So, we lost on Saturday.
There. It’s said. Now we can all look past that and remember that that was one heck of a game to watch, and we played it well. (I don’t even like football, and I can tell that!) And we can remember that there was a whole bunch more to Saturday than the game—like the entire morning and afternoon, for example.
And speaking of Saturday afternoon, who checked out the Rising Tide Tailgate I mentioned?
If you did go, I do not need to bother saying how completely intimidating it was at first to see so many people there. But, initial shock being processed, it was so much fun to see everyone pumped up for the game, talking about anything and everything, and of course, breaking out into shouts of ‘ROOOOOLLLLLLLLL TIIIIIIIIIIDE ROLL!’ every couple of minutes.
And aside from the school spirit pumping through everybody’s system, the free Moe’s burrito bar, and the live band pumping out tunes, I even got to learn a little while I was there.
As it turns out, the student-based LessThanUThink campaign, www.LessThanUThink.org , was there helping put on the alcohol-free tailgate (which I really liked, as I am no fan of the smell of spilled beer all over the place). They were giving out yellow hammers that said “RAMMER JAMMER” (nifty!) and really working hard to get their name out there for students to hear about.
Believe it or not, this tailgate was the first I’d heard of LessThanUThink. Their big thing is about educating students about the consequences of drinking even just a little too much, and it’s not like they’re trying to tell anybody what they should and shouldn’t do. It just seems like they care enough to want students to just play it smart. You know we’ve all seen some poor soul make themselves ridiculous because they just didn’t know when to stop themselves. The idea of LessThanUThink, or at least the idea that I got, was ‘Be smart enough to not be that guy.’
--Dominique Duerr
