CollegiateLuggage.com - Where facts and opinions come to party

Here in Atlanta (home to 5.5 million people including an enormous number of collegiate and pro football fans) you can enjoy a virtual tailgating experience at one of many of the area's sports bars. The trick is finding the best places to go depending upon which team you're rooting for. Thanks to painstaking research that some nice folks at the Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper did, I willingly share with you a list of venues for collegiate (and pro) football fans to visit on Game day:

• At American Pie in Sandy Springs you'll find hundreds of Buckeye football fans convening for Saturday's games in a tradition dating back at least 8 years.
  
  
• Mazzy's Sports Bar + Grill in East Cobb turns itself into a mini "Swamp" with orange and blue balloons and decor. The servers dress in Florida's orange and blue Gator football jerseys and a crowd of up to 300 fans shows up to spectate and "chomp" on game days.
  
  
• In a pre-arranged deal with the bar, fans of Michigan football who meet at Pepperoni's Tavern in Alpharetta are guaranteed space plus lots of TV screens so they can cheer on "The Blue".
  
  
• The Fieldhouse in Dacula: Georgia, Alabama and Auburn (for wild fun, got there during the playing of the "Iron Bowl").
  
  
• Barnacles on Market Street in Duluth: Georgia, Georgia Tech and a really BIG Pittsburgh Steelers following. Some folks actually tailgate in the parking lot.
  
  
• Jocks & Jills on Jimmy Carter Blvd. in Norcross - Arkansas, Miami, Nebraska, Ole Miss and the Cleveland Browns.
  
  
• Jeffrey's Sports Grill on Horizon Drive in Suwanee - Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia Tech.
  
  
• Locos Grill & Pub on Duluth Highway in Lawrenceville - The Dawgs.
  
  
• Dillon's Restaurant & Sports Bar on Dogwood Road, Lawrenceville - Denver Broncos and Indianapolis Colts.
  
  
• Digger's Sports Grill at Parkside Walk Lane, Lawrenceville - Ohio State, Georgia and the Miami Dolphins.
  
  
• Star Time Entertainment Sports Bar on Holcomb Bridge Road in Roswell - Clemson
  
  
• Laseter's Tavern in Vinings - West Virginia, Pittsburgh Steelers
  
  
• Trilogy on Davidson Road in Marietta - Kentucky
  
  
• The Wing Factory on Roswell Road in Atlanta - Notre Dame

Of course, nothing can take the place of being there when your team wins one, but there is something to be said for spending a few hours on a Saturday or Sunday high-fiving and shouting cheers with your new bunch of friends who were (until a few hours before) total strangers. One of my customers met his wife of 3 years at one of these game-watching parties. His team won and, it seems, so did he!

There are dozens of other places to go for football and basketball game viewing that did not make our short list above. Remember, I sell Swiss Army Brand collegiate luggage, travel and business gear, so if you have a special place you'd like to recommend, let me know.

CollegiateLuggage.com - Where facts and opinions come to party.

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)!

CollegiateLuggage.com: Where facts and opinions come to party.

Whether you work for a large company, in a small office, or even as your own boss, you will from time to time encounter Difficult People. They zig when you want them to zag and they remove the fun from everyone's day without even consciously trying.

I have given a great deal of thought to the conundrum of how best to handle difficult people. I use the word "conundrum" because the simple answer would be "get rid of them" but if it's a co-worker or a boss or a supplier you need to work with, my snappy simple solution doesn't work. Here is a short list of helpful suggestions for dealing with DPs:

1. Speak directly to the difficult person and tell them that they are making your life miserable. NOTE: Most people won't do this because they don't want confrontation and because confrontation typically causes the DP to dig their heels in.

2. Tell someone who has the DP's ear to intercede on your behalf, and tell the DP that he/she is making your life miserable and to please cut you some slack. NOTE: Many people are reluctant to ask a third party for help because it shows a certain lack of courage and the DP is likely to misinterpret the gesture in any number of negative ways including but not limited to: "Oh, he/she didn't have the guts to tell me this to my face!" Or, "Why is he/she involving you in this situation -- it's none of your stinkin' business." (Thereby alienating your colleague).

3. Write a letter to the DP clearly and thoughtfully explaining your situation and requesting that they find a way to work things out and move forward amicably. NOTE: This will probably backfire since many DPs are illiterate and those that can read only understand every fourth or fifth word in a normal sentence.

4. Schedule an intervention with the DP, along with other like-minded members of your workplace, to get them to face up to their own unpleasant behavior and to make an honest commitment to change for the better. NOTE: If this is a movie on Lifetime everything will work out. If this is real life, the DP will add paranoia to the rest of their negative behavior traits, making them even more difficult to work with.

5. Quit or transfer: This is actually the only solution that puts your own welfare ahead of the DPs. People's personalities are fully-formed by the time they are 21 years old. Expecting the DP to change so that you are now happier working with/for them is comparable to waiting for pigs to fly. And, thinking that if you just "hang in there" a bit longer, things will somehow improve is like denying the existence of gravity. Once a hammerhead, always a hammerhead.

Of course, I am self-employed and my company sells Swiss Army brand travel and business gear decorated with collegiate logos. I might be wrong.

CollegiateLuggage.com - Where facts and opinions come to party.

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Flyers
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CollegeiateLuggage.com - Where opinions and facts come to party.

I just finished watching one of my all-time favorite sports films: Hoosiers. Starring Gene Hackman, Barbara Hershey, Dennis Hopper and a cast of fresh-faced kids who really looked and felt like high school basketball players, this 1986 movie was one of the most critically-acclaimed and popular sports films ever made. Based on a true story from 1952, "Hoosiers" is exemplary both as a lesson about the importance of team sports and as a metaphor for life.

The film makers went to great lengths to faithfully recreate the world of high school basketball in the 1950's in small-town America and they captured so many fine details that it was like taking a time machine back half a century. When the camera would cut from the action on court to the cheering fans you almost felt that you were there in the stands or on the sidelines.

One of the most "real" details that the director captured was the praying. Kids and adults in the stands were shown with their hands laced in the familiar prayerful mode whenever a key foul shot was about to be taken. You could see their lips silently moving. Or the locker room scenes when the team would kneel in prayer before the contest. Or a favorite scene of mine when the coach was about to put in a substitute and one of the team members knelt down, took the other players hand and prayed for him to play well. The prayer started to run long causing the coach to say: "Stretch, the Lord wants you both out on the court now."

I have no doubt that basketball, football and the entire family of team sports are the creation of a wonderful and kind God since they each bring so much to so many. However, I also believe that the Lord does not choose sides -- the team that plays the best game that day wins. He just enjoys the contest.

Of course, I sell Swiss Army collegiate luggage, travel and business gear for a living -- what do I know?

CollegiateLuggage.com - Where opinions and facts come to party.

I have been watching a bunch of college football games on television. It helps that some of the games are played on days other than Gameday Saturday so we fans can fit more viewing in. I realize that this makes me one of only 49.7 million Americans who enjoy viewing the games, but like so many others, I think I have insights about the Game that everyone else does not have.

I am wrong of course. There are no NEW college football insights left to have - just insights that someone already had before, inside a new wrapper. My favorite refried insight is someone telling us why one team defeated the other.
Interviewer: So, Biff, why do you think your team defeated their opponent?
Biff: It was because we scored more points than they did.

And, speaking of scoring more points...

Recently, the South Carolina football team defeated their opponent in a game where (based on the point spread) they were supposed to lose. In the days afterward a number of worthy sports news articles about the game referred to their coach, Steve Spurrier, as The Evil Genius. Setting aside the oxymoronic nature of this title, let us be honest, the only people inclined to call his coaching evil are the ones who wanted his team to lose.

If you are a Carolina fan, on the other hand, you probably think Spurrier is a fine coach and exactly what the Gamecocks need to make a difference. So really, the title bestowed on Coach Steve Spurrier is a function of where YOU stand and has nothing whatsoever to do with where he is standing. That would be on the sidelines with his visor on.

Feel free to e-mail me back with your insights. After all, I sell travel and business gear for a living, so what do I know about the nature of evil (or genius)?

I grew up in the Northeast and moved to the South from Oregon in 1974. This month marks my 33rd full year living in Atlanta, so folks here have generally been willing to drop the "Damn" and when I mark 50 years here my understanding is that they will consider removing the "Yankee".

That said, I am here to tell you that you have not experienced anything like the scene on campus for an SEC (Substitute ACC where appropriate) College Game Day. The entire campus suddenly comes alive with football mania. Everyone is dressed in school colors. Tents of every shape and size are filled with food, beverages, barbecue grills and fans holding tailgate parties. Car sound systems and boom boxes play a cacaphony of music and the smell of grilling fills the air. If you look a little closer you will see that some of the folks have painted their faces to celebrate their team, and others have colored their hair to match.

The people range in age from babes in arms to senior citizens on motorized wheel chairs with the college team flags attached to the back. It is a sea of color and sound and aromas that fold together to let you know: "It's Game Day."

Now, to quote Bill Cosby, "I told you that story so I could tell you THIS one."

The statisticians at the NCAA have up to date tallies on collegiate football attendance for the 2006 season. Here are just some of the mind-blowing numbers they provide:

1. National attendance for the 615 schools in Divisions I, II and III came to 47,909,313. Yes, some people were counted as many as seven times if they had season tickets.

2. The Top 20 schools in this ranking (all in Division I) had a combined total of 1,788,000 behinds in the seats.

3. Of these 20 schools, the SEC Schools held positions 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 19 and 20. Never for a moment doubt which conference brings the crowds!

4. Depending upon the school and its proximity to the nearest metropolitan area, anywhere from 60% to as many as 80% of the attendees are NOT students, and include alumni and fans coming from nearby and also from all over the Country.

5. Travel and lodging are a BIG part of Game Day weekends, which is why so many universities have their own Hotels and Hospitality Centers as part of the campus.

The next "hot" item that is starting to catch on with these travelling fans is collegiate logo travel gear. Whether for a single overnight trip to their alma mater or if they are part of a "fan caravan" everyone is looking for the next clever way to show their school spirit and team support, and the Swiss Army brand luggage and business gear decorated with their schools' logos makes one fantastic impression after another.

Additionally, one of our newest items - the CHILLIN' BOWL - is starting to make its presence known at the tailgate parties both there on campus and at people's homes during game-watching get-togethers. It allows for a nice display of beverages and the neoprene foam lining provides perfect insulation and NO condensation so these Chillin' Bowls can be set up and used outdoors or inside.

So, when we say Collegiate travel and business gear, you know that as a fan, you need to check it out and then get some. And while you're at it, tell your friends and family so that they can visit our Collegiate Luggage website and join in the fun. We are the only luggage line available with your favorite college's logo, so show your support.