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By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Nightlife Blogger
There is nothing like being at a game, especially in college football with the tailgate parties and traditions such as the “splitting of the ‘T,'” at Tennesseee games. But once you graduate from college and relocate for a job, those experieces are reduced from a weekly basis to maybe once or twice a year.
But as college football fans know, they can simply go to alumni bars to watch their team play each Saturday. They are in a enviroment with instant friends, all of whom have the same thing in common: they are rooting for their team. You get to high-five touchdowns, question play and officials calls (as well as all those “upon further review” replays) and share greif over a turnover or a loss with fellow alumni. It’s the next best thing to being there.
Alumni bars are in cities all across America and are especially prevalant in the tranplant capitol of the country, Southern Califonia. Local alumni chapters orgainze the game-watching parties and dozens to hundreds of people show up in school shirts and jerseys to root for their school. During college football season, people plan their weekends around the kickoff times and some even show up at – yawn, 9 a.m., the start time for many Big 10 games on the West Coast.
This is because the school spirit never leaves you. There’s something about your college or university that sticks with you forever. When you’re watching your team play in an alumni bar, it’s as if you’re back in college again.
A former Alabama cheerleader does a cheer after a Tide score. Photo: PubClub.com
I know because I’m one of them. When I’m not in Tuscaloosa, I am at Tuscaloosa West, as the San Diego University of Alabama alumni bar is called. There, I have run into fellow alumni (recent and not to recent), Bama fans who are in San Diego on business and even the occasional student who happens to be in town. Each and every Saturday during football season, we are best freinds for the duration of the game, cheering and even dancing together around the bar. Especially when the DJ plays “Dixieland Delight,” the Alabama version, of course.
And it’s no different than what alumni of Michigan, Ohio State, Purdue, Tennessee, Penn State and just about every other school in the land does on Saturday. It’s big business for the bars and it’s a big time for the fans.
And that’s a win-win, even if your team doesn’t win.
About PubClub.com And Kevin Wilkerson
PubClub.com is one of the original websites on the Internet. It features articles on nightlife, food & drink, events, activities, travel and sports. It has been featured in USA Today, the LA Times and American Way magazine, among other publications. Kevin Wilkerson is an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in daily newspapers and with the Associated Press. He has been to pubs and clubs throughout the world and is an authoritative figure on the topics covered by the website.
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