Game day traditions capture new fans

TUSCALOOSA

Around here, college football Saturdays are more than an excuse to spend a lazy day in front of the TV.

Many have realized that for years. But for others, the University of Alabama’s home opener against Tulane University was an eye-opening event that served as an official conversion from passive spectator to interactive fan.

“This won’t be our last one,” 34-year-old Ryan Boatwright of Denver, Colo. “We’ll be here all season.”

Boatwright and his fiancee, Crystal Davis, 25, are spending a year in Tuscaloosa on a job assignment.

Upon moving in to the Inverness Apartments on Old Greensboro Road, they met diehard ’Bama fans Kin and Alice Cork, two Tuscaloosa natives who have made tailgating on campus a tradition for the past six years.

“It’s a family gathering,” Kin Cork said.

On Saturday, the Corks had Davis and Boatwright, along with about 20 more of their friends and family, encamped just outside the Ferguson Center. The Corks took the newcomers shopping for Crimson Tide gear and, with cocktails in hand, Boatwright and Davis began to take in the festivities of an Alabama game day.

“This is nuts,” Davis said, clearly loving every bit of it. “We tailgate on the back of a tailgate.

“This looks like a downtown festival in Denver.”

From the heart of the Capstone, the only thing visible above the rows and rows of canopy tents were treetops.

But down below, among the trails and pathways of this tent city, crimson and white and houndstooth blended with the aromas wafting from scores of meat-laden grills into the traditional symphony of football fandom.

Greg Morris, an 18-year-old UA freshman from Ponchatoula, La., was taking in his first home game at

Bryant-Denny Stadium as a student.

He and his fellow out-of-state roommate, Matt Mauldin, 18, of Hickory, N.C., were doing their best to absorb the enormity of the Alabama game-day experience.

And they were doing so in fine style.

Under a tent at the confluence of two sidewalks near the steps of the Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library, Morris — in Crimson Tide hat, T-shirt and apron — tended a small but efficient grill as Mauldin and a few of their college friends enjoyed a game of cornhole, similar to horseshoes but played with bean bags tossed through round holes in a wooden plank.

“I’ve never been able to experience all of this before,” Morris said between turns of chicken and bratwurst. “I love it. To me, this is part of it — you can’t just go to the game.”

Mauldin was even more impressed, realizing immediately that the congregation on the Quad was almost as important to the actual playing of the game.

“It’s absolutely amazing,” Mauldin said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this before, and the sheer number of tailgaters willing to spend this much time getting ready for a game.”

Amanda Lewis, a Knoxville, Tenn.-native and UA freshman, was responsible for introducing Mauldin and Morris to cornhole. She’s attended several UA games before this one, but Saturday also marked her first game-day experience as a college student.

Together with fellow UA freshman Amber Eaves, 18, the young women milled about near Morris’ grill with smiles. Looking around, they both said it was refreshing to see so many friendly people gathered in one place and, for the most part, one mind.

“Everybody has a good sense of community,” Lewis said. “It’s just like one big party.”

Reach Jason Morton at jason.morton@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0200.