Truer words were never spoken. Hope springs eternal every September… and if the sights and sounds of the Cleveland Municipal Parking Lot and other tailgating locations surrounding Cleveland Browns Stadium after Labor Day don’t get you excited about football season, someone should check you for a pulse.
The 2008 NFL Season kicks off today, with our beloved Browns taking on NFC juggernauts the Dallas Cowboys only moments away. As a Browns fan, I teeter between 10-6 and 9-7 as a personal prediction (those games against Jacksonville and Pittsburgh can cause such waffling). But I get a sense after last year that I’m not the only one feeling this way about our chances. Either way, I get a sense that this year the playoffs are in order… call it living in Believeland.
Like fans in other gridiron strongholds in the Midwest, Clevelanders love tailgating almost as much as the beloved Cleveland Browns they honor with parties every week. Tailgating is more than just a get-together packed with like-minded football enthusiasts, it’s an event—a weekly opportunity for creativity and camaraderie to spring eternal alongside the hopes we all have for the team’s inevitable success.
Tailgating isn’t just big in Cleveland, it is big everywhere… but if you ask other fans across the country who “does it up” the best, Cleveland most certainly qualifies. Some tailgating lives up to the questionable, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” reputation it has earned over the years. And it doesn’t take a newbie bystander long to see that there’s some hardcore revelry and excess going on every Sunday—the kind usually reserved for the likes of college freshmen who are finally free of their parents. But it’s so much more than that.
There’s also a kinder, gentler and largershared experience that borders on collective consciousness… it’s the kind of thing experienced less and less in our country as we continue to become more and more “wired” and technologcally advanced.. Tailgating is one of the few homespun, grassroots “happenings” still unspoiled by corporate America, and it is very much a full-contact sport like football.
Despite its popularity and surging tailgate-related sales reaching $12 billion in 2007, the experience is still largely owned and operated by fans. Which is how it should always be. And no one does tailgating better than football towns like Cleveland.
All of these reasons only begin to scratch the surface on why I chose to write my first book about Cleveland Browns tailating. You’ll find by literary debut (released by Gray and Company, Publishers and titled The Browns Fan’s Tailgating Guide) in bookstores and online in a matter of days. It’s a fun, celebratory read acknowledging the creativity, fun, customs, traditions and memories branching from pre-game tailgating. It’s not scandalous and not a “tell-all” (not supposed to be… “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” remember?).
I’m as excited about the Browns as the next fan and equally excited to have a book celebrating this pastime within a pastime published by the fine folks who have offered you works by everyone from Terry Pluto and Chuck and Michael Heaton to Dick Feagler and Omar Vizquel. It’s a thrill to share a stage with such an esteemed crowd.
I’ll be sharing photos, video and all kinds of other great things for you tailgating Browns fans (and the tailgate-curious) during the season and beyond on this blog. I’d love it if you’d share your gameday experiences, recipes, anecdotes, stories and all things Browns-tailgate-related. I’ll be sharing plenty of exclusive information, interviews and other items here on the blog just for you, C-Town.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a chili dog (dawg?) to finish and a ton of folks to catch up with here in the Muni Lot… look for pictures and a debriefing on the Browns/Cowboys game and pre-game party very soon.
Here we go, Brownies… here we go…
PC
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