When one hears the word “tailgate,” he or she might think of a specific setting or specific food, but looking around Knoxville proves the word “tailgate” can be pretty flexible, coming in all shapes and sizes.

There’s no place like away
While tailgate inevitably evokes memories of Neyland Stadium to Vols fans, for the Big Orange Tailgate Tour, it means hitting the road, heading to rival SEC schools’ enemy territory and setting up a tent or hitting the dance club.
The tour started in 2002 with the first tailgate happening in Nashville, Tenn., at LP Field (at the time called Adelphia Coliseum), the home of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans.
While that initial tour had five stops on it, the tour has since scaled back to two regular season stops for the 2009 season, due to budget concerns, said Susie Orr, director of donor benefits and alumni programs. The University of Florida was the first stop, and the University of Mississippi will be the next on Nov. 14. The tour will also hit the road if the Vols make the SEC Championship or a bowl game.
The tour offers traditional tailgate food, with barbeque, hamburgers or hot dogs as potential entrees and side dishes like baked beans and potato salad, Orr said.
The tour also receives Moon Pies shipped from the bakery in Chattanooga, Tenn., she said.
The tour features live DJs, trivia games, a “Rocky Top” singoff and linedancing. The UT pep band and cheerleaders often visit, as have some famous faces in the past like UT basketball coaches Pat Summitt and Bruce Pearl.
The trip to Ole Miss costs $18 for adults and $8 for children (ages three to 12).
Over 800 attended the UCLA tailgate in 2008, while about 900 went to Columbia, S.C., to tailgate before the Vols battled the South Carolina Gamecocks that year, she said.

Family tradition in G-10
In comparison to the numbers of the tour, an intimate crowd of about 50 might seem tame to some, but to Caitlin Woodson, junior in nursing, the group makes a raucous day of UT football even more memorable.
She has tailgated with her stepdad Bob Thornton, mother Donna Thornton and the rest of the family for at least seven years, she said, with the whole clan meeting at the G-10 parking garage five hours early to get a parking space.
So what’s so special about G-10? To Woodson and company, the garage’s proximity to Neyland Stadium is ideal.
“The atmosphere on gameday is so great, and that’s where we want to be, just right in the middle of everything,” she said.
The spread at the Woodson tailgate spotlights traditional tailgate accoutrements, but school spirit also shines through.
“We normally have something orange: an orange cookie or a UT cake or something like that,” she said.
To Woodson, tailgating is an essential part of the gameday experience.
“It’s not gameday unless you’re tailgating,” she said. “It’s just the entire atmosphere. It’s so exciting. Whether we win or lose, everyone tailgating is so happy to be there. It’s like this sea of orange.”

Football time in Dandridge, Tenn.
Perkins Restaurant in Dandridge, Tenn., is about a 30-minute drive away from that G-10 parking garage where the Woodson family eat together on Saturdays. Yet the restaurant is tailgating in preparation of the game as well.
For Perkins Restaurant, gameday means $9.99 ribeye steak dinners, which Brittany Hackney, the restaurant’s night shift manager, calls a deal.
“It’s only $10,” she said. “We look at other places. They sell the same ounce steak for $25, $30, so it’s a little better deal.”
The steaks stand out because of the home cooking, Hackney said.
“It (The steak) comes from Perkins, and we season it, and we marinate it here,” she said.
Perkins started the tailgates to complement the recently finished patio. Already this season, Hackney said the patio has had 150 people on it, while the 220-person-capacity restaurant has been full.
The restaurant promotes the new patio as a place to grill out, where a family can enjoy the meal before the game.

‘Become part of the Vol Navy’
In its advertisement for the upcoming Saturday tailgate before the UT vs. Ohio game, Volunteer Princess, a yacht cruise service, beckons readers to “become part of the Vol Navy.”
Beverly LeMasurier, one of the owners of the family business, says the service gives fans a different perspective of the usual gameday surroundings.
“It’s one thing to see the Vol Navy from the road and another thing to actually drive through it,” she said.
The service rents out to a plethora of private events such as birthday parties, weddings and corporate gatherings, but if it’s not already chartered out, it’s open to the public for a unique tailgate experience.
For early games, the servings can feature a dinner cruise afterward with a three-course meal. An example: bacon-wrapped chicken breast with mashed potatoes, vegetable, rolls, salad and dessert, she said.
Late games have more traditional fare; once Buddy’s BBQ provided the food. Other items can include miniature sandwiches, fresh fruit, veggies and dip, cheese, meatballs, wings or eggrolls, she said.
The business does about 10 to 15 public events per month, with Margarita Mondays, Taco Tuesdays and Sunday brunches also in the mix.

The police outnumbered, with other priorities
In a Sept. 22 Daily Beacon letter to the editor titled “UT officials lack consistency when enforcing alcohol policies,” Jerry Bieniek, graduate student in aerospace engineering, remembered his experience tailgating at the UCLA game.
He said a UCLA party at Humanities Plaza went unencumbered with a keg and wine, while another party in Fiji Island experienced UTPD personnel pouring out alcohol. He questioned whether UT truly was a dry campus on gameday.
“My problem is, why aren’t visiting fans held to the same rules of conduct as UT fans (specifically students),” Bieniek said in an e-mail correspondence. “At least the students getting in trouble were on the edge of campus, away from most traffic.”
UTPD Capt. Keith Lambert said the problem stems not just from the police being outnumbered by the sheer amount of people at a UT gameday but also because of what police place at the top of their priority list.
“We have a number of officers that come into work events like football, and our priority has always been public safety,” Lambert said. “And that means we focus on crowd control and vehicle control, so generally we don’t have the resources to go around and address somebody that has an open container of beer or something like that.”
As a result, a lot of the calls UTPD addresses regarding drinking on campus or drinking underage stem from the people being disruptive to others.
Specifically, the university gets over 100,000 coming to a football game, with only 200 officers coming in to man the event, he said.
“It’s pretty easy math to figure out,” Lambert said. “You don’t have the resources to be able to start addressing any kind of issue that has to do with somebody having an open container of alcohol or something.”
While Lambert reiterated that no alcoholic beverages are allowed on campus, he said the biggest emphasis on gameday for police relates to proximity to the stadium.
“So the closer you get to the stadium, the tighter things become,” he said.