======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ==== ======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ====
Mmmm. Can you smell it? Training camp is just around the corner and football season is a mere month and a half away. Hopefully you’ve started budgeting for road trips, a young alumni season ticket package, and a fresh gameday polo. You’ll be soaking up the autumn sun, reliving your glory days in the hopes of finally getting into a decent bowl game. You’re going to see a lot of your old friends. Your buddies, your pals, your amigos. You were in the trenches with them for four years, every Saturday. Now, you’re proud alums and everyone falls into seven convenient categories.
The Guy Who Finally Got His Shit Together
You once saw him fly into a massive bar fight feet first and dislocate some poor kid’s jaw over a jäger bomb dispute. He somehow graduated (or did he?) in five years after a herpes scare, multiple drunk and disorderly arrests, and a DUI. He disappeared for a year after college and suddenly reappeared in everyone’s newsfeed 30 pounds lighter with a smoking hot girlfriend. No one knows how he pulled it off. He doesn’t drink anymore either. Well, he at least has it under control now. You’ll offer him a swig from the bottle of Jack you’ve been toting since 9 A.M., but he’ll courteously respond with “None for me, thanks.” What the hell happened to this guy? Good for him, I guess.
The Guy Who Never Got His Shit Together
You once saw him fly into a massive bar fight feet first and dislocate some poor kid’s jaw over a jäger bomb dispute…last week. He’s a perpetual man child. He’s an angry drunk and wishes he were still in college. He hates his job, hates his girlfriend, hates his car. He just hates everything and decides to take it out on this week’s tailgate. He’s fun enough for an hour or two, but as kickoff nears he turns into a blacked-out hurricane. He’ll likely destroy someone’s cooler, tip over a grill, and hurl insults at children wearing rival colors. Someone will have to physically remove him from the tailgate and find a couch where he can sleep it off. Spoiler alert: he shows up at the bar after the game and starts fighting people.
The Credit Card Millionaire
The worst. He was a try-hard in college. He’s a try-hard now. He’s not even cracking $35k a year and he’s decked out from head-to-toe in a gameday PFG, Hudson Clifton stranglers, a pair of Luccheses, and a TAG Heuer watch. What his attire doesn’t say is “I’m two months late on rent and am currently sporting $10,000 in credit card debt at age 24.” He’ll brag about his sweet sales job, in which he has accumulated roughly five grand in commission in six months and is likely on the verge of being fired. He’ll refuse to pour his own drink and keep asking around for a skybox hookup, failing to realize there isn’t a single person over 30 at this tailgate.
The Girl You Used To Hook Up With
And she looks gooooooood, too. Isn’t that always the case? You hooked up regularly during your sophomore year and then it just ended, as these things tend to do. She’ll stroll up on your tailgate out of nowhere and stop the show. She does it on purpose. She wants to hear the compliments. She’s a regular hard body now. That sundress she’s wearing is torture. Pure torture. She knows exactly what she’s doing. Just toying with you. Shit ain’t right.
The Glory Days Guy
This guy takes the term “never graduate” a little too literally. When he’s not bitching about the current state of his fraternity, he’s telling lame stories about the one time he broke into the rec center after hours. Not quite on the degenerate level of The Guy Who Never Got His Shit Together, this guy is just beaten down by the corporate grind. For seven home games a year, he’s free. His favorite day of the year is when his season ticket package arrives in the mail.
The “Fire Everyone” Guy
He’s never satisfied. Ever. So, your team went 8-4 after returning just seven starters on both sides of the ball and started a sophomore quarterback? Doesn’t matter. This guy hates your head coach. Who cares if he’s the winningest coach in school history? He’s got a 5-4 all-time record against your school’s biggest rival. He’s been to three conference championship games? Don’t care. He lost ’em all by an average score of two points. He gets credit for wanting the best for his alma mater. He does donate $100 a year to the scholarship fund, so he’s entitled to his opinion.
The Booster
You want to talk football? This is the guy you go to. He’s rich AF. He’s a BSD (Big Swingin’ Dick) at your alma mater and a tailgate extraordinaire. An invite to his tailgate is like getting an invite to dine at Versailles by Louis XIV himself. He’s got enough pull on campus to get the coach fired (or so he says) and his annual contributions to the university are well into the six figures. He will not show up to your tailgate because he takes Wednesday through Monday off during football season to spend time at his condo in your college town. The spread at his tailgate will blow you away. Top shelf liquor, a massive beer trough, steak, burgers, steakburgers, all sorts of fancy sausage, boudin, so much meat. And the sides. Oh my god, THE SIDES. Pan baked mac & cheese, crab cakes (crab cakes are a side, fuck you), bacon-wrapped everything, potatos au gratin, some sort of greasy, cheese-based miracle concoction. There’s food here you’ve never even heard of. God bless this man.
Respond
Brian McGannon
What do I love? I love happy hour, a good golf tan, and getting moderately drunk during dinner.
@BrianMcGannon
@brianmcgannon
brianmcgannon
If Dick Perry is still alive I want some Dick’s Picks stat.
It’s in the works, once we locate him. All we know is that he’s alive and somewhere in Canada.
You listen here, McGannon, I want Dick Perry back. Make it happen. What do we even pay you people for?
Better than somewhere in Mexico.
Pretty much every person you’re around at a UGA game is the “Fire Everybody” guy. If it’s not Richt, it’s definitely Bobo. It’s quite pathetic.
When you go to the boosters tailgate, how drunk are you allowed to get?
What if said booster is the CEO?
They won’t let you leave sober in the name of being gracious hosts. So just drink up, but make it your first stop so you aren’t a total mess around them.
I’ve realized since my alma mater has become increasingly worse since graduating that the alumni base is tending to lean toward number 2 considerably
Luccheses are total douche rocket try-hard boots, nailed it.