Tailgating Before Minnesota Golden Gophers Vs Maryland Terrapins

Tailgating Before Minnesota Golden Gophers Vs Maryland Terrapins

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for October 8, 2017

We woke up bright & early for tailgating before the Gophers Big 10 debut game against Maryland.  Our friend Jill Fischer invited us to hang out with her crew before the game and we were delighted to join them.

This is Dave Herbeck.  He is one of the main organizers for this particular group of tailgaters and they put on a great party.  This week's theme was German food and they challenged everyone to create a pretzel necklace to wear for the day.  I just love eating pretzel's from my wife's neck.

It was a potluck style event and I was pretty impressed with the wide variety of German food that we were able to eat.

The main course were bratwursts and I saw them being cooked up in this stew.  Not sure what was in there, but I'm sure it came straight from Germany.

There was a bunch of meat being grilled which gave me quite the appetite.  I was ready to get a big plate, find a nearby car, sit on it's tailgate, and pig out.  Because I think that's what you're supposed to do while tailgating.

The game started at 11am, so after we filled up on German food and some tasty beverages we headed to TCF Stadium.  I wish I had a big flag like this guy because I would have started waving it around also.

The cheerleaders must not have thought we were participating enough because they kept shoving these signs in our faces telling us to get up and noise.  Seemed kind of bossy to me, but I eventually obliged them.

We bought season tickets to see our son, Avery, who is a freshman at the University of Minnesota.  I texted him to join us at the tailgating event but he responded he was going to the game with friends.  We couldn't find him in the student section, but I'm sure he was in there somewhere.  

We had high hopes for the Gophers.  They were 3 and 0 up to this game, so we were curious how they would do in their Big 10 debut.  Maryland was playing their third string quarterback so we thought they had a pretty good chance.

They have a brand new coach this year named PJ Fleck.  He's a highly motivated guy who has already really placed his mark on this team and all over the stadium.  He has a motto of "Row The Boat" and it's posted all over the place.

 Goldy Gopher even likes to participate with the theme.  I kind of feel bad for the guys carrying him around because I keep thinking he's going to smack them in the head with an oar while he's rowing.

The Gophers played well, but fell short in the end.  Their defense just couldn't stop Maryland's run game and it cost them.  They lost the game 31-24.  It made us sad.

Luke and Avery both go to college relatively close to home.  Avery is about a 45 minute drive and Luke is a little more than an hour.  So we occasionally get to see them.   They both decided to come home on Sunday to watch some football and spend the night.  I thought they missed us, but it turns out it was primarily the dog that they wanted to see.

My co-workers and I left work a little early to enjoy Happy Hour at a new bar in Minneapolis called Hopcat.  They're a fun group of people to Hop around with.

On Saturday night, we were invited to dinner at our good friends, Dr Bollig and his lovely wife, Cynthia.  We always have tons of laughs with these guys, although many of them are R rated laughs so I'm not allowed to share their content here.  Sorry about that.