Students find tailgate chaotic

However streams of disappointed Yale college students piled onto buses to return back to campus soon after the football team’s 34–7 defeat to Harvard on Nov. 23, students had been in substantial spirits at the tailgate prior to kickoff.

This 12 months marked the first Harvard-Yale game because the University tightened tailgating rules and altered the area of the tailgate in 2012. Despite these policy alterations, students danced, chatted and celebrated in the designated tailgate village in the hours prior to kickoff. Although students interviewed stated they have been normally pleased with the pre-game festivities, some explained they had been annoyed by the extended lines for the shuttle to the Yale Bowl and the fact that the tailgate was essential to finish by kickoff.

“It is the folks you are with that tends to make the expertise, so in that regard alterations in regulation and place didn’t influence the ambiance,” John Urwin ’14 explained.

This year’s tailgate was properly attended, with 11 residential colleges, 10 undergraduate student organizations, 9 graduate student organizations, nine Harvard houses and eight Harvard student groups holding registered tailgates, in accordance to Assistant Athletic Director Andy Dunn.

However Dunn stated he does not know the precise number of attendees at the tailgate, he explained virtually 5,000 wristbands have been provided out to people in excess of the age of 21 to signify that they could drink alcohol on the premises.

“The athletic department is pleased with how the tailgate went,” Dunn explained. “We had a wonderful turnout and consider that every person in attendance had a quite constructive knowledge.”

Yale administrators tightened pupil tailgate policies right after a woman was struck and killed by a U-Haul truck for the duration of the Harvard-Yale tailgate in 2011. The new rules banned kegs and vehicles in the village and necessary tailgates to end by kickoff at twelve p.m. At the time, many students have been apprehensive about the impact the rules would have on their tailgating knowledge.

However college students interviewed stated this year’s tailgate was a accomplishment, some expressed dissatisfaction with different factors of the occasion.

Ben Mallet ’16 explained the pupil section of the tailgate this 12 months was crowded, disorganized and tough to navigate.

Residential colleges offered catered food for their college students in tents about the tailgate village, but these stations had to near just before kickoff. As a outcome, two college students interviewed said food was no longer being served by the time they arrived at the tailgate. 
Many college students also faced extended lines for the shuttle amongst Payne Whitney Gymnasium and the Yale Bowl.

“I waited 50 minutes in the cold and missed most of the tailgate,” Mujtaba Wani ’17 stated.

The pupil tailgate village was situated outdoors gate C, adjacent to Yale’s Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center. When The Game was held at Yale in 2011, the tailgate was located on the intramural fields.

In a message to the Yale community after the tailgate area was altered in 2012, Dean of Student Affairs Marichal Gentry explained the new place “offers loads of entertainment, foods, souvenirs and the chance to cheer on the staff as the Yale Band leads it into the stadium.”

Underneath the transformed regulations, all college students over 21 were allowed to have two totally free beers in the beer backyard, which was open from 10 a.m. to eleven:45 a.m. All visitors, college students and alumni coming into the pupil tailgate area have been necessary to existing legitimate identification, and those over 21 obtained a wristband.

Alumni also faced new restrictions this 12 months. Parking permits had to be bought in advance, and there were limitations on the size of autos that could enter the tons.

50,934 men and women attended The Game this year.

Students find tailgate chaotic