping off of tailgate sites and the disposal of food and charcoal, but nothing about a teardown time for non-RV equipment.
"The only deadline we have for the removal of tailgates is for RVs, which says that they have to be gone by 4 p.m. on Sundays," said Mike Clardy, director of University Communications. "Our tailgating regulations account for tents, but there's no specific time in place. We realize that there are several evening games this year, but I would hope that people would clean up their areas directly after the game."
Landscaping services are responsible for cleaning up after game days, but they do not remove people's personal belongings.
"The only thing that we do is clear up trash like wrappers, cans, that sort of thing," said Renaya Carter, administrative associate for landscape services in the facilities division. "We're not allowed to touch any personal equipment whatsoever. We try to encourage people to clean up after they finish. We have three guys who just go around handing out garbage bags, but nobody touches personal effects."
If the University is not to blame, then was vandalism caused by outside parties?
With authorities directing traffic on roads clogged with out-of-towners for several hours after the game, officers monitoring tailgating sites would have been sparse.
As it got later at night, fewer people would have been in that relatively secluded area, making it easy for someone to trash the remaining items.
The moral of the story is obvious: leave tailgating equipment unattended at your own risk. These students experienced the bad side of tailgating, but a few incidences will not discourage fans from tailgating.
For more gameday policies see the University Web site at www.auburn.edu/communications_marketing/gameday.
Do you like this story? The Plainsman doesn't accept money from tuition or student fees, and we don't charge a subscription fee. But you can donate to support The Plainsman.
