Big Game? Sure, and Big Party

It’s 105 degrees, and the helicopters overhead blow fiery air over the SUVs and folding tables and beach chairs set up in front of the Natural History Museum of L.A. County. Sun umbrellas, pennants and Mylar balloons whip on a breeze that carries the smell and sizzle of burgers. Babies are put to sleep on blankets in the shade of trees, boys toss footballs in high arcs over women setting out platters of deviled eggs, while their husbands confer around kegs of beer, deciding the best way to bypass the foam.

If it weren’t for the cardinal and gold everywhere, this might pass for another Labor Day picnic on the lawns and lots surrounding the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. From bunting to clothing to cupcake frosting, it’s a world painted scarlet and gold.

“They even have their car in SC colors,” says a woman, nodding at a friend’s burgundy Explorer, “with a little cardinal and gold--and of course the USC license plate holder.”

While some football fans are content to plunk a bowl of chips near their elbows and play armchair quarterback, there are those for whom the game is a participatory sport, one that begins hours if not days before kickoff; people for whom heat wave or snowstorm are but factors in packing more or less ice; fans who watch their teams win and lose on television only if it’s run off the car battery.

These are the tailgaters, and they’ve been waiting for this day--the opening game between USC and Auburn--since last season. Many have had the car packed for days, and have been here since sunup for the 5 p.m. kickoff. Granted, the heat and helicopters don’t exactly say “tailgate,” a get-together with more of a wool muffler-mulled cider vibe.

And then there’s the matter of the team. We’re not a city exactly known for cherishing our pro football teams, the Raiders and the Rams having both departed in 1995. We are, however, very much enamored of our college teams. And with the huge and historic football rivalry between USC and UCLA as a subtext, fans swarm the lots and lawns of the Coliseum and Rose Bowl nearly every weekend through the fall (and especially for the game between the two teams, this year at the Rose Bowl, on Nov. 23), in essence defining what qualifies as the L.A. tailgate experience.

Although it would be tidy to classify USC’s fan base as, say, genteel and UCLA’s as gritty, it would not come close to the truth: Both tailgates feature preppy alumni, drunken underclassmen, pep squads, statistics nuts and visiting-team fans looking for the bathrooms. Certainly, one of the hometown veterans will show them, as tailgates are always bighearted, openhanded affairs, with stories of lifelong friendships forged, family-team loyalty, and the time the In-N-Out truck ran out of oil and had to borrow from the fan with the biggest deep-fryer.

“The allure is the social aspect,” says Steve Brown, son of a USC professor and a USC alumnus who’s been tailgating since the mid-’60s. “Some of these people, we only see during the season. Others,” he says, indicating 30 or so friends milling about half a dozen cars, “we go on vacation with. And we keep meeting new people and new fans.”

“We come to every home game and at least two away,” says Sharon Stephens of Pacific Palisades. An Alpha Chi Omega “big sister” to Steve’s wife, Sue, Sharon is futzing with the buffet table, straightening the USC tablecloth, pouring bags of cardinal and gold tortilla chips. “And she even made little USC flags as centerpieces,” Sue Brown says.

More important than the school-spirit paraphernalia is the right parking spot. “The cell phone rang about three times in the car, our friends frantically asking, ‘Where will you be?’ ” says the Browns’ daughter, Kim, who’s snagged a prime spot in the shade on the lawn just north of the Coliseum. How did she get it?

“You have to make a donation to Cardinal & Gold,” says Sue, referring to a group that supports athletic scholarships. “They give you a parking pass.” Is it possible within her family not to like football?

“No, not at all,” she says. “And she’s dating a Notre Dame fan.” She tips her head toward Kim’s boyfriend, who’s nearby pretending he’s invisible. “He sabotaged the brownies,” says Kim, tossing a beer can onto the grass. “He put ‘Notre Dame’ where we had the ‘SC.’ ”

Within a minute, a raggedy guy pushing a grocery cart picks up the can. “One of the nice things is your cans get recycled automatically,” says Steve, as the guy stomps on the can and tosses it in the cart.

While the privileged few secure grass, shade and a personal recycler, most USC tailgaters, who number in the thousands, do not. Being in the middle of the city, a certain coarse urbanity sets both the aesthetic tone and comfort zone of the USC tailgate experience, with loci of fans forming wherever there’s room. Fraternity boys, some shirtless and painted red, sprawl against curbs like spent concertgoers and, whenever cute girls or Auburn supporters pass, raise their beers and shout, “Trojans rock!” Families eat Popeye’s fried chicken at the feet of the headless statues in front of the stadium’s entrance, and RVs line the many treeless concrete parking lots in the vicinity. The most intensely crowded tailgate area, however, is just west of the Coliseum, where several hundred USC and Auburn fans have camped together in a patch of shade the size of a tennis court. The scarlet-and-gold sea is here punctuated by orange; USC and Auburn car blankets overlap; twin girls have their pigtails secured with orange pompoms; the melting icing of a sheet cake once spelled “Go Auburn.” The competitive spirit is gentle: Fight songs are sung in tandem, and tiny football-helmet dispensers of bean dip shared, until an hour before game time, when the tension ratchets up.

“I promise you, Auburn will end up in the top 10 in the country!” a young Auburn supporter who’s flown in from Georgia smugly tells two USC fans wearing cardinal wigs. “USC will not be in the top 25!” Wig-boys’ retort is drowned out by the 100-plus members of the USC marching band, singing, “Beat that tiger!” to the boom of the bass drums and the blare of the tubas.

“War eagle!” shouts an Auburn contingent in response, invoking the second of the team’s mascots. (For naught: USC will go on to beat Auburn, 24-17.) At 4:40 p.m., kids get their faces wiped off, grills and coolers are hustled back to cars, and everyone chugs their beers, which means the lines for the port-o-johns are really long. By 5 p.m. the street is empty, the ground littered with rib bones and empty bottles. Although die-hards will come back afterward to have a few cocktails and relive the game play-by-play, the tailgate is essentially over. Until the next game ...

“UCLA--Fight! Fight! Fight!” chants a group of UCLA students, who circle two young women power-chugging from the fat plastic tubes that emerge from a UCLA megaphone held overhead. How much beer did they just suck down? “Three,” says Melinda Haffey, a blond, cutoffs-wearing UCLA student who high-fives Michelle Escovar.

“So far, we’ve drank three 24-packs, but we got a late start,” says Bryan Lui, who was a cheerleader last year for the Bruins--who open their season on this day at the Rose Bowl against Colorado State--but quit because he missed tailgating too much. “That megaphone,” he says, pointing at the beer bong, “was mine from last year.” It’s 4 p.m., and Liu and his buddies have been here since noon for the 7 p.m. kickoff. While there are a few potato chip bags strewn about, and black smoke puffs from beneath the dome of a rickety-looking grill, food does not appear to be an essential ingredient to the success of this tailgating party.

“It’s not important as the alcohol,” says Dan Bartelson, as a friend gets his hair spray-painted Bruin blue and gold. “Whip up some margaritas, Dan,” commands Liu.

Bartelson sets a wood box with a hole in the top at his feet. “I made this after I saw a Jimmy Buffett concert; it’s perfect for tailgating,” he says, and yanks the starter cord to the 35cc weed-whacker motor fitted inside the box; the hole on top whirs to life. Dan screws on a blender, pours in some tequila, some limeade. “UCLA--Fight! Fight! Fight!” chant the students, as Bartelson sloshes the drinks into waiting plastic cups.

“Welcome to the Blue Side!” shouts Liu.

Although the students may well be revisited by their libations later in the day, at least they’ll be on an absorbent surface: There’s nothing but grass to tailgate on at the Rose Bowl, with RVs and cars parked on pastoral fields as far as the eye can see. “Be True to Your School” blares from the speakers mounted high above the Rose Bowl, and onto the honey-wagons lined up around the stadium’s east side, vendors selling burgers and lemonade, barbecue and ice cream. None of the fare draws as many hungry stares as what’s being cooked up at Darrell Newsome’s tailgate. “Ain’t nobody do it like the Bruins do,” says Newsome, watching as his buddy Shawn Clark plunges chicken parts into a stovepipe fryer. “We met at 5 this morning, and we were here by 10. My little brother is the running back for UCLA; his name is Manuel White Jr. We try to have a tailgate to the fullest because we got so many family members out here. We have about 40 now, later it will be up to about 75.”

“I’m also marinating some hot links and ribs,” says Clark, holding up a plastic bag full of sauced meats. “Next week, I’ll deep-fry a turkey.” Another friend, Ken Fields, mans the grill. “We got lemon chicken, we got catfish nuggets, we got Cordon Bleu sandwiches--ham, grilled chicken breast and Swiss cheese on a Kaiser roll.”

“Don’t forget about the grilled onions, bell peppers and so on,” Newsome says. “We got everything, we put the thing on it!” sings Fields, telling everyone who passes by that they are welcome to eat. Many take up his offer, spending a few minutes beneath the canopied tent where a TV is tuned to a pregame show.

“We been out here the last three years doing this. The majority of us have season passes,” Newsome says. “Everywhere the team travels, we go too. We support them to the fullest. And you’re welcome to eat anything we got. Join in.” This spirit of generosity is endemic to the tailgate; one cannot walk three feet without being offered a bottle of water, a glass of wine, a place to sit. People do not appear to do this to top one another, but like a football team, to see how they can improve on last season.

“We used to do just a blanket and beach chairs and sandwiches,” says Jeff Hecox, who graduated from UCLA in 1989. “Luckily, I found a friend who wanted to set the bar a little bit higher.” Hecox and Rob Crawford’s structure is a large square tent, its outer walls wrapped in thick paper emblazoned with photos of UCLA teams and tickets and great moments. “I had the memorabilia but he did all the printing,” Hecox says.

The photos are beautiful and evocative: a Deco ticket from 1934, streams-of-color, Supergraphic-inspired poster from the ‘70s, Coach Bob Toledo celebrating a victory by leaping six inches into the air (“The highest he’s ever jumped,” Hecox says). People cannot help but stop and spend a few minutes poring over the images. “For any UCLA fan, this just stirs the emotions and memories,” Hecox adds.

“Jeff is a hero among UCLA fans,” says Derek Timm. “Everyone comes by his setup, they stop, they stare, they love what he’s done, and they take pride in having a fan in the class of ’89 like this.” Hecox laughs and gives Timm a bear hug, revealing that the back of his shirt reads, “There’s Absolutely Nothing Like Bruins Football.”

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Nancy Rommelmann is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.