On the Road: Epic Game-Days in Baton Rouge and New Orleans

“Sadness in this city dies around four o’clock,” my New Orleans cab driver told me on my way back to the airport. “And so does whatever they’re talking about in the news. Ebola. Isis. Whatever. You go to happy hour. By six you’ve got three or four drinks in you, and away you go from there. You have to look on Facebook the next day to remember where you’ve been. And it happens again the next day, and the day after that.”

There’s certainly a different pace of life in New Orleans. I’m not sure whether or not I could live there, but it’s probably* my favorite city in the world to visit. When the NFL schedule was released and the Packers were playing there on a Sunday night, it was essentially a no-brainer for my father, sister, and me to make the trip. It was sugar on top that LSU would host undefeated Ole Miss at night in Death Valley, and my weekend was one for the ages.

INDULGENCES

I’ve written this before, but it bears repeating: a trip to New Orleans is without a doubt vastly superior to going to Las Vegas. The people are nicer, the food is less expensive, there’s actual indigenous culture rather than a never-ending series of unbridled scams, live jazz music is more enjoyable than circuses or magic shows or $200 Britney Spears arena sets, and you can still gamble downtown and drink 24 hours a day on the streets. The ONLY thing better about Las Vegas is that there are sportsbooks.

It’ll be at least a week or two until my body fully forgives me for the 24 hours that began with dinner at Cochon on Friday night. My Dad, his friend Larry, and I split gumbo, cochon (a pulled pork-ish dish), pork shoulder, macaroni and cheese, and grits. It was delightful, and after that I headed uptown to meet my old friend Ben, who was at the tail end of a party bus tour that he and his fellow middle school teachers take once a year to blow off steam.

I got back to my hotel around 2 am. When my alarm went off at 6:30, I had a hangover that was relatively mild by New Orleans standards, but I didn’t exactly want to get out of bed either. I had arranged to make a gametime decision that morning about whether to head up to Baton Rouge with my friend Stephen (and his friends Steve, Jake, and Scott), who randomly happened to plan a football trip to Louisiana the same weekend I did. They were a great group of guys.

The first four times I hit the snooze button, I didn’t think I was gonna make the trip. I eventually had a change of heart, got up and showered, and walked over to Stephen’s hotel. Two years ago, my Dad and I went to Alabama-LSU, and had an absolute blast. I’d met a guy named Dennis at O’Hare airport on the way down — I think there was some cable news debate about Obama happening on CNN as we were boarding our flight, and I made a dumb joke about it? — and he had invited me to his RV tailgate to enjoy a pig roast. It was an incredible time, but we hadn’t since communicated.

Because I haven’t yet gotten around to upgrading my iPhone 4s, I was able to scroll back two years through my text messages to find Dennis’s number, reintroduced myself, and asked if it would be cool if the five of us could stop by his tailgate. “Yup. Same spot,” he replied.

After winding in and out of traffic all over Baton Rouge for what felt like an eternity, we found a convenience store, picked up a bunch of beer and whiskey, parked the car over by LSU’s baseball stadium (there was huge free lot!), and drank a few beers before voyaging over to touchdown village. It’s impossible to adequately describe what the scene is like in and around these games, but there are tents set up EVERYWHERE with full food and alcohol spreads. Beyond that, there are two RV lots with probably over 1,000 trailers that most of its owners don’t use much during the 355 days a year they’re not at college football games.

At varying points Dennis and his buddies at his and neighboring RVs also provided us with jambalaya, boudin sausage, bruschetta, pulled pork sandwiches, potato salad, trail mix, moonshine cherries, and a bunch of seafoods (the latter of which I abstained from because I have fish allergies and/or phobia). The LSU fans could not have been more hospitable. Unaffiliated fans apparently don’t venture into their scene that often, and they were thrilled to have us. “The people here are good,” said Dennis’s buddy David. “They want to feed you, and they want you to be happy.”

They chided us good-naturedly about being northern liberals (Steve, who’s not especially left-wing, and his friends, whose politics I can’t really speak for, reside in California), and I joked that Rush Limbaugh actually said that about me on-air last week (which is true, though not specifically by name). A fan named Mitch told us about a nearby hunting store that was notable for offering a 10% discount to customers who could prove they were strapped. “In the the North, the perception is that we’re dumb, backwards, and uneducated,” said Robin, another tailgater. “When you come down here you find out that we’re nice, hospitable, and more intelligent than you may have thought.”

We all had just about the time of our lives, and the game hadn’t even begun yet.

WHERE’S WALLACE AT, STRING?

I care a whole lot about football — enough so that it’s the sport I write about most, for a living. As much as I try not to let them wrest away control of my emotions, the Badgers — and to a far greater extent, the Packers — will swing my moods every Fall. That’s not something I’m especially proud of, but I’m powerless to stop it. As was the case this past weekend, I travel to several games. I read everything. The Badgers and Packers are an indelible part of my identity.

That being said, many of these LSU fans care FAR more than I do.

I went to Baton Rouge without a ticket, and wound up sitting down low in the end zone with Dennis’s nephew Clint, and his wife Jamie. The season tickets have been in her family for decades, but they just got the seats they have now a few years ago. I think the two of them had a relatively similar passion/anxiety level as I do at Lambeau, but some of the folks around them are just bananas crazy. It’s not even that the game is life or death. Every play is.

Facial expressions on some of these people were so animated that they might as well have been perpetual GIFs. They were 100% out of their body, unconditionally giving themselves over to whatever The Game decided to do to them. Every snap brought new exultation or anger. Since LSU was trailing for most of the game, there was much more of the latter. THAT WAS THE WORST PLAY CALL I’VE EVER SEEN. EVERYBODY SAW IT COMING FROM A MILE AWAY. WHAT’S LES DOING?! THESE REFS SUCK. EVERY CALL IS AGAINST US ALL GAME.

Love don’t come easy.

The stadium collectively screams at the top of its lungs when the Tigers are on defense. It’s so loud (an impression I didn’t have the first time around when I was sitting in the upper bowl as opposed to down by the field). We’ve all watched enough sports to realize that this can all culminate in supreme heartbreak — as it did for them when I went two years ago and Alabama marched inexorably up the field to take the lead in the final minute — but this occasion would bring a happy ending.

Bo Wallace spent the entire evening on the cusp of a crippling interception. LSU defensive backs must have dropped at least three errant passes that were in their hands. (THOSE WILL COST YOU THE FUCKING GAME.) One was coming, though, and this is not just something that was inevitable in retrospect. The football Gods can be quite cruel, but even They could not have stood idly by and allowed Wallace to make it through that whole game without his recklessness being punished. This was like all of the bad Jay Cutler or Tony Romo with none of the good.

It ended up taking about as baffling a coaching sequence as you’ll ever see — a delay of game penalty, followed by the kicker getting yanked away from a 47-yard field goal attempt in lieu of a hail mary — but justice prevailed. The building spontaneously erupted. In my life as a sports fan, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a pop as loud as Tiger Stadium when Ronald Martin came down with the game-clinching interception.

As you can imagine, there was sustained jubilation. That’s why you lift all them weights. Fans rushed the field, and it was awhile before those who didn’t left their seats. It hadn’t been the prettiest LSU game in the world, but there was nonetheless a special aura there. What a day it had been.

WHEN THE SAINTS WENT MARCHING IN

I watched the femrst half of the crappy London game emn bed the next mornemng, and then headed to Archeme Mannemng’s sports bar for the early NFL games. My Dad, hems fremend Larry, my semster and I headed to meet our fremend Rob and hems famemly, who made the tremp down from Memlwaukee, at theemr hotel. We wandered around the general stademum vemcemnemty for a bemt. I couldn’t bear the thought of puttemng alcohol emn my body after the prevemous two days.

Eventually we made our way to a tailgate a stone’s throw from the SuperDome where my longtime friend Hank and his buddies were throwing a mini gala. They were wearing tuxedos, had hired a private bartender, and had a well-laid out spread of fried chicken, mac and cheese, red beans and rice, finger sandwiches, veggies, and small desserts. My buddy Stephen and his friends with whom I’d spent all of Saturday also dropped by. “If you had told me that I’d be at great Southern tailgates two days in a row because of connections from Stephen’s old summer camp, I’d’ve call you a liar,” said Stephen’s buddy Jake.

The first thing you notice when you get into the SuperDome is that the field turf is beautifully manicured. It gives off a vibe almost like a baseball stadium, and reminds you of how old-time fans will often recall that they fell in love with the game after they were enraptured with the green grass. The second thing you notice is that a bunch of folks are HAMMERED. Not in the belligerent way that you probably envisioned when you first read that sentence, though. Around me, at least — and this has been the case both times I’ve been there — it’s the characteristically New Orleans type of happy drunk. Binge drinking responsibly, you might say.

As Bob Ryan told me a few weeks ago, it’s impossible to compare the sounds of different venues for the sake of ranking them. On both of my Louisiana trips, I’ve felt that the SuperDome was louder than Death Valley; then again, Saints fans had more to cheer about throughout the game than LSU fans on both occasions. Nevertheless, college football and NFL teams who are increasingly facing attendance crises should go and see the way both stadiums handle their game-day operations.

The experiential difference in Baton Rouge and New Orleans will ensure that those stadiums stay full long after gaudy patches of empty seats at football games are the norm in most American cities. Even Lambeau Field, which is a beautiful shrine and one of my favorite places on Earth, is headed in a troubling direction. Seats there have transacted at (or even below) face value right before kickoff of playoff games the last few years, the noise does not reach the level it used to, and it’s become a given that you’ll be yelled at to sit down if you get up and cheer on defense.

The SuperDome has a fun, diverse crowd, and the game-day operations people do a really strong job of riling them up. Where Lambeau hasn’t tinkered much with its classic rock playlist much in the past two decades (occasionally venturing into “new” pop songs that were played out six months ago), Saints games feature a variety of jazz, hip-hop, rock, and pop. It felt as though the PA operator(s) deliberately sought the optimal moments to unleash the most differentiable noise cues without overusing them. There was a very well-timed videoboard story on an older couple that were longtime season ticketholders, which climaxed when the camera panned in on them urging the crowd to rise.

In the first half of the game, the Saints and Packers were both moving the ball at will, but also kept stalling in the red zone. After the teams returned from the locker rooms, it devolved into what Bill Simmons calls the Madden “No Effing Way” game. Green Bay’s fate was sealed and there really wasn’t a damn thing to be done about it. Last week, I wrote about how Aaron Rodgers was mitigating physical risk while assertively scrambling for first downs. My Dad immediately cautioned that I might’ve jinxed him.

Lo and behold, Rodgers sustained a non-contact hamstring pull on a scramble, and was limited in his mobility and effectiveness for the rest of the game. Two interceptions bounced off receivers’ hands. Mark Ingram looked like an immortal as he gashed Green Bay’s defense for seven yards per carry. The Saints effectively sealed the game early in the fourth quarter, going up by 21 points right after Davon House was flagged for pass interference on a play that is the poster child for why penalties of that magnitude should be reviewable.

The Packers just weren’t coming out of there with a win, which is fine. I’ve come home from far worse, and they’re still right in the thick of things. You don’t want to be peaking in October anyways, I told myself. However, the game brought about anxieties that the defense still has structural issues and that Rodgers’ injury may linger. The loss was exacerbated with an ill-advised trip to Harrah’s in which I lost $120 in about five minutes of playing the $15 table minimum. It was like Seahawks over Broncos. Just complete and utter destruction — there was no hope for me from the very first snap. The only real victory there was that I made a bee line out of the casino instead of hitting up an ATM and returning for more punishment.

THE LAST MEAL

All in all, a great trip down South. All of us from the Saturday tailgate are already talking about where we’re gonna meet up at an LSU road game next year. Tuscaloosa next November seems like it might be happening. For all its ups and downs and large scale moral issues that the sport brings about, football season remains the most wonderful time of the year.