Show Us Your Life – Tailgates and Favorite Teams

WARNING – THIS IS A VERY LONG BLOG POST!!!

One of the blogs I follow (Kelly’s Korner) has a regular “Show us your life” blog carnival, where she invites her readers to, well, show our life. Kelly is from the south and is a big Arkansas fan and it’s been fun to read how they do tailgating and football, etc, so when she had this theme, I just had to do a post about how “we” do it up here at Michigan! Plus, I don’t have my pre-baby life displayed on this blog anywhere, you know the stuff from when I used to be fun, so I thought this would be a fabulous opportunity to document seasons and stories gone by.

There are a bunch of traditions that the band does (including our “Let’s Go Blue! cheer) and the student section have (the wave, the slow wave, the fast wave, the reverse wave, and the double wave) – I can’t even write about all of them. And I hope that I won’t need this blog to be the only memory of football days – because I hope my kids get to live it themselves and make their own fun memories!

This weekend is an away game for Michigan, and as Mallory was getting dressed in her standard Friday cheerleading outfit, she asked if we were going to tailgate tomorrow…how sad to tell your two-year old that there is no tailgating :-(

Our stadium seats over 107,000 people and is losing it’s reputation as being a really quiet stadium!

The band is probably my favorite part about the Michigan games. And it’s a tradition for the team to run out under the M Club Supports You banner while the band plays the Victors. All the players and coaches (and equipment managers) jump to touch the banner as they run under it.

Here are Rick and his buddies touching said banner.

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I can still remember this day (barely). It was the 2002 M-Wisconsin game. It was freezing and snowy and we drank A.LOT. at the tailgate. And then we snuck rum into the stadium in plastic flasks, and made ourselves some captains and coke pepsi in the bathroom before heading to our seats.

Well, because it was so cold, as soon as my tush hit my seat, my huge cup of captain and pepsi fell out of my hands and hit the seat in front of me and ended up spilling all over the back of a guy a couple rows in front of us. THANK GOODNESS it was so cold and he had a huge coat on – he didn’t even know he’d been showered with booze. But you could SOOOOO smell it. So as I sat there trying to decide my next move, my friend Suzanne ordered me to clean off the guy’s coat, so I pulled a used kleenex out of my pocket and leaned forward to try to dry his coat off, and in the process my {empty} plastic flask fell out of my pocket onto the ground.

The best part is that we someone landed a pass for the regents room up in the pressbox so the four drunk girls got into the pressbox (while my non-drunk uncle was turned away from using another regents pass because his name wasn’t on the actual pass…)

After the game, I went to dinner with my family (where my aunt & uncle met Rick for the first time) and then we went to the UM hockey game, and then I had to go watch Rick play hockey at like 11p, and then we all went to TGI Friday’s after his game. I had just heard from one of Rick’s friend’s girlfriends that Rick’s ex-girlfriend used to be lame and never wanted to go to the bar after Rick’s games, etc so I felt so obligated to power through the whole game & the bar after, when all I wanted to do was go home and sleep!

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This picture from 2003 totally makes me miss Molson Beer’s “Twin Label Technology”! The back of this bottle says “I’m cooler than almost everybody here”.

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Back in the olden days we would have like hundreds of jello shots. We LOVED the jello shots (this is from 2004).

Also from 2004 – me with some Hens*

My dad cooking the traditional OSU game turkey in 2005. The Ohio State game is our biggest game of the year and our hugest rival. We have won more games in the rivalry but they have had our number the past bunch of years, which sucks.

One of only two tailgate pictures from when I was pregnant with Mallory (September 2006).

Celebrating a big win over Notre Dame (another big rival) in South Bend in 2006. Being pregnant, I enjoyed a post-game water…

And then Mallory came and has been a fabulous tailgater and football fan! (fall 2007)

Mallory & her dad after a game in 2007

At Michigan State in 2007 (also a big rival).
They beat us in 2008 & 2009 – the first time since the 60’s that they beat us two years in a row…argh.

After the big Capital One Bowl game win on January 1, 2008!
Mallory didn’t go to that game, she stayed with Rick’s step-mom at the hotel.

And here is 2008 – my how the pictures have changed from jello shots and beers at the tailgates with my girlfriends to now snuggles with my babies…

And so as to not repeat recent pictures, here are my 2009 blog posts about tailgating!

*The Hens were born when I showed up at a party (invited by one of Rick’s friends) and all of Rick’s friends wanted to know who the chick (me) was and they all started “pecking”. In their defense, it was after a football game, I’d been tailgating and drinking and to Fraser’s so I’m sure I didn’t make the best first impression… However the funniest part is that at my wedding shower, everyone had to say how they knew me, and Sue K said “my husband plays hockey with Rick, and I’m one of the Hens, and we weren’t sure we liked Sam…” Then my cousin asked me after “Do they like you now??” LOL!!!