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This past weekend my wife and I were guests of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association at their Homecoming Weekend pre-game Football Tailgate Party. My wife and I arrived early and found good parking just under 1 mile from the stadium that cost us a miniscule $15 for the privilege. Rather than make a beeline (pun intended) to the BIG party we decided to stroll around the campus and see all the various and wonderful tailgate groups and their equally-imaginative tailgate setups. There were so many variations on the theme that I couldn't list them without using multiple blogs. Suffice to say that each of them had some of all of the following elements:

1. Food: Nearly all of it prepared on site, and on every imaginable type of grill and cooker.
2. Furniture: Everything from folding chairs to upholstered couches.
3. Vehicles: Hey, that's where the word "tailgate" comes from. In fact, it being the Homecoming Weekend, there were a significant number of RV's of every shape, size and class that the loyal fans of Tech (and Army- their opponents) had driven in from all over the Country.
4. Beverages: Beer would be at the head of this list, but there were coolers filled with all manner of frosty cold beverages. Plus, it was a noon kickoff so the earliest tailgaters were also pouring coffee and other hot drinks.
5. Tailgate Games - the topic of today's blog

Part of the fun experience of tailgating is finding activities to help pass the time while your tailgate party is being set up and the food is being prepared. I noticed that every one of the Tailgate games involves throwing something, but whether they were homemade or store-bought, the games were like nothing else I'd ever seen. It was some of the finest and most interactive folk art outside a museum or gallery.

FOOTBALL BEER PONG
Imagine a playing table about the size and shape of a standard wooden door, laid on its side like a mini ping-pong table. The top is painted to look like a green football field, complete with yard lines and goal posts. Ping pong balls are the active ingredient. I like to think that this was the first Tailgate game to gain game day popularity.

TAILGATE BEANBAG TOSS ("BAGGO")
One of the many variants on horseshoes, this involves two platforms with cut out circular openings, placed about 25 feet apart. The scoring is done with colored beanbags (they don't have to be in your team's colors, but it is a plus). In the hole scores points - near the hole is interesting albeit pointless (unlike these games which are quite serious).

BOLO TOSS/LADDER GOLF
I had never seen anything like this and was actually invited by the folks to try my hand at it.
A pair of golf balls are connected with a short length of heavy twine or cord, about 1 foot long.
Each player tosses these bolo-like objects at a multi-level crossbar "goalpost" containing 2 or 3 horizontal rods (the goals are made of 1" diameter PVC plastic piping). Scoring is done according to how many of your bolos stay on during your turn and the lower-down bars are worth more than the top bar.

WASHER TOSS
Just when you think you will never find a use for those 3" diameter washers you've got lying around from the last time you did repairs on an Abrams M1A2 Main Battle Tank, along comes washer toss and you are good to go. Using a pair of wide mouth stadium cups buried up to their rims in either sand or dirt and spaced about 25 feet apart the object is to toss your washers into the cup and score or to land as close to the opening as possible. Not content with a static game like "Washers"? Then step right up for a more lively version...

WASHEROO
Using a scoring platform with a hole cutout, sort of like the bean bag toss game, but the playing surface with the cutout is made of stretched heavy duty rubber so when your thrown washer lands on the surface it bounces. This leads to all kinds of options including landing in the hole "on the bounce, kangaroo style". Or, bouncing your opponents washer away from the hole sort of like bocce ball or shuffleboard.

TAILGATE HORSESHOES
This is basically the game of horseshoes, which is clearly the parent of most of these other games where you toss something and score points. I found that online some of these sets refer to themselves as "Chuckers" (I suppose this is because you "chuck" the object instead of tossing it).

MOLKKY
Pronounced like "MULL-key" - this game involves setting up 12 wooden pins numbered 1 thru 12 (sort of like bowling) and then rolling a ball at them to knock down the correct combination of pins whose scores come to exactly 50 points. I am still unable to figure out scoring in darts so I will leave this game to the Finnish folks who are credited with its invention.

YACKLE BALL
I'm not making this one up. I started taking notes on how the game is played and scored, but accidentally got the page wet with my beverage. I welcome your input on this one.

I enjoyed all of the games, both as a spectator and then trying my hand at them. The one that was the most fun was the Washeroo because the bouncing motion kept the game interesting. I make no claim of superiority of one tailgate game over another. After all, I sell Swiss Army travel and business gear with collegiate logos on them - what do I know? On second thought, one of our small Swiss Army tote bags would do a nice job of holding your game pieces when it's time to pack up and head home after the game(s)!