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By
Todd
Heustess The
Texas-Oklahoma rivalry has always held a special fascination
for me because the circumstances surrounding it are so
unique. I loved the idea of a stadium divided in half and
tailgating at the Texas State Fair. On Oct. 7, I was lucky
enough to be able to attend the Red River Rivalry (that’s
the official name as “Shootout” is apparently not PC enough)
in Dallas and I brought my good friend Kirk Campbell, a
sports fan not terribly interested in college football,
along for the ride.
My contact for this trip was
Mark, a longtime Texas fan who lives in Austin. Mark had
read my story on tailgating in Austin from last year and was
interested in introducing me to his group of friends who go
to all the Longhorn games. Mark and his group of eight
friends have season tickets to UT home games, always go to
the Texas-OU game in Dallas, and plan one road-trip a year
to a UT away game. Mark has gone to every Texas home game
since 1980.
Mark was my ticket connection
too, getting two coveted tickets on the UT side for the
game. We met up Friday night along at the Crossroads, the
strip of gay bars on Oak Lawn Ave, the official gay
neighborhood in Dallas. What surprised me was that all the
bars had signs up welcoming OU and Texas fans and in fact I
saw a number of red and burnt orange clad fans walking along
the street. It didn’t quite qualify as a “street party” but
it was refreshing to me to see gay bars not only acknowledge
a sporting event but market to gay sports fans as well. I’ve
seen this in Chicago during the Big Ten basketball
tournament, but that’s the only other occasion I can
remember seeing gay bars collectively include a sports event
in their promotional efforts.
The Texas-OU game started at
2:30 so tailgating began in earnest with very Bloody Mary’s
at Kurt’s house in Dallas. Kurt and his partner Randy live
in Dallas and are UT grads. The rest of the group was up
from Austin and after the Mary’s were drained, we made our
way to the State Fairgrounds where the Cotton Bowl is
located. My friend Kirk, a southern California native, was
fascinated by all the people cooking out by their cars and
RVs. I reminded Kirk that there are RVs at both USC and UCLA
games and he agreed but added that at the SC games the RVs
come with their own electric fences and bodyguards. I
noticed more coolers on wheels than I ever can remember
seeing. What’s interesting about the pregame tailgate scene
at the Texas-OU game is that while some of the crowd
tailgate in groups around their cars and RVs, the real
tailgate scene is happening inside the State Fair.
The Cotton Bowl is inside the
State Fairgrounds. Your ticket to the game is your ticket to
the State Fair. Pregame tailgating for the Texas-OU game is
really walking around and enjoying the rides, fried foods
and beer at the Texas State Fair. Thousands of red-clad
Oklahoma fans mingled with their burnt orange UT
counterparts while eating fried Coke (Coke batter that’s
fried and dipped in syrup), fried Snickers bars and corny
dogs (they call them corny dogs in Texas instead of corn
dogs). I know that Texas-OU is a huge rivalry that almost
always has national title implications so I expected more
animosity between the fans and was surprised that everyone
seemed to get along so well. I think the setting had a lot
to do with it because State Fairs are inherently happy
places with all the rides, games, shows and food keeping
people occupied. Don’t get me wrong, the fans definitely
don’t like each other but it never felt overly aggressive or
mean spirited to me.
The Cotton Bowl itself is a
lot like the Orange Bowl in Miami: Old, dumpy and charming.
There are few amenities in the ancient stadium, the seats
are small and cramped and fans at both schools love it
anyway. There has been talk of moving the game to the new
Cowboy’s stadium in Irving, but fans of both teams that I
talked to were 100% against that, saying it would ruin
what’s so unique and fun about the game.
The Cotton Bowl may be old
and dilapidated but its location inside the State
Fairgrounds is what gets everyone excited about going to the
Red River Rivalry. My curiosity about the game has always
been the 50/50 split of fans inside the Cotton Bowl. I
always wondered what it would look and feel like to be in a
stadium that is divided equally between the fans. Each
school has approximately 36,000 fans at the game with the
dividing line being the 50-yard line seats in the center
sections of both sides of the stadium. It is a clear
division too between the red and burnt orange-clad fans with
the noise factor only coming into play when play moves
towards one of the end zones. Needless to say the Texas side
of the field was a lot noisier and festive as Texas pulled
away in the fourth quarter for a 28-10 win.
After the game, Kirk and I
started talking to a group dressed in typical Texas style:
The guy in tight jeans, white button down shirt and cowboy
hat and the girls in skirts and cowboy boots. It turns out
that they were from Oklahoma and that two of the girls,
Jenny and Kate, were “undercover” lesbians. I asked them
what brought them to the game and that if they enjoyed
sports. They dramatically turned up their noses and said
that they were not sports fans but since they live in Dallas
they “ALWAYS!” go to the Texas-OU games because of the “hot
chicks, big beers, and even bigger boobs.”
Both Jenna and Kate were OU
grads and said that they went to the pre- and postgame
tailgate parties for Sooner games but rarely went to the
games themselves. They said OU games in Norman were “serious
parties” and they love tailgating and that the Texas-OU
weekend in Dallas was bigger than New Year’s as far as they
were concerned. I asked them why they were still “undercover
lesbians” after moving from Norman to Dallas and they said
that they were out in Dallas but didn’t want anyone back
home to see the article. When I told them that most of the
readers would be gay men and women who like sports, they
said “what the hell!” and agreed to let me use their photos.
Their friend Stacy was not
gay and looked younger and in fact she was a senior at UT.
She was toting a little painted cooler on wheels, something
I had seen a lot of the day before at the hotel and in all
the tailgate areas outside the Fairgrounds. I asked Stacy
what was the deal with all the painted coolers. She said
that all the fraternities at UT had a tradition on OU
weekend that the guys buy and fill up the rolling coolers
and the girls paint them. That certainly explained the
loading areas under the many buses with college students
packed not with suitcases and luggage but literally hundreds
of painted rolling coolers.
Kirk thought this was just
“way over the top” which meant that he loved it. I asked
Kirk what he thought about his first college football game
outside of California and he said that he had no idea that
tailgating was such a big deal and that he now understood
why even non-football fans like going to college football
games. He said the pre and post game experience at the
Texas-OU game was like a giant cocktail party with beer and
that the constant socializing was very appealing to an
outsider like him and that in fact the fans from both
schools were so nice and friendly that he never felt like an
outsider. He said he’s ready to go to Eugene, Ore., and
quack like crazy.
Related:
--Tailgating
at the University of Arizona
--Tailgating
at Ohio State
--Outsports
tailgate tour set for 2006
Oct. 16, 2006 |
