New Orleans Diary: Tailgate Like a SEAL

Spencer Hall is roaming the streets of New Orleans, taking in the scene:
Ole Miss fans are fond of the refrain “We may lose the game, but we never lose a tailgate.” This is only correct if LSU fans are left out of the equation, since LSU fans tailgate like commandos bent on conquering the world only using the weapons of jambalaya, red beans and rice, and ample amounts of Abita beer.
Judging from a tour of the Deep South Tigers tailgate, worldwide domination by LSU tailgaters is just a few minutes away at any given moment. An alumni tailgate that grew from a relatively small tailgate to almost unmanageably huge, the Deep South Tigers tailgate meets for each LSU home game and comes extremely prepared.
“We bring 85 cases of beer to each home tailgate,” according to Jimmy Cosse, the chief of the crew, “and ten cases of water.” The proportion alone should tell you that the Tigers have their gameday priorities in line, but wait! There’s more! Not only have the Deep South Tigers had to restrict entry after the event became unmanageably large, they have a diverse crew of tailgating All-Americans in tow.
These include but are not limited to:
The Gumbo Humanitarian. Churning away in middle of the parking lot in iron cauldrons sits several huge iron cauldrons of gumbo and jambalaya, a smoking, aromatic operation headed Tod Detillier, a beared LSU fan whose trailer kitchen went from tailgate utility to national security asset in a flash. Detillier drove to New York and camped out one hundred yards from Ground Zero in the week following 9/11 and handed out 40,000 meals for firefighters, policemen, and relief workers at the site. Six years later Detillier describes it as “the best thing he’s ever done,” and has painted the trailer into a moving memorial complete with an NYC skyline.
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The Unsupervised Bus. Daniel “Day Day” Ritter and Petey Childress realized their tailgating equipment was getting nearly unmanageable, so they piled eight months worth of sweat equity into the Unsupervised Bus, a purple party barge of a Blue Bird school they transformed into a mobile command center for LSU pregame partying. Amenities include:
1. Refrigerator.
2. Touch-screen jukebox with ten thousand songs loaded onto it.
3. Convertible bunk beds.
4. Bathroom.
5. Mobile satellite hook-up for ESPN Gameday
6. A “safety pole,” installed strictly for safety, of course.
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Normally such pictures end careers, but if pictures of Kathleen Blanco dancing on the Unsupervised Bus’s pole leaked their way onto the internet, I have a feeling it might win her votes in Louisiana, if only because she was demonstrating her commitment to LSU fandom in the process. And for all we know, she could have done just that: her helicopter landed at the pad at the Superdome just as I was leaving to file, and she was supposed to be stopping by the Deep South Tigers tailgate later.
(Great thanks to Richie and my host Ryan O’Neal for setting up the visit.)↵