Week 2: Fun on the Farm
If Walt Disney had decided to go into the world of college athletics rather than that whole amusement park thing, I can't imagine his creations would be all that different from what a Saturday of Stanford football is like right now. Simply drive through the palm-lined campus streets to your choice of redwood covered grove, where you'll be met by your friends with a nice, buttery chardonnay, spread of artisanal meats and cheeses, chivari chairs, and an HD feed of the early games on a perfectly positioned flatscreen. After finishing a 2008 bourdeaux from your tailgate host's vineyard, you make the short walk into the charming stadium with excellent sight lines from every seat, watch your beloved Cardinal methodically and efficiently dominate the team with supposedly better athletes, and listen to a final rendition of "All Right Now" by the incomparable Stanford band before heading off into yet another perfectly temperate Silicon Valley night.
Before you get all high and mighty and claim that this isn't "real" tailgating, let me at least caution you not to mistake this sophistication with a lack of passion, enthusiasm, or fandom. These Stanford fans care; and should you have any doubt, just wait until a critical third down when the 50,000 seat stadium gets surprisingly loud and the Stanford D more than likely shuts the door yet again. Nor should you confuse this sophistication with a lack of fun, these tailgates are incredibly fun, delicious, and entertaining. And no, not all tailgates will have chivari chairs and market lights, but whether it is the aforementioned 2008 bourdeaux or a bag of the local liquor store's finest Franzia, there will be wine, oh yes, there will be wine.
Wine-ing and winning. That's what Stanford does in 2016.
Palo Alto, CA - Pac-12 Kickoff
What Chicago is to the Big Ten and Atlanta to the SEC, San Francisco is to the Pac-12. Each of these cities attracts the greatest number of grads from their respective conferences, and makes for a fall full of casual exchanges of "Go Blue!," "Roll Tide!" and "Fight On" while passing by similarly-dressed neighbors running their Saturday morning errands.
On certain Saturdays here in San Francisco, specific colors seem to increase exponentially depending on who is in town to play the Bears or the Cardinal, and as much as I hate to admit it, the colors that seem to show up in greater number than any others are the ketchup red and mustard yellow of Southern Cal. As I began this gameday in the most San Francisco of ways - waiting outside an Apple store to upgrade to the new iPhone - I was yet again reminded of that great USC tradition of attempting to ensure the entwined 'SC emblem is emblazoned on every single piece of clothing and accessory one carries with them on gameday. While waiting in line, I spot 'SC emblazoned sneakers, sunglasses, hairties, shoe laces, belts, and a fanny pack. Finally, just as I feel the hairs on the back of my neck begin to relax, I'm passed by two dogs in matching USC cheerleader outfits. Yes, dogs in cheerleader outfits - must be time for the Pac-12 opener.
Say what you will about 'SC fans, but they are devout and travel well. Despite, the Crimson Tide steamrolling the Trojans went through to open the season two weeks ago, it's clear from the moment we arrive in Palo Alto, that there will be plenty of cardinal and gold to complement the cardinal and white that fills Stanford Stadium. However, despite SC's history as the Pac-12 bellcow, there appears to be a lot of Cardinal faithful that wouldn't want to be playing anyone else to open the season. The visit from the Pac-12's only other private institution means that Stanford fans will have the opportunity to wear their favorite t-shirt and remind the Trojans of a special Saturday past.
While you may think Stanford fans would be anxious to remind the Trojan visitors of the approximately 9 million all-purpose yards Christian McCaffery ran off as the Cardinal obliterated the Trojans in last year's Pac-12 championship game, there is another 'SC game which holds much more significance for Stanford fans. The Biggest Upset Ever. The 2007 Stanford-USC matchup, which saw the Jim Harbaugh-led Cardinal go down to the Coliseum as 41-point underdogs, only to then upset the top-ranked Trojans and end USC's incredible 35-game home winning streak.
Remarkably, for only $19.99, you can own this friendly reminder to Trojan fans of the moment when the Stanford game went from meaning playing time for the practice squad to a matchup with Rose Bowl regulars.
While it may seem ridiculous to highlight a game from a decade ago from a season where your team ended up with a losing record, to Stanford fans that game means as much about the present as it does about the past. Most Stanford fans will point to that game as THE turning point for Stanford football. The season before the upset, the Cardinal went 1-11. Since the Biggest Upset Ever, Stanford has gone to five BCS/NY6 bowls, and finished the season ranked in the AP Top 10 four times.
Included in that historic run has been relative dominance over USC. Starting with that fateful game, Stanford has gone 8-3 against the Trojans including Stanford's dominating win in last season's conference championship.
Even given the watershed moment that game was, it's still pretty astounding that 9 years later, nine out of every 10 tailgates we pass has at least one person wearing this shirt memorializing a win from a 4-8 season.
The Groves
Tailgating at Stanford is best described as delightful. The stadium sits on the corner of campus and is surrounded by tree covered groves on pretty much all sides. As you walk between the groves, you'll recognize some slight change in the drink and fare, as well as a change in overall rowdiness, ranging from Nantucket cocktail party to the parents' table at a kid's birthday party. As we walk from one grove to another, I text my wife letting her know I finally figured out when we can use all the fancy glasses and wine decanters we received as wedding presents - the next time we tailgate at Stanford.
Betwixt all the RVs and Teslas neatly parked beneath the trees, are dozens and dozens of tables covered with nearly identical red and white plaid tablecloths, a shockingly large amount of which have a centerpiece of one form or another, and nearly all of which have a bottle of wine, a platter of fruit, or a cheeseplate, if not all 3 next to one another.
While the volume level may be down an octave, that's not to say there isn't serious tailgating going on in these groves. There are tailgaters that have been driving their RVs into the same spots for half a century and they have stories and battlescars to prove it. Throughout the course of the day, I'm recanted with tales of the great games that have been witnessed on the Farm, from visitors like O.J. running wild to the adored QB masterpieces by Plunkett, Elway, and Luck.
Much more importantly, I learn the stories behind how the tailgates came to be. One gentleman shows me a scar on his arm and informs me that it is a reminder of the time he climbed atop his trailer in an attempt to position the TV antenna in the correct place to receive the ABC broadcast of the early Pac-12 game. While the tailgaters could watch the defensive "masterpiece" of an SEC matchup on the CBS signal that was coming through nice and clear, the Pac-12 game on the ABC signal could only be viewed when the antenna was held high above the trailer. In attempting to find the right position for this antenna, a misstep led to a crashing fall and a lasting scar, and once again, everyone was reminded, don't mess with the SEC.
The Walk
Nearly every Stanford fan I talked to in the week leading up to this game informed me that I needed to check out "The Walk." To which I replied, "You are aware that every school does the Walk, right?" However, since these were Stanford people and I assumed they had solid comparative reasoning skills, I trusted when they told me that the Walk was part of what made Stanford gameday unique that they were indeed pointing out a Stanford tradition I should so indulge. And I am glad to report that these Cardinal fans were indeed correct in their assessment of the Walk, it is pretty damn cool. However, it has nothing to do with the team.
And frankly, does that surprise anyone. Stanford football is boring. It's their whole M.O. They methodically beat you down punch-by-punch, 3-yard gain by 3-yard gain, slowing you down, and wearing you out, and then at some point you look up at the clock and realize you're running out of time, so you try to be aggressive, only to realize you forgot to cover Christian McCaffrey and now he's giggling into the end zone. More on that in Stanford: Part Two.
However, luckily, the Stanford band is the yin to Stanford football's yang. While the team beats you down with their trademark "Intellectual Brutality," the Stanford band enlightens you with their intellectual hilarity. Earlier in the day, several Stanford alums were telling me about the Stanford band's "Breakfast of Champions" - doughnuts and beer. However, after overhearing this conversation, a father of a recent alum butted in and clarified, "That used to be the tradition, but not anymore... Now they just drink beer. No doughnuts."
The Walk occurs on a gorgeous stretch of campus leading to the stadium. The team walks through as you'd expect: organized, orderly, no smiles. David Shaw's team is locked in as they head into battle with some t-shirts about mental discipline. The team is then followed by Stanford's cheerleaders, before finally the sweet notes of the band break through as the Stanford tree arrives out in front, accompanied by Stanford's famous dollies.
The band is rocking their classic Cardinal vests and wacky headgear and are led by a drumline, including some guy with a big drum that reads "THE SACK OF TROY WAS AN INSIDE JOB," while I'm simultaneously not sure whether this a joke that goes above my public school head or a simple poke of fun at the Trojans, I begin to wonder what this guy will come up with the next time Utah comes to town, as a Ute is undoubtedly more difficult to make fun of than a Trojan, Duck, or Sun Devil. As the band passes, I can't help but get a waft of the scent my frat house used to have on mornings after we played a game called Edward 40-hands. I'm glad to see this "Breakfast of Champions" thing is not a tradition that will go quietly into the night.
On this day, the Stanford band is followed by the Trojan marching band who may sound much louder and are certainly more organized, but appear to be simultaneously melting into the Palo Alto sidewalk as they make their way towards the stadium dressed in full uniform attire on this sunny, Bay Area day. The Trojan band does not bring wafts of Steel Reserve into the air as they pass by. I consider this the first sign of many that the Trojans may be in for a long day.
Gate 13
We work our way from the Walk to the area where we are told students and recent alumni often tailgate outside Gate 13, which on this day appears to be flooded with quite the presence of USC undergrads commingling with the Cardinal kids, sharing swigs of Fireball and planting the seeds for the ideas that will be Silicon Valley's next great start-up.
Now, Stanford University has quite a bit going for it and certainly shouldn't have much trouble pitching any 17-year old recruit on why they'd be wise to take their talents to Palo Alto. You have a beautiful campus, incredible weather, top notch facilities; oh, and the fact that it's like the top academic school in the country AND has D1 athletics. But for all Stanford's perks, there has long been the competitive recruiting tactic in the Pac-12 of spreading the line that "9 out of 10 girls in California are beautiful... and the 10th goes to Stanford." After this gameday, I'm not sure how effective that line is anymore.
As one of my friends noted upon our arrival to Gate 13, "Either smart girls have gotten hotter or hot girls have gotten smarter. A lot has changed in the 8 years since we graduated." Regardless, this is a tremendous accomplishment over the last 8 years (thanks Obama).
After about 5 minutes by Gate 13, we begin to feel like creepy old dudes and continue on, but before leaving we take in one last gasp of all that Gate 13 has to offer. Gate 13 has DJs spinning tunes, impromptu dance parties, and drinking games of all sorts. However, even here, at the most sophomoric of Stanford stadium tailgating spots, there is wine. Wine in red solo cups, wine in boxes, and wine in bags, but wine nonetheless.
The Stadium
From 1935 to 2005, Stanford played in the old Stanford stadium. A 90,000 seat bowl that was filled up as often as a screening of Straight Outta Compton at a retirement home. Considering the relatively small size of the school and lack of significant football success through most of the 80s and 90s, this isn't particularly surprising. Every single person I talk to about this, raves about how much better the Stanford football experience has gotten in the new stadium. Considering that after shrinking the stadium's capacity in half, Stanford was still only filling up about 2/3 of the seats until this most recent run of success, the noise in that original Stanford stadium must have been deafening. Deafening as in you couldn't hear any of the noise from the stands by the time it made its way to the field.
The "new" stadium is awesome. As far as I'm aware there is no rule against enjoying elite college football in comfort and Stanford Stadium is about as comfortable as they come. The stadium is fully enclosed by two vertical levels that provide great sight lines and make for an intimate, but intense atmosphere.
However, throughout the day, tailgaters amuse us with their stories from the old stadium; in part, for entertainment purposes, but also as a badge of honor indicating their survival of the ups and mostly downs those years of Stanford football brought. Among those dedicated fans were a couple of Stanford doctors, one of which just so happens to teach a course on epidemiology at that other school across the Bay. He shared with us how after a day of family fun at the old Stanford Stadium, his children would come home with splinters from crawling around on the Redwood benches, and his wife who was home resting after shifts as an ER doctor would have to remove the kids' splinters. All these years later, their children remain devoted Stanford fans. I asked if they thought it was possible that maybe a piece of those splinters was left behind and soaked some Cardinal pride into their children's veins and that is why they remain devoted to this day. The epidemiology professor informed me that this was not physiologically possible (and also that this was a cheap metaphor). No one ever said that Stanford people aren't smart.
